The best planespotting is probably from the fence off the beach at the end of the runway at Princess Juliana International Airport, Saint Martin. Close behind would be sitting down at the outside tables at the In ‘n Out Burger at the edge of LAX. The best view from any terminal has to be the airport in Bora Bora. Like many of the airports in the Maldives you approach by boat. But instead of sailing to the island which houses an airport, the Bora Bora airport is simply its own small island (motu). And the waters are indeed stunning. But here I’m interested in the very best view from an actual airline lounge. And I’d venture to say that honor may go to the Premier Lounge at the Denpasar Bali airport. It won’t be around…
How to Properly Dispose of a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
Chase has done a whole lot with credit card design over the past 2-3 years. No longer just a piece of plastic with raised numbers, several of their cards are now made of metal or contain various interesting metals to give them a more substantial feel. The most common is probably Chase Sapphire Preferred. It’s probably the best introductory, all-around points-earning credit card. It’s popular with the points and miles set. Two even more substantial cards are the Ritz-Carlton Rewards and >JP Morgan Palladium products. I held a Ritz-Carlton Rewards Visa for the first time a few weeks ago and wow that was an impressive-feeling card, it made Sapphire Preferred feel positively pedestrian. But since these cards aren’t just plastic, an interesting problem arises. You can’t shred them. They don’t just cut up with scissors.…
El Al Will Give You Lifetime Gold Status — If They Don’t Think You’ll Use it Much
El Al has introduced lifetime gold status. You have to have been a Gold elite member or higher for each of the past ten years. And you must currently be at least 67 years old Lifetime status is for use primarily in retirement years, it would seem. And oddly 20-year Top Platinum who skips a year in the 10 years leading up to their 67th birthday is ineligible. In other news, I hear they’re considering awarding Top Platinum status posthumously. You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. Don’t miss out!
Win a Rimowa 21″ Spinner Bag … or a Seat on Star MegaDO 5!
Milepoint is running two big MegaDO related giveaways. Win a seat on the Star MegaDO 5. You just need to post in this Milepoint thread to be entered to win. Win a new custom Rimowa Salsa Deluxe 21″ Cabin Multiwheel (spinner) which retails for $595. You post one of two things in the thread in order to be entered to win. Full details in those two Milepoint threads. The upcoming European MegaDO (September) is completely sold out. There are a few seats left for Star MegaDO 5 (October) and indeed a few people who were going had work and personal commitments come up and had to cancel, so there are even a few “Tommy Class” seats available and not just regular coach. As I noted last week when sharing that September MegaDO participants could receive…
Bits ‘n Pieces for August 9, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Best and Worst of Skymall Outstanding award availability New York – Buenos Aires, even over Christmas, on new Aerolineas Argentinas route. Great use of Delta Skymiles, though not the most modern business class product. Kip Hawley talks sense on airport security. Don’t you kind of wish he’d have said these things – and done these things – when he was director of the TSA?? Russian man writes his own credit card terms and conditions fine print. And successfully sues the card issuer for violating them. Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the live online chat with the heads of the Hyatt Gold Passport and MGM M Life hotel loyalty programs. Chase has allowed the purchase of their Ultimate Rewards points at 2.5 cents per point, up to…
Book Award Travel For Your Whole Family to the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent.. Using Skypesos!
Here are some propositions that are true: Getting several business class award seats on the same flight is hard, much harder than two (which is much harder than one). It’s often tough to find award space during major holidays. Using Delta Skymiles for premium cabin award travel at the low level is highly frustrating. And yet I’ve written in the past that if you want to fly non-stop from the US to Australia, Delta Skymiles are actually your best bet — not that you’ll find much ‘low’ level award space on Delta’s Los Angeles – Sydney flight. Instead, Delta partners with Virgin Australia which has by far the best award space on the route, even multiple seats during high season on their Los Angeles – Sydney, Los – Angeles – Melbourne, and especially Los Angeles…
3000 JetBlue Point First Time Hotel Booking Bonus from Rocketmiles
The founder of Rocketmiles emailed me yesterday to let me know that they’ve added JetBlue as a points-earning partner for hotel bookings. Now normally I would not choose to earn JetBlue points instead of United, American, or Alaska miles. Though I am interested in trying JetBlue’s planned lie flat seats for New York JFK – Los Angeles and San Francisco flights. It’s worth flagging that as part of the new partnership, Rocketmiles is offering a first time booking bonus of 3000 JetBlue points for new customers. This is in addition to the ‘1000 to 5000 points per night’ that you normally earn for booking hotels. Rocketmiles now features over 100 cities — they don’t have hotels everywhere, and have a limited set of hotels in each city. That’s about triple the size they were when…
Some People Don’t Want Their Air Travel to Be Better — They Just Want Yours to Be Worse
Most rants about premium cabins conjure up a mythical past when air travel was better and suggest that economy has gotten worse while premium cabin travel has gotten better. As I related when critiquing a poorly done New York Times piece in this genre, the sentiment is captured by Renee Zellweger’s character in Jerry Maguire who looks forward from the coach cabin and up to where Tom Cruise is sitting and tells her son, First class, that’s what’s wrong. It used to be a better meal, now it’s a better life. Of course, food used to be better in domestic first class than it is today. And that’s so because airfares were regulated, airlines could not compete on price. Price regulation was meant to keep airlines profitable, to prevent them from competing away their profits.…
Airline Marketing Aside, Business Class is About the Seat and It’s Not a Restaurant
Yesterday I wrote about the best meal I’ve ever eaten on a plane. It was Laksa – a spicy Malaysian noodle soup with seafood – and I had “pre-ordered” it in business class on Singapore Airlines for a two hour hop to Bali. I would have been utterly thrilled to receive that in a restaurant, in fact I desperately wish I could find a restaurant anywhere in the area I live that could re-create it. Asiana serves outstanding food in its long haul first class. If you like Japanese food especially, but even if you don’t, All Nippon’s first class meal service is truly outstanding. Beyond that, though, no matter what the hype — it’s food in the sky, served under very difficult conditions. And you’re at an altitude where you simply don’t taste things…
Review of the Andaz San Diego: Stylish, Needs Improvement
I checked into the hotel at nearly midnight. There were a couple of guests hovering around the front desk and there was a bit of a party scene as well. One thing I’ve noticed about San Diego’s Gaslamp region is that it is a going out town — the women get dressed up to party, and the guys with them look like they rolled out of bed in what they’re wearing out (shorts, flip flops). They wouldn’t get into clubs anywhere else. I’ve tried to figure out the economics of it — is there a surplus of women relative to men, so they have to impress but the guys do not? — but I lack the data to develop a coherent theory. The Andaz San Diego has a traditional front desk rather than roving check-in…
