Introduction: Constructing — and Re-constructing — the Award Trip American Eagle DC – New York and the New Nicest JFK Airport Hotel, the Hilton Cathay Pacific First Class, JFK – Hong Kong The Wing lounge in Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific Business Class Hong Kong – Kuala Lumpur Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Airlines Business Class, Kuala Lumpur – Langkawi The Andaman Langkawi Malaysia Airlines Business Class, Langkawi – Kuala Lumpur Intercontinental Kuala Lumpur Things to See and Do in Kuala Lumpur Korean Airlines First Class, Kuala Lumpur – Seoul and the Korean Airlines First Class Lounge Seoul Korean Airlines First Class, Seoul – Washington Dulles Hong Kong’s airport is almost always a long walk on arrival. You come in on the lower level and either proceed to immigration or to transfer security. Shoes don’t…
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Bits ‘n Pieces for November 28, 2012
News and notes from around the interweb: Are Christopher Elliott’s rants about miles and points sexist? Some frequent flyer programs allow ‘family pooling’ of miles, this is a feature offered by some European and Asian programs and is especially common in the Middle East. It turns out that Delta offers something similar for Asia Pacific members only, and they charge for it. Japan Airlines is now serving KFC in coach and premium economy on several long haul routes. Miles for joining a gym: 1500 Virgin America points for joining Crunch in New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. 20 Free Points and Double Points Through February 28 with Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
Suites, Treats, and Eats, a Malaysian Mileage Thanksgiving: Constructing — and Re-constructing — the Award Trip
I’m just back from Malaysia where I added a few days to the front end of the Thanksgiving holiday. Outbound was in Cathay Pacific first class, return in Korean Airlines first class. I stayed at the Grand Hyatt and at the Intercontinental in Kuala Lumpur, suites in each, and at Starwood’s The Andaman in Langkawi in a seaview suite. The bulk of the room nights were on points, the transpacific flights were on points, and I thought I’d share my observations from booking to enjoyment of the trip. I write occasional trip reports for several reasons. They’re a great opportunity to share how I put my mileage hobby into practice. Plenty of readers have told me that one of the most useful things that I do is write about my thinking processes — how I…
We Should Allow Singapore Airlines to Operate Flights to Sarasota!
Clifford Winston, who knows as much about the US air transport system as anyone in the country, had an op-ed last week in the New York Times arguing that foreign airlines should be allowed to operate routes in the U.S. They should. But the benefits Winston claims are far exaggerated. If there are underserved routes that could be operated profitably by new airlines, why does he think that incumbent airlines aren’t flying them? In fact he focuses on routes that have been losing service, cutbacks that have been made precisely because existing airlines found it unprofitable to operate those routes. It may well be that when the US market gets opened up to competition, that a lot of foreign investment floods the market in spite of the likelihood of losing money. US consumers would benefit…
New 50,000 Mile First Year Fee Waived American Airlines Visa Offer
Key Link: Citi® Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card Limited time offer: Earn 40,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after $3000 in purchases within the first 3 months of cardmembership Earn an additional 10,000 AAdvantage bonus miles after you spend $10,000 in purchases within 12 months of cardmembership In my best credit card offers page I’ve been listing a 50,000 point signup bonus for the American Airlines credit card, 50,000 bonus points after $2500 spend within 4 months. The problem is that there’s no landing page for the offer, it’s just an application and it makes no mention at all of what you’ll get for applying. Which makes plenty of people nervous. It’s not my link, it’s been passed around quite a bit, and apparently it’s an offer that Citi hasn’t intended to still be ‘out…
New Challenges in Finding Air France Business Class Award Space
In the comments to my primer on using FlightStats.com to find available flights (both revenue flights that have availability when you face irregular operations in your travels, and award space on several airlines as well), worldtraveler2018 asks: Gary, Is it correct to say that Air France no longer shows Business Class Award fare class O anymore (e.g., thru ExpertFlyer)? I checked ExpertFlyer for JFK-CDG flights on 12/24 and don’t see any O fare, but I found Business Class award space at airfrance.com. “O” is business class award and upgrade space on Air France. Historically it has been viewable at FlightStats.com and also at Expertflyer. Unfortunately it seems that ‘O’ inventory no longer shows up in either place for Air France transatlantic flights. It does still show on other routes such as intra-Europe flying and Paris-Asia.…
Coming Collision Between Singapore’s Government and My Beloved Hawker Stalls?
Tyler Cowen points to this Financial Times piece (subscription required, or visit BugMeNot, or google the article’s headline and click through from Google to read the text). Singapore is worried about obesity, with 11% of the population considered obese under world standards compared to a 17% world average (which includes countries suffering from famine) and 35% in the U.S. Singapore plans to restrict advertising for “unhealthy” food and drink aimed at children, as countries across Asia grow increasingly concerned about obesity rates. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said “obesity rates are going up . . . with more fast foods and sedentary occupations” even as more Singaporeans are exercising and fewer are smoking. It seems odd that they’re focusing on advertising to children when it’s adult behavior identified as a key area of concern: Singapore has seen a rise…
30% Bonus Coming on Transfers from Membership Rewards to British Airways
Last week the American Express Membership Rewards website was briefly showing a 30% transfer bonus that wasn’t going to go live for a month. What’s odd is that the Membership Rewards website never shows future bonuses, at least I haven’t seen it, so I assumed it was a glitch. And indeed the information was pulled off the site quickly. If you go to the page for the US American Express Membership Rewards program’s partnership with British Airways, no bonus appears. I was curious, so I got in touch with American Express. At first they were as perplexed as I was, but after a little bit of digging got back to let me know that indeed there would be a 30% transfer bonus coming down the pike. Specifically, the 30% bonus will start on December 3…
Markets in Everything: European Passports
Wild About Travel asks, “Ever gazed with envy on the European citizen lines at European aiporst while waitimg in line with a non-EU passport?” (sic) You may soon be able to obtain one, in exchange for an investing in European government bonds. The ruling party in Hungary has proposed offering citizenship to anyone willing to invest 250,000 euros in their government’s bonds. It’s one strategy for rolling over massive government debt, and it’s expected to appeal mostly to wealthy Chinese who would gain the ability to travel freely and live anywhere within the European Union. While this is not outright sale of citizenship, it’s ‘preferential treatment’ for foreign investors seeking to become Hungarian citizens, it has predictably brought near-universal ire from the rest of Europe. This initiative was met with criticism. A number of members…
Fly More Places for Fewer Miles: American’s Little-Known Distance-Based Frequent Flyer Awards
Last week I wrote about the best value awards that each US frequent flyer program has to offer, and I noted American’s distance-based awards, frequent flyer tickets that are priced based on the number of miles flown rather than by where you start and where you’re flying to. That chart has some real values, such as the ability to fly business class between the US and Europe for 90,000 miles roundtrip instead of the usual 100,000, the ability to pop around Europe with several extra flights thrown in for 115,000 miles in business class instead of 100,000 miles roundtrip plus another 20,000 miles for each and every additional intra-European flight, and the ability to fly to Australia in business class via Asia (not normally allowed on a single award ticket) for an extra 25,000 miles…
