Via Starwood’s The Lobby blog, USAToday.com has a list of the 100 best hotel restaurants in the United States. It’s a generally reasonable list, recognizing outstanding restaurants such as the Inn at Little Washington and Maestro. But I take it all with a grain of salt, since it leaves off CityZen at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington, DC which must be currently one of America’s best restaurants. It certainly outshines the restaurant at the Intercontinental Harbor Court hotel in Baltimore, which the lists ranks at number six.
Diplomatic Suite: the Intercontinental Bangkok
I’m checking out of the Intercontinental Bangkok today, and I was exceptionally happy with my stay. Normally I’d be happiest at the Peninsula or the Metropolitan. Neither is expensive luxury by world standards, Bangkok is after all probably the best city in the world for luxury hotel values. But I couldn’t turn down the value offered by the Intercontinental. I arrived here a couple of days ago after a seemingly endless trip to Bangkok in the Sheraton Pattaya Resort’s BMW. (I’ll share details of that truly amazing, astonishly property sometime in the next few days.) We pulled up to the Intercontinental and walked up to the checkin desk and were escorted up to the club lounge. The lounge is brand new, now on the 37th floor, and the old 33rd floor lounge has been closed.…
About the trip I’m on…
Around 9am in the morning of November 5th I got a fare alert notice. I’d been on Flyertalk already but hadn’t yet checked out the Mileage Run forum. Big news – the Tokyo and Osaka Hiltons were selling for $2 on Expedia, or I could spend an additional buck for an Executive level room. I figured I’d be a sport and go $3 for the better room, since it came with breakfast, complimentary internet, and evening cocktails… Originally Expedia and Hilton were only going to honor November bookings, at least that’s what they told the media, but I had it in writing (email, actually) that mine was a valid rate and they never once disputed this or tried to cancel it. So with the lure of $3 rooms in Tokyo I thought that my wife…
Northwest Gets One Right
Apr
22
2006
Last month Northwest began charging $15 to pre-reserve its best (sic) coach seats. Now they’ve relented and decided not to charge this fee to elite members. One benefit has always been blocking the better coach seats for elites. There’s not really much in the way of ‘better’ coach seats on Northwest, unlike United which offers elites extra legroom at the front of the coach cabin. But all of a sudden non-elites could take these seats for $15, and even elites had to pay. (Bizarrely under the scheme, elites would get upgraded to first class but still be charged extra money for cruddy the coach seating they had pre-reserved.) Now Northwest says they’ll still reserve some of these seats exclusively for elites and won’t charge elites for ‘coach choice’ seating. It’s a small victory, a very…
United Eviscerates its Award Chart
Apr
21
2006
I’m pleasantly ensconced in the Diplomatic Suite at the Intercontinental Bangkok, but this news is important enough to say some things about before I head out to dinner. United has announced changes to its frequent flyer program, which are pretty much all bad. They begin by announcing new “Domestic Short Haul Saver Awards” — these are short flights that require 15,000 miles in coach instead of 25,000 miles. United has actually been offering these for some time now, and the announcement is that the benefit is being reduced not introduced. Previously the reduced mileage was applicable to flights of 750 miles or less. Now it applies only to flights of 700 miles or less. What difference does 50 miles make? Just ask New Yorkers. LaGuardia-Chicago is 733 miles. Newark-Chicago is 719 miles. Since the awards…
Starwood Transfer Bonus to British Airways
In addition to the bonus for transferring Diners Club points to British Airways, there’s also a 30% bonus for transferring Starwood points between April 20 and July 20, 2006. By way of example, 20,000 Starwood points yields 32,500 British Airways miles under this promotion. If you don’t already have a British Airways Executive Club account, it is possible to open one even without booking a BA flight.
I’ll Return to Blogging Shortly!
My travels have been a bit too diverting lately, and what little online time I’ve had has been devoted to keeping up with my day job. But I should be blogging again by the middle of next week, say by the 27th at the latest. And I should have some interesting tidbits to share about first class travel on ANA and Thai and some wonderful service and suites.
South Park Endorses an Airline! (Or something like that.)
Via Online Travel Review, Kyle from South Park is apparently the mascot for Air Arabia, the discount airline based in Sharjah, U.A.E. Refresh the home page and you’ll see Kyle in various states of Islamic dress.
Reducing your security wait times
The Upgrade Travel Blog points to a Wall Street Journal piece on shortcuts at airport security checkpoints. You don’t always have to go through the security line designated for your your terminal. At DFW, for instance, all the terminals are connected so you can go through any checkpoint — and the checkpoints vary tremendously in wait times. In Detroit you can cut through the airport Westin, which has its own security screening into the airport.
A view worth repeating
HotelChatter links to my photo of sunrise off the deck of bungalow 105 at Bora Bora Nui. I love it too, and nine months later it’s still the background on my laptop’s desktop.
