Hotel: Sheraton Saigon Hotel & Towers 88 Dong Khoi Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam Phone: (84)(8) 827 2828 Fax: (84)(8) 827 2929 The hotel Mercedes pulled into the driveway, a porter hopped into action, and we walked into the hotel lobby. Didn’t get much of a feel for the lobby, though, because a hotel staff member intercepted us and asked me, “Are you mr. gleff?” She guided us directly to the right of the entrance to the bank of Towers elevators. She had our room keys in her hand and brought us to our suite to check in. All formalities were taken care of there, bags were promptly delivered, and she showed us the room and explained Towers benefits. Now, a quick word about how we wound up in a Towers suite…
ASIA
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American Express Membership Rewards Raises Points Transfer Fee
This Flyertalk thread points to an American Express Membership Rewards change that I had somehow missed — beginning September 1, the fee to transfer points from Membership Rewards to US airline frequent flyer programs will be going up. Amex currently charges $0.0005 per point to transfer to US carriers, and caps the fee at $75. This will go up to $0.0006 or $99 beginning September 1. For a 100,000 mile transfer the fee is $50, going up to $60, a 20% increase. They describe the fee as an ‘offset’ for the federal excise tax they pay when buying miles from US airlines. However, the fee isn’t a direct reimbursement of their actual costs, and it certainly isn’t mandated. It’s a charge they pass along to their customers. And similar programs, such as Starwood which allows…
W Kong Kong 1 Austin Road West, Kowloon Station, Kowloon Phone: (852) 3717 2222 Fax: (852) 3717 2888 Cash & Points Rate We arrived at the W Hong Kong around midnight and no one from the hotel was there to greet our cab at the entrance. There were two staffers standing inside the door but we turned up and nobody moved. We brought our bags inside ourselves and then the bags were taken from us (not delivered to our room very quickly either, I might add). The lobby of the hotel is a bit confusing, we came up the driveway and had to take the elevator upstairs, the checkin desk was down the hall and around the corner to the left. I was tired, and it would have been nice had one of the staff…
Washington-Dulles to Narita in ANA First Class
Monday, April 13 Washington, DC (IAD) to Tokyo, Japan (NRT) All Nippon Airways Flight 1 First Class Seats 1D, 1G Departure: 12:20pm, Scheduled Duration: 14h 5m Boeing 777 6,752 miles We arrived at Dulles around 10:45 a.m. and walked up to the check-in counter. First and business were more or less being taken care of together, and we waited for the first available agent. Boarding passes issued, bags tagged to Hong Kong. Lounge passes issued for Dulles, which strikes me odd as at this time of day it’s a dedicated lounge for ANA, no lounge pass printed for Tokyo which also seemed odd because passes are much more common in Asia. Headed down the underground walkway and up to Terminal B, the ANA lounge is opposite gate B46. During the late morning it’s an ANA…
Fitting (5) International First Class Products into a Single United Star Alliance Award
I’m just back off of a two week trip, our annual Asia first class redemption. Prior to the gutting of the United award chart I booked two first class awards that combined five different Star Alliance international first class products, and managed to work around Starnet blocking for my transpac segments. After much time with agents who insisted that All Nippon Airways doesn’t serve Washington-Dulles (funny, I attended their party celebrating 20 years of service, and they only refer to the flight as NH 1) I did secure ANA three-class first, which I hadn’t flown since 2006. One sad note however is that I believe in July three-cabin service will leave DC, meaning I’ll have to hop over to Chicago if I want ANA F. On the return I fought agents who didn’t believe it…
Some Thoughts on Results at the Freddie Awards
I wasn’t at the Freddie Awards this year, during the ceremony I was in the Thai Airways first class spa at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport. So I don’t have a lot to share about the event. But I’ve been reviewing the results. Certainly I have a different take on who should have won in many cases, I wouldn’t call Alaska’s MVP Gold the best airline elite status for instance. But what really struck me was Delta Skymiles winning the best elite level in Europe. Delta offers almost nothing to the European elite members (although European addressed Skymiles accounts have historically earned Platinum status with only 50,000 elite qualifying miles). There’s no complimentary upgrade program except when Europeans have already crossed the pond. It’s a terrible program for international upgrades. And what else is there, really, for…
Priority Club’s Annoying Habit of Improperly Denying Points Credit for Stays
One Mile at a Time had to fight for his Priority Club points to post from a recent stay at the InterContinental Grand Stanford in Hong Kong. Priority Club initially refused to credit the points, which didn’t post on their own, even though the booking was made on their own website. They explained, Unfortunately, the room rate paid during the stay in question was deeply discounted and is ineligible for credit to your account. We have provided the link for Priority Club Rewards’ Terms and Conditions below: They also explained that eligible in-hotel spend might earn points, and encouraged Lucky to send his bill in ordetr to credit those points. However, if you have incurred other charges during your stay , you may forward your itemized invoice to us in JPEG or PDF format so…
The End of the Northwest Visa, and Some Basics on Proprietary Bank Points-Based Rewards Programs
With the Northwest/Delta merger (Delta acquisition of Northwest), the surviving credit card partner is American Express. The US Bank-issued Visa will be going away later in the year. American Express, with its higher interchange fees, is likley in a position to be offering more for miles, and American Express has played an integral role in the financial viability of Delta over time — prepurchasing as much as a half a billion dollars worth of miles at a time and extending a $100 million line of credit. Naturally this is a blow to US Bank, as their Northwest partnership is big business for them. Word is that they are going to try to keep customers in a new proprietary points program, offering their own points where 20,000 points buys a domestic ticket on any airline. Most…
A Good Time to Book Way Ahead for Transpacific Premium Award Travel
I don’t usually talk about planning award travel ten months off, but I happened to notice today that there are tons of dates in January, 2010 available where All Nippon Airways is offering two first class award seats, Chicago – Tokyo. I didn’t check the reverse, or other gateways (New York-JFK, Los Angeles, San Francisco… sadly ANA is pulling first class from Washington-Dulles in July, and first class award seats departing Japan have been harder to secure in the recent past) but if you’re having difficulty getting back my suggestion is to search first class awards on Asiana — Seoul – JFK, Seoul – Chicago, and the ubiquitously available Seoul – Los Angeles (this is certainly the most available transpacific flight in first class for an award, offering seats nearly every day of the year…
Starwood Cash & Points Availability Search Glitch
Starwood Preferred Guest’s website gets a lot of criticism, including from me. I’m frequently frustrated that it won’t display all reservations, especially if the reservation involves an upgraded room or if the hotel has touched or modified the reservation in some way. Detail on points posted to your account is limited as well, my own biggest frustration being that any given Platinum 500 point amenity doesn’t ever appear linked to a property so it’s difficult to track down missing point or to tell Starwood if a particular set of points are missing from a given stay. That said, the website is much improved. I like their hotel search function that shows availability on a single screen for lowest cash price, award availability, and availability for cash and points. (I do wish SPG50 rate plan availability…
