I have a hard time understanding why Thai Airways runs their updated 3-class 747s with angled lay flat business seats and true flat first class seats on a short run like Bangkok-Phuket. Seems like poor fleet planning at first glance, though I haven’t looked at whether the planes also fly internationally and this is just a way to get a few extra hours’ of flying time out of them. Asiana does something similar, flying 3-class planes sold as 2-class. (I flew Hong Kong-Seoul earlier this month, and an old style 747 was running the route on the day I traveled.) Trick is just to request the first rows of the plane when traveling on a business class ticket. Worked no problem for me on both carriers.Of course, American still does the same thing on certain…
ASIA
Search Results for "ASIA".
Le Meridien Khao Lak’s Presidential Oceanfront Villa
I’m recently back from Khao Lak, Thailand among other destinations in Asia. The trip was prompted by the Ugandan Schillings rate at the Le Meridien. My wife had three nights booked in the Presidential Oceanfront Villa and I had three nights booked in the Royal Suite. That satisfied the requirement that they’d only honor one reservation per person, and together we had six consecutive nights at the resort. The Presidential Villa wasn’t showing up for all six nights when we booked, so we had to settle for the smaller Royal Suite for half the stay when making our booking. As I saw pictures from others who had stayed in both rooms, I was actually getting disappointed. While the Royal Suite looked fabulous, the Presidential Oceanfront Villa was just breathtaking — how I’d hate to move!…
A Little Thai Cooking
A couple weeks ago I took a cooking class in Thailand, and decided to make a couple of the recipes from the class last night. Tom Yam Goong (Traditional Thai sour and spicy prawn soup) Ingredients: Medium to large prawns Straw mushrooms Cilantro Cherry tomatoes Small chilis Lemongrass Kaffir lime leaves Galangal Roasted chili paste Lemon juice Fish sauce Chicken stock Sugar Based on my own preferences I replaced lemon juice with a squeezed lime and used brown sugar as my choice of sugar. My local Asian grocer didn’t have any kaffir lime leaves so I left them out. Boil chicken stock Add lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, roasted chili paste, sugar, mushrooms, chilis, mushrooms (if they aren’t pre-cooked) Add mushrooms (if pre-cooked), shrimp, cherry tomatoes Add lime juice and fish sauce Garnish with cilantro…
Starwood’s Major Cash & Points Benefit Enhancement
I’ve give Starwood a hard time lately, because their points devaluation was a pretty big deal. But they’ve taken a step to give back a lot of value to members with changes to the Cash & Points program. One of the better features of the program over the years has been the ability to combine points and cash at a pretty favorable rate towards award nights. So instead of spending, for instance, 10,000 points on a category 4 hotel you could spend just 4,000 points + $60. This was a better option because you were basically ‘buying’ the difference in points at just 1 cent apiece. However, only some hotels would participate each quarter. Starwood would have to solicit them to do so, and most would opt out except for in their slowest seasons. As…
Starwood’s Major Cash & Points Benefit Enhancement
I’ve give Starwood a hard time lately, because their points devaluation was a pretty big deal. But they’ve taken a step to give back a lot of value to members with changes to the Cash & Points program. One of the better features of the program over the years has been the ability to combine points and cash at a pretty favorable rate towards award nights. So instead of spending, for instance, 10,000 points on a category 4 hotel you could spend just 4,000 points + $60. This was a better option because you were basically ‘buying’ the difference in points at just 1 cent apiece. However, only some hotels would participate each quarter. Starwood would have to solicit them to do so, and most would opt out except for in their slowest seasons. As…
Starwood’s Major Cash & Points Benefit Enhancement
I’ve give Starwood a hard time lately, because their points devaluation was a pretty big deal. But they’ve taken a step to give back a lot of value to members with changes to the Cash & Points program. One of the better features of the program over the years has been the ability to combine points and cash at a pretty favorable rate towards award nights. So instead of spending, for instance, 10,000 points on a category 4 hotel you could spend just 4,000 points + $60. This was a better option because you were basically ‘buying’ the difference in points at just 1 cent apiece. However, only some hotels would participate each quarter. Starwood would have to solicit them to do so, and most would opt out except for in their slowest seasons. As…
An End to One of the Great Award Values
For years I’ve been a huge fan of Cathay Pacific’s AsiaMiles program. AsiaMiles could be used to upgrade flights on their partners, including American and some great upgrade options with British Airways. And there have been some real gems in the award chart, such as just 60,000 miles for a business class award under 5000 miles each way. So a British Airways award from the US East Coast to most of Europe was just 60,000 miles in business, compared to 100,000 miles in BA’s own program. Last year a colleague came to me, about to redeem 100,000 Delta miles for a ‘SkyChoice’ (no capacity control) award to Europe in coach. Instead I suggested he transfer 50,000 Starwood points to 60,000 AsiaMiles and redeem for the same award on British Airways in Business (where availability was…
USAirways Quietly Devalues Award Chart
Mar
08
2007
USAirways seems to have updated their award chart with no notice whatsoever. The first item I’ve noticed is that flights between North America and “South and Central Asia” now run 80,000 miles for coach/120,000 for business/160,000 for first class — up from 60/90/120 thousand respectively.This really is a disappointment. I know that USAirways has had a much maligned program, and things have generally changed for the worse since America West took over things. But I was just starting to collect USAirways miles again over the past few months, racking up about 90,000. And now that doesn’t buy my favorite award any longer. Update: This was discussed briefly earlier in the week on Flyertalk. It surprises me that there’s less attention being paid to it than I would have expected. One summary of the changes to…
Pushing for a Room at Checkin
Sometimes room upgrades require a little push at check-in. It would be nice if it wasn’t necessary, but sometimes it is. And sometimes, even though you’ve been upgraded, you can improve that upgrade — even beyond what you’re entitled to under the guidelines of the hotel chain’s loyalty program. Last month I completed my tour of disfavored Westin hotels (my earlier post on the Westin St. Maarten Dawn Beach is here). I visited the Westin Rio Mar — generally disfavored because, though there are plenty of suites and it’s an oceanfront resort, the property needs some real renovation work and the beach is hardly the best in Puerto Rico. (In general, the ‘mega resort’ experience on Puerto Rico is superior at El Conquistador.) Still, I was in the area and wanted to see for myself,…
Delta Clamps Down on Award Routings
Jan
18
2007
This is probably too inside baseball and technical for most frequent flyer program members, but Delta has implemented some nasty changes in the way they allow (or don’t allow!) you to book awards. There’s a current discussion of this on Flyertalk, naturally. As of this month, awards can only have two stops each way domestically and three internationally. If you live in, say, Montana and want to get somewhere on the East Coast you already have to make two stops (in Salt Lake City and Atlanta) most of the time. No extra stops in order to find an available award, and no extra stops to utilize your allowable stopover in a non-hub city.You can also only use ‘published routings’ when constructing your award itinerary. I have a United award flying DC-New York-San Francisco-Osaka-Bangkok-Phuket (with stops…
