During my hiatus from blogging a couple weeks ago United introduced the ability to book Lufthansa reward tickets online.  Before that I wanted to go to Prague, but I was spending too much time messing around on ANA’s website.  I would find some flights, but then you have to deal with making sure United’s agents can see the same routings.  Sure, ANA had cleaner itineraries (I can technically go US CLT-FRA or LH CLT-MUC and then LH to PRG) while United’s itineraries were all 3 legs each way, but I was able to book in Business (first for domestics) for the whole itinerary for 105,000 miles.  I was also able to get the dates I wanted on the first try!  That is impossible with Delta miles which is why I value United miles much more.

Transparency and no phone booking fee prevailed today. If anyone would like to join me in Prague check out the Prague DO thread on Flyertalk.  I’ll be there now!

I know this was announced a couple days ago and you probably saw it on Lucky or Gary’s blogs, but I’m posting it too just in case you missed it.

Hilton’s Q2 promo is out. You get 1K points per night between April 1, 2011 and June 30, 2011.

Register at www.hhonors.com/grand

Offer details: HHonors members who register for the promotion and have a stay inclusive of dates falling during the promotion period will receive 1,000 HHonors Bonus Points per night of their stay.

Offer Period: April 1, 2011 – June 30, 2011

-Members must register for the offer at: www.HHonors.com/Grand prior to completing their first eligible stay

-All eligible stays will count towards the Q2 promo regardless of booking date or check-in/check-out date of the stay.
• If you register for the promotion prior to checking in and/or prior to checking out and have an eligible stay inclusive of dates falling within the promotion period, you will receive points for the entire stay, regardless of check-in or check-out dates.
• If a stay is booked prior to the promotional period, however is consumed within the promotional period, you may register and participate in this promotion.

-Offer is not targeted

-Promotional points will not count towards tier status. They are counted as bonus points vs. base points.

-Promotional points can be earned on reward stays.

-Member may participate in any of the airline promos and other Hilton HHonors Q2 promotions simultaneously.

-Select rates do not count towards the offer.

-All Hilton Worldwide hotels will be participating in the Grand Nights promotion.

I hate red eyes, but I also hate wasting a day traveling home from the west coast so here is what I do:

1. I carry the Oil of Olay face wipes.  I wet it down and give myself a quick wipe-down of my face, arms, under arms, neck
2. I brush my teeth.  Even though the flight is around the same length whether it is during the day or night, when I sleep the dry air = horrible breath.  Gum helps, but nothing is as nice as brushing my teeth
3. Apply fresh deodorant
4. I always carry my own blanket and pillow when I have a scheduled red eye.  Most airlines do not provide them in economy anymore so you either need to buy one in the airport or from the flight crew.
5. Eye shades and ear plugs are a must!

Also, be careful when you put stuff in the seat back pocket if you plan on falling asleep.

Last week Delta was having equipment problems and had to swap out planes which delayed my flight and caused me to miss my connection.  Weather caused all other viable flights to my destination to fill up meaning I had to wait a day or fly into another airport.  I managed to rattle off close airports (it took a few) and eventually found a seat to get me where I needed to go.  I figured I would just take a cab the remainder of the way, but this airport had no cabs waiting and the shuttle service was not answering their phone.  I managed to snag the last rental car available.  Apparently someone named Michael Jackson hadn’t shown up for his car so I got it.

Now since the reason why I missed my flight was an aircraft swap it was considered within Delta’s control.  I faxed supporting documentation to Delta and I will be reimbursed for the rental car fee.  If you have a weather delay usually the case is different since no one can control the weather.

The other tip in this is to always know if there are other viable options.  I got rebooked in the Sky Club, but even the agents there may not have perfect US geography.  I was able to state 3 different airports within 90 miles of my destination and thanks to that the agent was able to find me a flight.

Last week I was facing a multitude of issues ranging from getting the hard drive on my laptop replaced to some personal issues so I just wasn’t in the mood to blog.  Now things are more settled so stay tuned.

If you need assistance from Delta but don’t want to tweet them and are already on an indefinite hold consider their new page on facebook.

http://on.fb.me/fqVe4e

Big news! Today we’re proud to announce the launch of Delta Assist in Facebook. We love your feedback and wanted to provide you, our community, with a safe and confidential way to get Delta support and share your feedback. You can access Delta Assist in Facebook via our new, dedicated Delta Assist tab. We look forward to hearing from you!

This week I got stuck going from my nice warm city up to a city below freezing.  My windshield is frosted over every morning and somehow I’ve escaped scraping all year.

Although the rental agency placed a nice ice scraper in the car, for some reason the Prius I have likes to ice on the inside as well.  The ice scraper is the long type and is awkward when scraping the inside so I switched to my old reliable: the hotel key.  It really has become my ice scraper of choice since it always makes a nice clean scrape.

…now I’m just hoping the coffee gets the annoying smell out.

I was home the whole week before the race.  Instead of going to the gym like a smart person, I was “nursing my feet” to allow some injuries to heal.  They did heal and I thought that was that.  Since I hadn’t run I didn’t realize that I would just immediately reexacerbate them.

This time I used Endomondo so I knew the pace of each mile (since I’m always in a far back corral and no where near clock time).  I had started walking around mile 5, and by mile 8 my pace was getting pretty slow and I needed to pick it up.  I started running again but  the spots my old blisters had been felt like they had reemerged with a vengeance.  I decided to stop by a medic on a bike to get some bandages to keep me in the race.  I realized one had burst and my sock and shoe were bloody.  The other was bad, but now bandaged.  By this time I was 1.5 minutes behind pace and the flag wavers were saying I needed to speed up or stop.  I started running again, but the other blister felt like the burst one so at mile 11 I figured the health of my feet was more important than pride and waited for the loser wagon.  If it had been my first race ever I might have pushed more, but considering I still have 10 more races this year to prove myself I felt no shame in stopping.  11 miles is just 2.1 miles short of finishing and that hurts to be so close, but I still ran 11 more miles than the majority of the US on Sunday.

Apparently Disney still confers medals to people who don’t finish.  I didn’t wear it around that day (or the next as some people do) since I didn’t feel that I really earned it, but since they gave it to me I got some photos taken.