One Mile at a Time

I meant to post about this yesterday morning when I arrived in Hong Kong, but I forgot. Anyway, sitting in row one of a 747 was probably the coolest thing ever as we were on approach into HKG. I was seated in seat 1K and we had a bit of a crosswind, so the plane was angled left on the approach to compensate for it. As a result, I had an absolutely spectacular view of the runway all the way down. As an airplane geek, nothing is more amazing than seeing the runway lights, tower, and terminal of Hong Kong Airport all the way down. The picture below really doesn’t do it justice.

Posted on March 9th, 2010 by lucky
Filed under: Cathay Pacific | 1 Comment »

It’s time for a reader photo. Thanks to Kai for sending in this one.

Correct Answer: Honolulu, Hawaii
Winner: Hendrik

If you’d like your photo featured, please email it to me at onemileatatime@hotmail.com, along with the correct answer.

Posted on March 9th, 2010 by lucky
Filed under: Photo Contest | 7 Comments »

Hello from 38,000 feet aboard American’s Flagship Service to San Francisco (from New York). Having flown United’s Premium Service on this route many times, I have to say I’m shocked by American’s Flagship Service. Good or bad? You’ll just have to stay tuned….

Posted on March 7th, 2010 by lucky
Filed under: American | 24 Comments »

….and sheesh, I’m not sure much more could go wrong, and my brother and I checked in only 30 minutes ago. First of all, on the plus side, I love, love, love the room. It’s beautifully designed.

Unfortunately:

• The front desk agent seemed totally spaced out and not particularly welcoming.
• We were checked in quickly and I asked whether I’d receive free breakfast as a Diamond member. This is something the agent should have proactively explained. You’d think he would at least know the rules, but he responded by asking the other agent “hmmm, do we do breakfast for Diamonds?” This was followed by “yeah, I guess you can have breakfast in your room or the restaurant.” Seriously?
• Not offered any sort of food and beverage amenity as guaranteed, so they should at least mention I’d get 1,000 points as an “amenity.”
• No mention of the “ANDAZ5″ rate I booked, whereby we get a $50 hotel credit.
• We get up to our room and it has one king bed as opposed to the double bedded room we reserved. We go back down to the front desk and ask for a room with two double beds, but amazingly enough they don’t have any! They then proceed to upgrade us to a “deluxe room” with a king bed. Umm, why weren’t we upgraded to that to begin with? Still stuck with one king bed, and my understanding is that I’m guaranteed my preferred bed type as a Hyatt Diamond. More importantly, how the f&*$ does a hotel on Wall Street not have a double bedded room available on a Saturday night?
• Part of the room being “modern” is that the shower room has a glass window facing the rest of the room. That’s fine and dandy, but there’s no kind of blind or anything. Hell, even if I were staying with someone I wanted to share a bed with, I’m not sure I’d necessarily want to watch them shower.

Anyway, very disappointed thus far. This hotel really needs to retrain their employees, at least those working after midnight. Not a good start for a brand new hotel. I’ll certainly share my thoughts with the GM when I finish up my stay (after all, they can’t improve without some constructive criticism.

Posted on March 7th, 2010 by lucky
Filed under: Hotels, Hyatt | 18 Comments »

The AirTrain has always been a great deal for getting to/from JFK at $5 per trip, but according to Fozz at Upgrd they are now offering a ten trip card for $25, so it’s basically half off. That’s quite a deal, even for those of us that aren’t locals. And while MTA’s website indicates that the cards are good for six months, Fozz says his card is good for over a year.

Posted on March 5th, 2010 by lucky
Filed under: Great Deals | 10 Comments »