Yesterday I posted about how EVA Air was set to join the Star Alliance today (June 18), and how their flights were already bookable online with AviancaTaca Lifemiles.

I figured I’d post another update now that they’re officially in Star Alliance. First of all, EVA Air awards now seem bookable with all Star Alliance airlines. Aeroplan and ANA show award space online, United can see space over the phone and will hopefully add the capability to book online soon (though they’ve been partners with EVA Air for years), and US Airways can also see the space over the phone, as they don’t show award space for partner airlines online.

As I mentioned above, Aeroplan shows EVA Air award space online, and it’s plentiful.

EVA Air award space

EVA Air award space

The most exciting news, though, is that Aeroplan doesn’t impose fuel surcharges for travel on EVA Air, at least not yet. Meanwhile the only other transpacific airline for which they don’t impose fuel surcharges is United, so this is huge news. I expect this to change eventually, but for the time being this is a great way to redeem Aeroplan (and by connection American Express Membership Rewards points) for travel to Asia. Can’t beat the combination of plenty of award space, no fuel surcharges, and a phenomenal business class hard product.

No fuel surcharges!

Meanwhile the best place to search EVA Air award space is probably on the ANA website, which lets you search specific routes for a week at a time. For example, take a look at the number of flights between Los Angeles and Taipei that have business class award space.

Lots of business class award space!

I didn’t realize this till yesterday but I suspect it’ll make lots of you happy — EVA Air serves (I believe 2oo3) Dom Perignon in business class! The only other airline that serves Dom in business class is Jet Airways, and I’m not even sure they do that anymore given their financial situation.

Meanwhile I’m most excited about redeeming my US Airways miles for travel on the Hello Kitty flights. I’m eying the one between Taipei and Tokyo, since I’d like to maximize my premium cabin, aspirational award experience. They have everything from Hello Kitty check-in kiosks, to Hello Kitty gates, to Hello Kitty safety videos, to Hello Kitty uniforms, to Hello Kitty meals, to Hello Kitty seat covers. Seriously, what could be awesomer?! If it’s half as memorable as their Hello Kitty webpage, something tells me it’ll be a once in a lifetime experience (in more than one way).

Earlier this year Delta announced that they’d be adding a revenue component to qualifying for SkyMiles status, whereby you basically had to spend an average of 10 cents per mile to qualify for status ($2,500 for Silver, $5,000 for Gold, $7,500 for Platinum, and $12,500 for Diamond), in addition to the traditional miles needed. That being said, spending $25,000 per year on a co-branded Delta American Express card waived the revenue requirement, even for the upper tiers.

Well, it appears as if United likes the idea, as they’ll be introducing a very similar revenue requirement for 2014 elite status requalification.

The thresholds are the same at an average of 10 cents per mile, and only the following spend is eligible towards the minimum spend requirements:

• Base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges
• Flights flown by United, United Express, or Copa Airlines
• Flights operated by a Star Alliance or a MileagePlus partner airline and issued on a United ticket (ticket number starting with 016)
• Economy Plus purchases

Like Delta, you can waive the revenue requirement by spending $25,000 on a United Chase co-branded credit card, though only for Premier Silver, Premier Gold, and Premier Platinum — there’s no waiver for Premier 1K. That being said, those with addresses on their MileagePlus accounts outside of the US are exempt from this change (which just seems to be making it too easy?).

Truth be told I think we all saw this coming eventually, though I know I didn’t see it coming this fast. When Delta introduced the revenue requirement I didn’t actually think it would immediately lead to American or United following. After all, Delta kind of seems to operate in their own little world. But I guess it did, as United’s policy is almost identical, and I’m sure American won’t be far behind. While it could be that American follows with a similar announcement in a week, I’m leaning towards them just having a similar policy when they introduce a new mileage program for the combined carrier.

Do I like changes like this? Of course not. But I do see why the airlines make them. This game is getting tougher! Or more accurately, they don’t want there to be a “game.”

Will this change impact your elite status qualification, and when do you think American will follow?

As of today JetBlue TrueBlue points no longer expire, which is pretty big news. The last airline to make a similar move was Delta, which in February 2011 eliminated mileage expiration. Unfortunately for SkyMiles members, they’ve done everything they possibly can to make active miles as valuable as expired ones, so I’m not sure what to make of that.

What’s interesting about JetBlue is that they’re going from having one of the most strict points expiration policies to not having them expire at all. Previously JetBlue points expired after 12 months of “inactivity,” with activity strictly being defined as a JetBlue flight or a purchase with their co-branded American Express credit card. That’s extremely strict, given that most other miles expire after 18-36 months of inactivity, with a much more liberal interpretation of what qualifies as “activity.”

Look, this is obviously good news and a positive move, though to be honest I don’t get why they’re doing this. I think their policy was too strict. I think points shouldn’t have expired within 12 months, and they should have counted partner activity as any activity.

But there’s a cost to loyalty programs of not having points expire, especially for a revenue based frequent flyer program like JetBlue’s, where there are no hoops you have to jump through to redeem points. I assume there’s some serious liability on their books for unredeemed points, and when miles never expire, who knows how many outstanding points are for accounts of people that have since passed.

In the press release their director of loyalty marketing says:

“Customers can still be loyal even if they’re not traveling every year.” says Dave Canty, JetBlue’s director of loyalty marketing. “Loyalty shouldn’t have an expiration date, and neither should your points.”

And while perhaps there’s some truth to it, could the same be said if the points expiration policy was 24 months and included all partner activity? Could you really still consider that person “loyal?”

So let me be clear, this is an extremely positive and customer friendly change. But there’s a cost to providing it, and I would have rather seen new benefits in other places for at least semi-loyal customers (maybe more TrueBlue points per dollar spent on airfare, for example). If they instead changed the policy to 24 months and included more activity, they’d be giving people the best of both worlds, in my opinion. I’d also be willing to bet that soon enough both Delta and JetBlue will introduce mileage expiration policies, or at the very least mileage inactivity policies.

Am I off base? What do you guys think?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past couple of million miles, it’s that there’s almost no aspect of the travel experience that can stress me out… or so I thought. I’ve just about seen it all, and I tend to think you can fly me around the world six times without stopping and I’d still call it an easy journey.

My return journey from Bali, however, was probably one of my toughest ever (within the realm of flying in premium cabins), and I think I’ve learned a few lessons. First of all, when we started planning the trip, my mom asked if she could check a bag. Usually I’m opposed to checked bags, but I figured what the heck, it’s her birthday, she can do what she wants. If a checked bag makes her feel comfortable, then so be it. Now in the end she wore maybe 10% of the clothes she brought, but such is life.

To add to that, our return journey was somewhat complicated — Bali to Kuala Lumpur, then an overnight, then Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong to San Francisco. From there I’d fly to Seattle and she’d fly to Tampa via New York. My hope was that the Bali to Hong Kong nonstop flight on Cathay Pacific would open up, but sadly there was no such luck. So we were stuck with a rather complicated routing, with a total of five segments for her. That would have probably been fine, though it certainly wasn’t an ideal routing.

Fast forward to day three of the trip. We go white water rafting in Ubud. It was quite possibly the most fun thing I’ve ever done, though what we didn’t realize is that you had to go down 600 steep steps to get to the river, and then climb 300 steps to get back up. That nearly killed my mom’s knees, and she could barely walk for the next couple of days.

When we got to Amankila she could still barely walk, and the fact that Amankila probably has more stairs than any hotel I’ve ever stayed at didn’t help. By the last day of the trip she was basically limping.

Steps everywhere!

So then we’re off to the airport to fly from Bali to Kuala Lumpur. The traffic was horrible and even though we left plenty early we made it to the airport only about an hour before departure. Fortunately Aman has eight porters at the airport, and they nearly treated our situation as a damn national emergency. Suffice to say we made our flight with time to spare thanks to them.

Flying Bali to Kuala Lumpur

Then we got to Kuala Lumpur, where we took the KLIA Express to Central. Fortunately the Le Meridien is located right above the train station, so it wasn’t too much walking. But since my mom could barely walk I was trying to carry about six bags. As usual it was scorching hot in KL as well, so by the time I made it to the room I looked like I just got out of the pool. Plus side of the evening was that we made it to the hotel at 8:23PM and the club lounge serves drinks till about 8:30PM, so I managed to get my mom about three glasses (more like goblets based on how I poured them) of red wine, which made her a happy camper.

So that day wasn’t too bad. The next morning my mom wakes up with horrible swelling in her foot, to the point that her shoe doesn’t fit. Go figure she didn’t actually bring any sneakers on the trip (something I should have reminded her to do!). So in addition to her knee pain she’s totally limping at this point and can’t really walk.

We get back on the KLIA Express to the airport, I’m trying to jockey about six bags, and she’s trying to walk as fast as she can. We get to check-in just over an hour before departure. At this point her pride is still taking precedence and she doesn’t request a wheelchair. At this point I decide we might as well check as many bags as we can, since I can’t carry everything. So in addition to her checked bag I check my carry-on, something I otherwise never do. That left me with her small carry-on, my laptop bag, and two other shopping bags.

After a quick visit to the lounge we get on the Malaysia A380 to Hong Kong. It was the first flight of the morning, and go figure it left us just over an hour connection in Hong Kong. We’re sitting on the ground and it’s about a hundred degrees in the cabin because the APU isn’t working. Yes, it’s annoying, but there’s no need to throw a hissy fit over it, in my opinion. The guy seated across the aisle from me seemed to disagree.

A380 business class

As boarding finishes up he asks the flight attendant why it’s so hot. He explains it will be cooler once we take off. He doesn’t accept that as an answer, so asks to be speak to the captain. At that point the purser comes over and explains that the APU is faulty, and that as soon as we push back and the engines start it will be cooler. At this point he looses it and asks why his colleague lied to him, since he didn’t say anything was faulty.

He sits there like a complete drama queen fanning himself with a full newspaper (hint: if you’re going to fan yourself with something, make it a laminated safety card, and not a pound of paper that requires more energy than the “cooling” effects). As another flight attendant walks down the aisle he grabs her and says “get me a cold towel NOW.” She’s courteous and apologetic and brings it to him. As soon as he’s done with it he throws it on the floor and requests “an ice cold glass of water.” He downs the glass, and yells “another.” She brings him another, and then he yells “I want one more.” He then says he wants to be seated somewhere cooler, “maybe the lower deck.” Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I was about ready to punch the guy at this point…

In the meantime I explained my mom’s swelling to the flight attendants, and asked if they could maybe get her a bag of ice, which they gladly did. Unlike the Malaysia cabin crew from Bali, this one was spectacular, and couldn’t have been more accommodating.

Go figure the flight was delayed about 30 minutes on departure, leaving us a very short connection in Hong Kong.

The only interesting thing to note about the flight is that we got treated really well on Malaysia Airlines. We were seated mid-cabin and the flight attendant came specifically to our seats to take meal orders, then went back to the rest of the cabin to take them front to back. We were also addressed by name at every interaction, while I didn’t notice that for anyone else (except the guy seated across from me, but I think that’s because he managed to piss off the crew sufficiently). So later I managed to take a peak at the manifest, and saw that next to my name it said “PLATINUM *EMERALD*,” which made sense. But what I found odd is that all the other Emerald members on the manifest showed as “SILVER *EMERALD*,” which doesn’t make sense to me. Anyone know what the distinction is between the two? Kind of matches all my experiences on Malaysia so far, of being treated exceptionally well as a OneWorld Emerald.

Anyway, towards the end of the flight none of my mom’s shoes fit anymore, so I asked if they have any slippers they could maybe give her. The nice flight attendant managed to dig up some slippers and socks, so my mom was planning on parading through the terminal in those. I think she may have just one upped my pajamas escapade.

Stylish terminal footwear

Anyway, we arrive in Hong Kong with about 40 minutes to make our connection. Our arrival gate is 60-something, and we’re leaving from gate three. If you’re at all familiar with Hong Kong Airport, you know that gate might as well be in Macau based on the distance. While my mom was stylishly limping down the jet bridge in her slippers, I was trying to carry our four bags, so between us we looked like a bit of a circus act. I was delighted when I noticed that there was someone waiting at the bottom of the jet bridge with a sign with our name on it. I figured she had a Maserati waiting to take us to the other side of the terminal given our short connection.

Ah, who am I kidding, this is Cathay Pacific, the airline that offers one of the all around most solid first class products, yet can’t do ground services for $*&%.

The problem is that the agent didn’t even work for Cathay Pacific, she was a contract worker. She didn’t speak much English, other than “hurry hurry.” I pointed at my mom’s feet, and said “foot swelling, has to walk slow.” She proceeded to walk in front of us for the next 10 minutes while glancing down at her watch every few minutes, during which time I think we made it from gate mid-60-something to low-60-something. Ain’t no way in hell we’re going to make the connection at this point.

So I saw one of those “concierge” golf carts, which you can hire to drive you from one end of the terminal to the other. I stopped him and asked him to drive us to the other side of the terminal. Rather expensive at HKD60 per person, but well worth it. As we hopped on the agent that picked us up looked all confused, and I asked her to get on as well. I was happy to pay for her to come along so she could get us in the crew line at the transit security checkpoint, which I know is about the only thing they’re useful for.

Finally making some progress!

Sure enough we made it to the gate at the final boarding call, and were the last passengers aboard. During boarding one of the gate agents got aboard to tell my mom something, and when she was gone I asked my mom what she had said. She said “oh, just that our bags won’t make it and that they’re being sent to New York.” To New York?! Neither of us have New York as our final destination, so I wish I could’ve corrected that before the door closed.

Anyway, the flight itself was lovely, the crew was extremely concerned for her, and if there’s one thing that puts me in a good mood it’s Hong Kong style milk tea and egg tarts.

Best thing about Cathay Pacific

We arrived in San Francisco on time. This time around my mom agreed to take a wheelchair. I have Global Entry, so while she cleared customs I went to the baggage department. I was extremely impressed they already had a missing baggage report filled out, and all I had to do was write down the address I wanted each individual bag sent to — awesome!

The toughest part of the experience was actually upon arrival, as I was trying to decide what was best for my mom. I was booked on a 4PM Alaska flight to Seattle, while my mom was booked on a 3PM American flight to New York, and then a 7AM American flight down to Tampa. There was nothing more direct to Tampa available the same afternoon.

My original plan was to try and book her on the San Francisco to New York redeye instead and get her a day room in San Francisco to relax. I was even considering spending a day in San Francisco with her and having her fly out the following night instead so she could recover, but she insisted she needed to return to work. So I felt pretty guilty when she got on a San Francisco to New York flight set to arrive at 11:30PM, had eight hours there, and had to make her connection the following morning, all while hardly being able to walk.

Fortunately everything worked out in the end. That being said, it was definitely one of tougher travel days. Usually I’m in “the zone” when I’m in the airport, and there’s no obstacle I haven’t faced before. Or so I thought, till yesterday. After my experience yesterday I felt like a once-a-year flier as I was totally out of my element, so it was certainly a learning experience.

It’s safe to say I learned a few lessons:

• Friends don’t let friends check bags. Or in this case, sons don’t let moms check bags.
• Always make mom bring sneakers on a trip. Always.
• Cathay Pacific doesn’t know how to do ground services.
• Next time I’m planning a trip with mom (if she’ll ever take one with me again — I’m not convinced), make sure you can keep it to as few segments as possible, even if it’s a less comfortable routing.

Fortunately my mom is now safely at home and (hopefully) recovering!

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