If you’d like to attend United’s annual employee appreciation event, check out the thread on FlyerTalk and reserve your spot for the October 11 event ASAP. Dinner will follow, for those interested.

Just wanted to mention that I pulled an all nighter to work on the trip report. Actually, I’ve been working on it almost nonstop since 8PM last night. The goal is to post part one tomorrow and roll out the rest at a pretty quick pace thereafter.

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

Correct Answer: Florida Keys
Winner: joediver

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

Hardly a day goes by where I don’t learn something new in the mileage world. Today it comes in the form of American Airlines redemptions. Living on the east coast of the US, I’m always frustrated by the redemption costs for premium cabin awards to Europe. With American Airlines miles, for example, it’s 100,000 miles to Europe in business class, or 125,000 miles in first class. While there are some places in Europe I’d love to visit, I can get to Asia for the same number of miles, and I’m all about “maximizing.” Add on the fact that you’re not allowed a stopover with AAdvantage miles since the rules changed, and it’s just not something I’d consider.

I’ve always known about the OneWorld awards American offers, which are distance based. They’re typically more expensive than an award directly to a region, but they allow an unlimited number of stopovers. Well, they might actually just save you miles, even when trying to get to a single point.

For example, a 4,000 to 9,000 mile award is a mere 80,000 miles in business class or 100,000 miles in first class. What does that mean? Well, if you’re starting in New York, for example, you can fly to most of Western Europe for 80,000 miles in business class or 100,000 miles in first class.

The one catch? You need to fly at least two OneWorld airlines besides American. That works for me, though. Let’s say I’m flying to London. I could fly New York to Toronto on LAN (it’s a tag flight they operate), and then Toronto to London on British Airways (since one can’t redeem American miles for British Airways flights between the US and London). Even with a JFK-YYZ-LHR roundtrip routing, you still have over 1,000 miles to “play” with, so in addition to a stopover in London, you could continue to one or two other places in Europe, if you wanted to.

While this is hardly earth shattering, it’s a specific case where I’ve found the OneWorld award to be a better value than the basic award, even for a simple roundtrip.

The Mileage Plus Visa has a pretty nifty refer-a-friend promotion right now, whereby the referrer gets 15,000 miles and the person referred gets a 30,000 mile sign-up bonus. To take advantage of this offer one has to apply via phone at 877.858.5188 and mention code C7G4, and there’s a limit of two referrals per person.

I just got my first Mileage Plus Visa a bit over a month ago. As many of you probably know, I’m not a huge fan of collecting United miles outside of actually flying with them due to their Starnet blocking. Nonetheless I signed up for three reasons: a) the sign-up bonus is nice, b) all my other cards are either American Express or Mastercard, and it’s useful to have a Visa card for certain promotions that require it, and c) the annual fee is waived for me since I’m a 1K.

Anyway, if you’re thinking of signing up for the card, I’d be eternally grateful if you’d let me refer you. I hate begging on the blog, but for what it’s worth (as I’ve said many times before), I don’t make a cent off of my blog, but of course I do it because I enjoy it. If you’d let me refer you I could at least slightly justify the hundreds of hours of love I’ve poured into the blog to others that tell me to get a minimum wage job instead.

If you’re interested, please send me an email at onemileatatime@hotmail.com.

OK, not really, but check out the photo reader Sam sent in:

Given that it has been over two months since Clear shut down, it seems the airport doesn’t care a whole lot about removing old advertisements. Maybe it’s time to take advantage of the opportunity?

Join us for episode 34 of the Upgrd Podcast, as the gang (not me, I was traveling) discusses first class airline amenities and this week’s airline news.

Why can’t we learn from this guy?

(Tip of the hat to @melissaiscool on Twitter)

I’ve received a bunch of emails/IM’s/comments/etc. of people asking when they can expect a trip report, and I certainly appreciate the enthusiasm. I got back from my trip Monday night, and my classes actually started Monday morning. I was a bit lazy for the past few months, so am not only in the process of picking classes (which I should have done a long time ago), but have to buy books and do all the other fun stuff too. That being said, as long time readers may know, I have my priorities straight — the blog is always number one.

So I’m still working on getting settled in, but I’m hoping to start writing the trip report this weekend at the latest, maybe sooner. There should be a dozen or so parts, and my goal is to publish one a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. It was one hell of a trip, in terms of destinations, airlines, and hotels, and I’m excited to share the details.

In the meantime, in case you’re totally bored out of your mind, feel free to check out my past trip reports:
OneWorld Asian Adventure
Lufthansa First Class to Europe
Hong Kong, Macau, and Bali

While it probably won’t be as viral as the first video, it’s still well produced.

I think the video is kind of pointless by now, given that a resolution has been reached, even if it is a bit fishy.

(Tip of the hat to Dan Webb)