As I mentioned a couple of days ago I’m in Barcelona at the moment, and flew here “the long way.” My journey from Tampa to Barcelona routed me via Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. As usual, the flight between Las Vegas and Los Angeles was an interesting one, though taught me two important lessons:

a) Don’t judge a book by it’s cover
b) Don’t make a bet with someone that looks clueless

Let me explain. I boarded my flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and as usual the crowd was an absolute disaster. As I Tweeted about, the lady sitting next to me was easily over 50, though wearing fishnet stockings and “stripper boots.” Sadly she was one of the more “normal” people in the cabin. The last two rows of first class were taken up by an Australia family. One of the six kids was wearing a tiara and sash that read” BIRTHDAY PRINCESS” (I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve seen enough episodes of “Toddlers and Tiaras” to know those two terms).

As boarding finished up the lady seated next to me said “do you smell fertilizer?” I quickly responded with “sorry, it’s probably me, I’ve been flying for 24 hours.” Not amused, she pushed the call button and called over the flight attendant. “I smell fertilizer, I think someone boarded with it, could you look into this?” He also quickly responded with “all I smell is an MD-80.” I was laughing my rear off, though my seatmate obviously wasn’t.

Then we started talking about travel, and she started telling me about some great hotels. I still figured she was pretty clueless for whatever reason, and eventually she stated a fact about a hotel, so I said “oh wow, I had no clue about that.” She sensed my doubt, so responded with “you wanna make a bet?” and I said “what do you have in mind?” She said “let’s bet 100,000 miles.” I asked her miles in which program, and she said “it’s your choice.” We settled on American Express points. As soon as we passed through 10,000 feet I turned on my laptop ready to collect my 100,000 Membership Rewards points, only to find out that she was in fact right.

So yes, friends, I lost 100,000 points on a travel related bet. I think that’s the end of the road for me. I’ve lost my edge.

But the bigger surprise was that she was actually one of the most interesting people I’ve sat next to. She was the CEO of one of the most unique companies I’ve heard of, and she flies just about as much as I do (though actually pays for first and business class with cash).

So as much as it annoys me when people assume I don’t belong in first or business class because of my age or how I dress (what beef do people have with pajamas again?), subconsciously I find I still do the same thing to others. Time to force myself to stop doing that, and time for me to make the painful points transfer to her account…

After a two day “layover” at home, it’s back on the road for me. Sometimes my planning is downright unfortunate, and this is one of those instances. Late last year I had booked a couple of mileage runs to Spain to get a jump start on Executive Platinum qualification for the year. It pays to book early, since it meant I was able to lock in upgrades to business class for all my segments. Besides, three days in Barcelona (a city I’ve never been to) doesn’t sound half bad.

Unfortunately this was before American announced double elite qualifying miles for the month of January, and as luck would have it, both of my trips were planned for February. I couldn’t help but book a quick trip to Shanghai in January to rack up nearly 45,000 elite qualifying miles, though I had totally forgotten my return flight from Shanghai would be only two days before my flight to Barcelona.

The bad news (or good news, depending on how you look at it) is that my sleep schedule has been totally screwed up the past couple of nights. I slept from 4PM till 2AM last night, and the previous night slept from 5PM to 1AM… so I guess I’m kinda sorta already on Barcelona time.

The bad news (or once again good news, depending on how you look at it) is my routing — I’m flying from Tampa to Barcelona via Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. Yes, that’s redeyes two nights in a row. All flights are scheduled to have wifi, though, so it’s all good.

Anyway, stay tuned, as it should be a fun couple of days. If you’d like to follow me on Twitter you can do so here, as I tend to have a lot to complain about say when flying.

Now if only the weather were a bit warmer in Barcelona…

This past weekend I met reader Carberrie in Shanghai, and among our topics of conversation were… miles and points (shocker, I know). Anyway, one of the topics that came up was American’s OneWorld distance based award chart, and while I’ve mentioned it many times in the past (including in this TravelSort article), I do think it’s worth highlighting what an amazing value it can be one more time, especially in business class for further distances.

American’s all partner award chart doesn’t allow any stopovers except at the international gateway, so it really limits the number of destinations you can visit on a single trip. However, American also has a OneWorld award chart, which is a distance based chart, with the following costs:

There are a couple of interest things to note about the chart. First of all, it’s interesting how the premium for business class over coach is minimal, while the premium for first class over business class is substantial, especially as you go further down the award chart.

I think the real value in the award chart comes with the zone 6 and zone 7 awards. Let’s look at the zone 6 award, for example. You can fly between 14,001 and 20,000 miles in business class for a total of 130,000 miles. A simple roundtrip business class award to Australia would usually cost you 125,000 miles, and you couldn’t include any stopovers (except at the US gateway airport). Instead, for a premium of only 5,000 miles, you could fly business class from Los Angeles to Brisbane to Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles, stopping at each airport, and still have nearly 4,000 miles of travel to spare. Alternatively, you could fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Melbourne to Sydney to Los Angeles on a zone 6 award, stopping at each airport. Those are just a couple of examples, as the possibilities are endless.

If you go up to a zone 7 award for only 150,000 miles in business class, you can really thoroughly explore both Asia and Australia (or Europe and Asia). For example, you could fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Singapore to Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Los Angeles, stopping at each airport, and still have nearly 4,000 miles of travel to spare.

In some instances you can even save miles by using a OneWorld award over a partner award. For example, American usually charges 135,000 miles for business class to the Middle East, while you can almost always get there in fewer than 20,000 miles, which would only cost you 130,000 miles on a OneWorld award.

Anyway, if you have a lot of time on your hands and want to visit lots of destinations, the value of a OneWorld award can’t be beat.

The basic restrictions are as follows:

• A maximum of 16 segments are permitted
• You need to fly at least two OneWorld airlines
• Can’t connect in any city more than twice

It’s easy to get spoiled and think of business class as being very “bleh,” given that many of us are able to redeem miles primarily for international first class travel on foreign airlines. But it’s also important to keep things in perspective. In my case, I booked an $1,100 coach ticket from Tampa to Shanghai via Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in both directions, and confirmed upgrades for all flights. I’ll earn well over 40,000 elite qualifying and redeemable miles, so I’d be a happy camper even if my flights weren’t great.

But frankly, my flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai (that I just off of) was actually fantastic.

A few things to note in particular (I’ll save many of the details for the trip report):

• Headwinds are strong going west right now! The flight was blocked at 13hr50min (usually block time is about 30-45 minutes longer than the anticipated flight time), but our flight time was 14hr10min. As a result we arrived about 45 minutes late, though there were no lines at immigration, so I guess it balanced out in the end.
  
  
• Angled flat seats suck. They’re awesome when you upgrade from coach, but it really is pretty tough to get any “real” sleep in them. They didn’t used to bother me all that much, but I’m finding it harder and harder to sleep in them. Can’t wait for American’s new business class product.
• Empty flights are awesome. I’m so used to business and first class on US airlines being full due to how easy it is to upgrade, get award tickets, and the ease with which non-revs can fill the cabin, but as I posted about yesterday, this flight was pretty empty. Even after lots of non-revs cleared,  business class was only half full, and I had two seats to myself (window and aisle). This isn’t just useful for the extra space, but it also makes it easy to grab a couple of pillows to at least make the seat a bit more comfortable when trying to sleep.
  
  
• Who said service on US airlines can’t be awesome? Since the flight was so empty the service was attentive and quick. But beyond that, the flight attendants were awesome. The flight attendant working my aisle was Chinese, and I mean “authentic Chinese.” I mention this because I honestly felt like I was flying an Asian airline. She spoke very slowly because her English wasn’t great, but she was constantly smiling and so friendly. She provided a “Singapore Girl” level of service.And the “senior mamas” (I use that term endearingly)  — who all had 35+ years at American — working the flight were awesome as well. I accidentally pushed my call button once in the middle of the flight (was trying to turn on my light), and one of the flight attendants I hadn’t previously interacted with appeared in less than ten seconds, smiling and asking what she could get me. Kudos to the crew. If only I could have them on all my flights.

Anyway, now it’s time for me to fall asleep in the clouds… literally (the joys of a hotel on the 90th floor in smoggy Shanghai).

To take advantage of American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion for the month of January I’m off to Shanghai today for a mini-vacation (aka mileage run of sorts). My upgrades cleared for all flights, so I’m quite the happy camper on an $1,100 fare where I’ll be earning over 40,000 elite qualifying miles and redeemable miles.

I’ll be taking American’s fairly new Los Angeles to Shanghai flight, and can’t help but notice how darn empty it is in first and business class. I’m used to empty premium cabins on foreign carriers that don’t make upgrades and award tickets easy, but I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a flight on a US airline this empty up front.

No seats are assigned in first class (the two seats that are blocked are pilot crew rests):

And only 14 of the 37 business class seats are assigned:

As always, seatmaps aren’t necessarily an accurate indication of loads, but in general if a seatmap is empty, the flight is empty.

I’m curious how full the flight ends up after non-revs. Shanghai in January mid-week probably isn’t too hot of a destination for most non-revs, so maybe first class will stay empty and the crew will have an especially pleasant flight.

I also have to mention how awesome Admirals Club agents are. When I checked in at the San Francisco Admirals Club this morning the agent said “now Mr. Lucky, are you already registered for the double miles promotion we’re running through the end of the month?” Entirely minor, but at the same time it’s nice to see an employee that actually cares about customers (which is more common than not at Admirals Clubs).

I’ve received a lot of emails from readers lately about American, given that many of you are going for Executive Platinum status thanks to American’s double elite qualifying miles promotion (and in many cases triple elite qualifying miles promotion) through the end of the month.

I figured I’d cover one aspect of American that I find especially interesting, relating to their domestic upgrade inventory.

Most airlines have separate upgrade inventory for those looking to use miles to upgrade. While American has separate upgrade inventory for international flights, they don’t for domestic flights. If you want to upgrade domestically using miles or systemwide upgrades, they only require discounted first class (“A”) to be available in order to confirm the upgrade.

This is why in many (most?) cases, 80%+ of domestic first class seats have confirmable upgrade space through American, unlike at the other legacy carriers.

Again, this is only for those using miles or systemwide upgrades, and not those looking for complimentary upgrades or “sticker” upgrades. In a way, this means you can use systemwide upgrades for a domestic flight without it being a total waste, given that you can confirm an upgrade you might otherwise not have gotten. For example, say the day before a flight, there are two seats left for sale, and one of those is a discounted first class seat. Chances are slim that you’d clear the upgrade if you hoped for a complimentary upgrade as an Executive Platinum member, though you could use a systemwide upgrade to lock in one of those last two seats.

Funny enough I’ve also heard Executive Platinum members complain about this policy, because this is also the reason that many of American’s first class cabins are fairly full a few days out, when elite upgrades kick in.

I have to disagree there, because I think it’s in American’s best interest to get some miles off the books and make some revenue through co-pays as opposed to giving away complimentary upgrades or even upgrades using “stickers”, at least within reason (meaning don’t play Continental’s “tens of dollars” upgrade game). At the same time, the bigger issue I see is that it gives people no incentive to pay for first class, given that they can always use miles to upgrade. Part of the incentive to pay for first class is that your upgrade might not otherwise clear. By making upgrade inventory so readily available, there’s not much of a reason to spring for a first class fare when you can always just use miles to upgrade.

As you can see below, all the routes between Chicago and San Francisco (typically one of the tougher routes to upgrade) in a couple of weeks have at least seven confirmable upgrade seats. Keep in mind that “7″ is the highest amount of inventory American will display, so it could very well be more than that.

Anyway, just another one of those interesting things that makes the dAArkside interesting.