These past few months Delta has had outstanding award availability to Australia with no fuel surcharges using their partner Virgin Australia. Several days per week I’ve been able to find at least one seat, but usually two, on the Brisbane (BNE) or Sydney (SYD) flights. The availability is still pretty good, but not as great as it was back in February and March…even though we are heading into winter in Australia. Anyway, a client yesterday asked about using his SkyMiles to fly on China Southern’s A380 from LA to Guangzhou (CAN), on to Ho Chi Minh (SGN) for a few days, and then connecting onwards to Melbourne (MEL). On the return, he wanted Virgin Australia from Sydney (SYD) to LAX. I was able to easily book all segments for 150,000 SkyMiles. We’ve known for sometime about the excellent China Southern availability to Australia via CAN, but I was really surprised by just how good the availability was from Ho Chi Minh to both Sydney and Melbourne. There were several days when there were 4 business and 4 economy tickets available on either flight with no fuel surcharges at all. This is in addition to China Southern having 4 business seats available several times per month on their LAX-CAN flight. This means you could potentially take an Asian / Australian vacation with a family of 4 using a LOW SkyMiles award! Availability on Vietnam and China Southern is easily viewable using Seth’s Wandering Aramean Travel Tools. Of course, don’t expect to be able to find any low level availability on Delta’s own LAX-SYD flight! The obvious warning here is that you will be spending a lot of time on the phone with Delta walking them through your exact flights and making sure they know that VN and CZ are Delta partners. Additionally, the seats on the A330 are NOT lie-flat. Product details here. See the post below for tips and experiences on using SkyMiles on the CZ A380.
Now, Vietnam Airlines is reducing their route frequencies to both SYD and MEL for the winter, but they will likely go back up for the peak travel season as they did this year.
Unbelievably, it’s been a good few days for booking low level Delta awards. Just on Saturday, I was able to book a low level business award for two to Spain during the prime summer travel season.
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Posted by adam |
Categories: Awards, China Southern, Delta, Vietnam Airlines, Virgin Australia
It’s like stepping back in time, you have to see the video from China Southern’s latest flight attendant competition recently held in Nanjing. This is the tenth such competition held in recent years and is the only way to become a flight attendant for the airline. While the requirements might be antiquated, the TV reality competition is anything but…allowing the public to vote for their favorite contestant via social media, text, and internet voting. So what exactly is the process? Here’s a rough translation…
The assessment process includes visual, written tests, professional and degree examinations, and thorough physical examinations. Cultural qualities, physical fitness, career potential, expressive facial structure, and adaptability are judged by China Southern management and VIP China Southern frequent travelers (a FF perk)! Women are asked to remove their shoes and stockings to obtain accurate height measurements. In addition, they must lay their fingers out flat to get an accurate hand measurement. The 7,000-10,000 applicant pool is narrowed by these and then the public is invited to vote via internet, phone, and text message for their favorite potential flight attendant. Flight attendants can enter the contest through the support of their college or university! Men take part as well, though they are judged on safety awareness, on-board service potential, height, and physique. Ability to protect the flight and provide security is mandatory for the men. Winning competitors are invited to become intern flight attendants where they must go through 3-6 months of training while receiving 1,000 yuan ($161) a month. They are also required to pay a training fee of $1300-$1600 for books, uniforms, and equipment. Wages for first year flight attendants are said to average between 5,000 to 10,000 yuan ($800-$1600) a month depending on routes assigned.
Want to sample the services of the new flight attendants? Remember that China Southern’s A380 service from LAX is a great use of Delta SkyMiles. I’ve posted about how to find amazing business class availability on the A380 from LAX to Guangzhou continuing on to Australia, Bali, Bangkok, Maldives, Singapore, and all over the rest of Asia. I’ve also posted answers to reader questions on SkyMiles redemptions on these routings.
Posted by adam |
Categories: China Southern, Delta
If you’ve considered taking advantage of the generous award availability on China Southern’s Los Angeles (LAX) to Guangzhou (CAN) route using Delta SkyMiles or Ultimate Rewards, we finally have a short trip report from a reader. David in NYC writes yesterday:
Hey Adam,
I wanted to let you know that after reading your post on September 6, my wife and I booked two tickets to Male on China Southern Airlines. We used Delta SkyMiles for one ticket and Korean Air SkyPass miles courtesy of Ultimate Rewards for the other. We were both very hesitant as we had never flown or heard of China Southern before and even though it was an A380, it was still China Southern. I am happy to say we were both pleasantly surprised. Was it Singapore or Emirates? No! Did it beat any US airline? Yes! The good – we had very comfortable completely flat seats and very large television screens with a good selection of films and shows, the staff was very accommodating and checked on us several times per hour, and the plane was clean and felt new. The food was decent. The negatives – the connection time in Guangzhou was almost 12 hours. If doing this trip again I would recommend taking a day in Guangzhou rather than waiting in the airport from 5am – 4pm (the connection on the way back was a short 2 hours). The connection flights were on a 777 which was ok, but certainly not up to the A380 standards. Recliner seats, small TV, 4 stations. It was certainly do-able for the 6 hours, especially knowing we were arriving in Male. Hope to have some pictures uploaded later in the week. Most important for us is that we were very happy with the value we received – especially with my SkyMiles!
Remember, China Southern allows you to connect from Guangzhou to Bangkok, Phuket, Singapore, and all over Southeast Asia. Additionally, you can use a few more miles to fly onward to Australia or the Maldives. Delta SkyMiles can be redeemed for business class on China Southern while Korean SkyPass members can redeem for business or first class awards. What’s great is that first class space is about as generous as business availability. Korean is a Chase Ultimate Rewards partner meaning you can easily transfer to Korean SkyPass after earning miles with a qualifying card. Taking advantage of all of the big 3 Chase UR cards would net you 140,000 UR points prior to any required spend.
I know of three additional readers heading to Australia via China Southern, another to Bangkok, and one more to the Maldives, I’ll have them each report back once their trips are completed. If you’ve flown the China Southern A380, please comment with your review!
*Jay reports in the comments below that his Male flight had a schedule change. After some research it seems that the flights to the Maldives will only operate on Thursday and Sunday now.*
Posted by adam |
Categories: Awards, China Southern, Delta, Korean Air
It seems like everyone is booking a trip to Southeast Asia this week, I’ve received four award requests since Monday at Juicy Miles. Randomly, they all want to use Delta SkyMiles as well, though there is little to no low level business award availability on Delta for any of the requested dates (big surprise). My next step is always trying Korean Air, though this time, they too had no business availability on the requested dates.
Beginning October 12, China Southern will be flying their new A380 daily from LAX to CAN (Guangzhou) and business class award availability is wide open. While I’ve normally stayed away from recommending China Southern in the past, their new A380 looks pretty solid. Take a look at their special A380 site for pictures and a 360 degree tour. Remember that business class is referred to as “First Class” while first class is “Deluxe First Class”.
Availability is visible on ExpertFlyer or you can utilize Seth’s Wandering Aramean Travel Tools for a completely free way to check award space. My requests this week included flights to Bangkok, Singapore, and Male and there was hardly a day when I did not find 4 available business class award seats from LAX to CAN. The connection flights usually had 2 seats. Here are some examples using Seth’s tool, the returns had similar availability:
I was even able to book a Juicy Miles request to the Maldives using a combination of the China Southern A380 and China Eastern flights on to Male. **Update China Southern has their own flight to Male from CAN, flight 3083 (Sun/Thurs only)**
Sydney also becomes a possibility…if you can handle 9+ hours on the China Southern A330
Important – several of the Delta agents saw no availability when searching for business class awards on LAX-CAN, I had to instruct them to manually request the space from China Southern, make sure they do this. If they don’t know how or refuse to, hang up and call back for another agent. You can add your domestic positioning flights once you confirm the China Southern flights. Low level business should price at 120,000 SkyMiles while low level economy is 80,000 SkyMiles.
Posted by adam |
Categories: Awards, China Southern, Delta
