My Week in Points January 6-12: 100k-less and haywire UA seat selection

I missed out on that Amex Platinum 100k offer. It bothered me for an hour, then I realized it is not all that important and moved on.

Winding back, I was in Las Vegas for New Media Expo and CES, battling a cold, that evening having happy hour with, ironically, Daraius of Million Mile Secrets, among several travel bloggers. I did not overhear him discussing the offer, and afterwards went back to my hotel and crashed in bed without touching my computer. By the time I woke up, 3 hours behind due to the time zone, I puttered around with my shower and ironing, learning about it just late enough to think I had a shot.

Oh well. Points come and go, memories seeing friends at two great events will last longer. Most amusingly, at one party I saw two guys who I did not get a chance to talk with, then the next night they turned up as the readers that were taking me to a party. That party featured the finals of a competitive gaming competition for Starcraft. That is one way to kill a party. Virtually no one had any idea what was happening, as the commentators were only for the web audience. I finally asked a tech, “How long does this go?” “Best of 7,” was the answer. The next question was what game we were in and the answer not encouraging. And that was for 3rd place, the 1st place match must have been going into the following morning.

Not that I would turn down a Platinum 100k code, mind you, but I can live with a 100k-less happy week.

So I did little miles and points, other than flying on Delta, having a points-wise wasted stay at Planet Hollywood, and steadily working on credit card minimum spends from my recent churn, along with tracking first statements and payments. For me it is healthy to mostly unplug from this hobby here and there, even when it means missing deals.

American Airlines:

• My plans of eventually using Avios for quick Caribbean country-collecting hops have been dashed with the gutting of American’s San Juan hub (via Point Me to the Plane). Darn, darn, darn.

United Airlines:

• My one and only flight on UA was in 1997, and I know little of the airline. From the outside it seems the major selling point among the most devoted is to hold one’s nose while flying just to get access to Star Alliance partners. My mother-in-law wanted a nonstop to Shanghai so we redeemed credit card-earned miles for her. Two days out we made a seat change. At the 24-hour check-in period the night before departure, her seat mysteriously went back to the original and the desired seat was taken. Morning of departure she was further mysteriously returned to the new seat we had wanted. Shows the steep learning curve when taking on a new airline.

Well, sorry for a light week, that’s how it was.