The Oneworld 10th anniversary promotion offering 10% discount off most of their alliance product fares (ie around the world and similar) ends 3 November 2009.

If booking through an airline or travel agent then ideally the booking should be done today or tomorrow. This is because these types of fares are complex and take time to ticket, and the people that verify the bookings are valid for pricing typically do not work in the weekend.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

Celebrating Friday with a short interview with a frequent flyer.

Anglo Large Clawed Otter (ALCO)

ALCO is a Flyer Talk addict who enjoys (in truth is addicted to) flying. ALCO’s work has little or no travel, and night law school also doesn’t provide much travel opportunities. Weekend travel to the Caribbean or Europe provides ALCO with stress relief and a chance to catch up on coursework. Getting away for the weekend often means catching up with friends scattered around North America and Europe.

First, some questions to see what kind of frequent flyer ALCO is.

What is your home airport?
ALCO – Houston Bush International Airport.

What is the airline you usually fly?
ALCO – Continental Airlines, as they offer the most nonstop options from their Houston hub.

Which of the following best describes your flying pattern?
- infrequent (eg annual) leisure trip
× jetsetting for pleasure
- frequent (eg monthly) business travel
- road warrior
- mileage runner
- I live on planes

How do you mostly earn your frequent flyer miles?
- promos
- credit card spend
- business and leisure travel
- taking extra flights on trips I need to take
× mileage running
ALCO – To pad my frequent flyer balances I prefer to book QUP fares on either United or US Airways to earn miles in bmi’s Diamond Club program, which offers extremely favourable earning rates for first class fares. It is often possible to earn on such fares at 3 cents per mile or less, and the first class seat and service make spending an entire weekend doing transcontinental mileage runs bearable.

Please describe how you travel in 4 words.
ALCO – as much as possible

Now for some travel advice from ALCO.

How will Continental joining Star Alliance impact on your travel?
ALCO – Continental’s move to *A is a welcome change.

Some things won’t change for me. Most of my Continental flights will continue to be credited to OnePass so I can continue to qualify for the plentiful elite upgrades. I’ll continue to use United and US Airways domestic first class fares for their less restrictive routing rules than Continental first class fares (which tend to require nonstop or one-stop flights), and continue to credit these to bmi for the better earning & redemption value.

However, the Continental RTW award, which is already great value in first and business class requiring far less miles than other frequent flyer programs, will be further improved by the access to Star Alliance flights. I expect Continental will soon lift the RTW award mileage level to match that of United. I’ll take advantage of these while I still can.

What is inside your carry-on bag right now?
ALCO – A weekend’s worth of clothes (for a mix of climates depending on connecting cities), several kilos of textbooks, my macbook and ipod, and my trusty Canon 40D (photography and in particular travel photography are hobbies).

What is your preferred airline for regular travel, and why?
ALCO – For regular travel, I prefer Continental Airlines. Their upgrade scheme suits my travel habits (primarily to leisure destinations on weekends), and I rarely find myself sitting in coach even on the cheapest fares. Continental’s upgrade scheme (miles and copay) for international business class is far less generous than their domestic upgrade scheme. Despite this I generally earn enough miles for longhaul trips to either be on a business class award or be upgraded to business.

What is your preferred airline for a special trip, and why?
ALCO – Without a doubt, Emirates. I recently had the pleasure of flying Emirates in business class between Capetown and Houston (via Dubai). Despite spending over 24 hours in the air on that itinerary, I didn’t want the flights to end. I thought the seat and service were flawless.

Please give one of your great tips on travel.
ALCO – Never be afraid to try out a new destination simply because it hasn’t garnered the sorts of favourable reviews that many staple vacation destinations have. I have found reviews of destinations, hotels and airlines on sites like Trip Advisor and Flyer Talk that vary wildly, depending on the reviewer’s unique perspective. Though I value such reviews, and may even use them as a planning guide, I have found that I can’t really judge a place until I have been there myself. Based on the accounts of others, I was not really expecting to find much of interest on recent trips to Lima, Peru and Seoul, South Korea. I was pleasantly surprised with both places, finding many interesting activities, landmarks and culinary adventures in each destination. I would highly recommend a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to anyone visiting Seoul, even if you are in Seoul only for a long transit. The experience was one of the most fascinating tours I have ever undertaken.

What is your preferred frequent flyer program, and why?
ALCO – bmi Diamond Club. The earnings rates in premium cabins are stellar, and the redemption opportunities and rates within Star Alliance and on partner airlines are good. I like that the program offers one-way awards, and also offers cash + miles redemptions. Having access to United and US Airlines lounges on domestic itineraries as a bmi Gold card holder is also a great benefit.

Please give a tip on frequent flyer programs.
ALCO – It is very difficult to generalise in this area, as flying patterns and frequent flyer goals vary so much from person to person. I have found sites like FlyerTalk to be an invaluable resource for investigating the relative merits of the various programs. The knowledge and experience shared on FlyerTalk has helped me immensely in furthering my own goals of pursuing ever more travel.

Ahh yes, FT is good for feeding travel addictions. Thanks Anglo Large Clawed Otter for sharing. Have a great weekend.

For other frequent flyer friday posts please check out the index. If you have any questions you’d like answered, or wish to nominate someone for an interview, please drop me a line using the please use the contact me link. For all sorts of reasons I can’t make any guarantees, but if you’re interested chances are others are too and so we’ll get some good interviews.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

Jetstar, the low cost subsidiary of Qantas, has launched a new program today. It is not a frequent flyer program (because they are too expensive) but instead a frequent buyer program launched to a branded Macquarie Bank credit card (Mastercard).

For every A$1 spent you get one Jetstar Dollar (jetbucks?) cent, or two on the more expensive platinum card. Like Air New Zealand Airpoints (with Airpoints Dollars), the Jetstar Dollars are used directly to pay fares of that value. However, there are some gotchas:

• vouchers are issued automatically when 100 Jetstar Dollars are accumulated
• vouchers can only be issued in multiples of 25 Jetstar Dollars
• when a voucher is issued you have 3 months to ticket and 6 months to fly it before the voucher expires
• Jetstar Dollars can only be redeemed on Jetstar flights
• earning cap at A$50,000 a year (or A$100,000 a year on the platinum card)

When using the Jetstar branded credit card on www.jetstar.com to make a flight booking the credit card charges are waived.

You can use a mixture of credit card and Jetstar Dollar vouchers to pay fares. It is unclear whether the excess of voucher value over fare is lost or retained for future use (I’m guessing it is lost).

Conversion of Jetstar Dollars to Qantas Frequent Flyer points is planned for next year.

Overall, it is a cheap pale imitation of most frequent flyer or credit card rewards programs. However if you fly Jetstar a lot it may be worthwhile. For more information, check out the Jetstar Mastercard page.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

This is part of a series of blog entries on how to get to countries and places. Here is a link to the index. I plan to eventually cover every country and some other places. If you have a request for a particular country or place please use the email me link at top right, or leave a comment.

Burma (aka Myanmar)

Source: Xianzi Tan

Land border crossings exist but have a myriad of rules and are often closed. Thus more visitors to Burma arrive by air. Airlines flying to Yangon (Rangoon) include:

• Star Alliance – Air China, Asiana, Thai
• Oneworld – none
• Sky Team – China Southern, Vietnam
• Other selected – Malaysia Airlines, several Southeast Asian low cost airlines

TIP Longhaul fares to Burma are relatively high. It is cheaper to have a longhaul ticket to Bangkok, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur and then fly to Burma on a separate ticket.

TIP In business class a Star Alliance or Sky Team award is good value, or including Burma on a around the world fare.

UPDATED August 2010 – Updated for TAM and Aegean joining Star Alliance, Shanghai leaving Star Alliance, Vietnam Airlines and TAROM joining Sky Team. Advice has been changed.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

Unite, the union for BA’s cabin crew, has issued notice of a ballot of their members for strike action (BBC). Given the formalities that apply, if a strike does happen it is likely to be close to Christmas. The earliest possible date is 30 November although that is improbable and the latest date for a strike to commence is about 28 December.

Time to start thinking about contingency plans, particularly for travel that is time-constraint (can’t easily be delayed) or on routes with few alternatives.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

I travel a lot, and as such I am recognised by some airline, airport and lounge staff, and immigration/customs and security officers at certain airports which I pass through very frequently.

However this didn’t prepare me for a recent encounter in Singapore. While I used to pass through Singapore very often (a few times a month), lately it has been just a few times a year with the most recent being several months ago. So I was stunned to be remembered by a security screener the other day. She not only knew me but remembered my name!

Singapore Changi airport has many millions of passengers passing through every year. There are many security screening stations (at almost every gate) and so there must be hundreds of screeners at this airport. Perhaps it was my tiredness from having spent 4 days travelling, but I was spooked by this. Do I have a stalker? A fan? A friend of a friend perhaps?

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

No, not from me.

Self-confessed travel dork, The Cranky Flier (the blog is a must read for me), is now offering a travel concierge service targetted at infrequent airline travellers based in USA.

Expert help is offered for all the main areas of worry for flyers, from planning, to monitoring, contingency plans in case of problems and post-flight disputes with the airlines.

The rates are low for the angst saved, and I can’t believe the surcharge for international travel is a mere $20 given how much more complicated it is.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

It is no wonder airport security has a bad name amongst regular travellers when rules get made up by the screeners/officers.

Today while in a short queue of 3 people I saw and experienced directly myself a screener make up 3 different “rules”, one for each passenger. No this wasn’t in USA.

What made up security rules have you experienced?

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

Granted, the first travel dream coming true for me recently sets a low bar, but it has been long time a-coming. Finally after years of frustration my local airport will have a bus service that meets every arriving and departing flight. Over the years I’ve spent a small fortune on cabs (it is a 30-60+ minute cab ride each direction for me) because there is no bus early enough for the early morning departures, or late enough for the late evening arrivals, both of which feature prominently in my itineraries. It was recently announced that from next week the bus will be running 24/7. Yay. I still have gripes about the service, such as the spotty frequency and the lack of frequent flyer discounts (this week alone I’ll use the bus 8 times!) but 24/7 is a good move to be applauded.

The second travel dream was the very rare double upgrade from a cramped economy seat to a luxurious business class bed on a 14 hour flight. I’m very grateful to the airline staff who arranged this for me.

The third travel dream is yet to happen, but I am counting down to it. I’ve been wanting to fly Singapore Airlines on the A380 for years, even planning to be on the inaugural until my hopes were dashed by the date confirmation coming hot on the heels of a complicated itinerary booked in a race for lifetime frequent flyer status a few years ago. Since then I’ve flown Qantas A380, and Emirates A380, both in first class. Earlier this year I flew Singapore Airlines A380 for the first time, in business class. Finally, in a couple of weeks time, I get to fly first class on Singapore Airlines A380 thanks to judicious use of a frequent flyer mileage award. That isn’t the only thing I’m looking forward to on that trip, but the other stuff will have to wait for my flight has been called for boarding.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.

This is part of a series of blog entries on how to get to countries and places. Here is a link to the index. I plan to eventually cover every country and some other places. If you have a request for a particular country or place please use the email me link at top right, or leave a comment.

American Samoa

Source: Eric Guinther

American Samoa isn’t the easiest of places to reach. You can arrive by ferry from Samoa or by air from Apia (Polynesian Airlines) or Honolulu (Hawaiian Airlines).

TIP As neither Polynesian Airlines nor Hawaiian Airlines are members of any alliances, award and RTW fare options are limited. From North America it will almost certainly be cheapest to fly via Hawaii.

Musings of the Global Traveller
Thoughts, advice and travel news from around the world by a seasoned frequent flyer.