June 30, 2010
Today is my first time buying something at airport DFS other than cigarettes because I always travel UA or AA and their international departure terminals don’t carry the cosmetic brand my wife uses. When I pay for the cosmetic, I notice the amount is not a whole number, the sales person told me Hawaii state adds 4% sales tax on cosmetic even in DFS store for international departure. This is really funny, I ended up paying more than what I paid in the US mainland because if online purchase, I have cashback, if in store purchase, I can get lots lots of samples.
hard to understand why the charge taxes in Duty free shop for international departure.
Posted by Troy under 2010 Trip, Airports |
June 30, 2010
Lucky mentioned this offer on his blog! This is by far the best offer ever!
you will earn 30,000 SPG points if you spend $1000 within first 3 months, the previous offer required 15,000 spending within 6 months! There is also a business card
DEADLINE IS JULY 6th, 2010
Posted by Troy under Starwood Hotels |
June 29, 2010
After a nice dinner with my high school friend, my trip continued to HNL on AS 851. Check in was quick, but there were only three stations for first class, I wonder how are they going to handle during peak travel time!
After boarded the aircraft, something interesting happened, my seat assignment was 1F(the last seat I was able to select), window seat, but I saw someone was already sitting there, I was pretty happy about it since I prefer aisle anyway. In the beginning, I though he must sit on the wrong seat, but I saw his boarding pass was showing also 1F . How could that happen? I was the last one to select the seat!
I think because the flight was severing to Hawaii, which I guess it considered some kind of premium flights, it had menu for the breakfast. I chose Pancake+omelet, I had to say, it’s very good and different! The first hour was easy to kill because flight still within US conentint, so Wifi still working, after that, I started to watch in flight entertainment digEplayer. Not a single action movie other than “speed” in the system, so I chose to watch some documentaries. finally, after 5 hours and 41 minutes flying, I arrived in Honolulu.Since AS has 20 mins baggage arrival promise, their bags arrived fast!!! By the time I got to the claim area, belt already started.
I reserved Robert’s Hawaii shuttle service to the hotel-Sheraton Princess, the shuttle arrived shortly after I got off the terminal. Better than I thought because my friend told me sometimes the wait can be very long! The traffic in Honolulu is bad!!!!!! Very BAD!!!!! It’s just make me feel like in NYC with narrower street! Finally, it took me ONE and HALF HOUR to arrive my hotel!
First impression of Honolulu, not so good, not the way I saw on TV!! Overall, my trip is no where near what Gary or Lucky did on Premium first class travel using award, although we all used 120K!! Well, consider 120K Delta is a lot easier to get than Air Canada, I am happy with what I have!
Posted by Troy under 2010 Trip, Delta, Other Airline Reward Programs |
June 29, 2010
After no fly for entire three months, I finally get on board again on AS 531 from ONT-SEA. This is actually my third time flying with Alaska airline, first time SEA-MIA in Y class red eye and second time was CUN-LAX in F.
Maybe because I forgot how to fly already, I even waited in wrong gate until Gate agent called my name, I realized I was actually waiting in front of gate to Portland. Rush to get on board, I found out Alaska flight has in flight internet now. Aha! another change I missed!
The flight delayed a little bit, shortly after departure, the meal(or so called) started, basically just a small plate with half salad and small piece of chicken. I was quite disappointed because I heard my good things about the airline, but already shocked by their meal service from CUN-LAX last time-cold meal. This time, I was not expected too much, but for a 2.5 hours flight, the meal should be better than that, right? Even United served better meal than them.
One good thing is all AS flight WIFI is free until July 31st, sponsors by BOA AS credit card, the bad thing is AS flight has no power outlet, I wonder when people flying from SEA-DCA or EWR or MIA, how many people’s computers can last 5+ hours. I think this is really something AS needs to improve, otherwise it will be very to convince people to use internet on transcont flights.
Overall, I consider AS is a typical US carriers with no nothing special.
Posted by Troy under 2010 Trip, Other Airline Reward Programs |
June 25, 2010
I am sure many people will ask who the TAROM is .According to the news,
“Romania’s flag carrier, With TAROM’s entrance, Delta customers immediately gain the ability to earn and redeem SkyMiles on TAROM flights, as well as access to 11 additional destinations not offered by other SkyTeam airlines including: Iasi, Cluj-Napoca, Constanta and Timisoara, Romania and Chisinau, Moldova.”
It looks to me that SKYTEAM just want to add as many carriers as possible, anyone can join.
Posted by Troy under Delta, Skyteam |
June 23, 2010
The link is here
1. You need to book your trip on lufthansa.com by midnight August 11, 2010 (Eastern time).
2. All travel must be completed by December 31, 2010.
3. Only one voucher number may be applied per reservation, regardless if there are several persons traveling together.
4. You must download your voucher prior to making your booking and enter the number during the final step of the booking process. On the payment page, enter the voucher number into the field “Enter your Voucher:”. Be sure to click the “Apply Voucher and reduce Fare” link. (Vouchers cannot retroactively be applied to existing bookings.)
5. Tickets must be purchased with a U.S. credit card and originate from one of the Lufthansa U.S. gateways.
Posted by Troy under Other Deals and Promotions |
June 22, 2010
Follow the instruction posted here, all miles are posted today.
I am not unhappy with BMI on this promotion posting issue, in fact, I have never been unhappy with them because they always handled everything properly, sometimes slow, but it will be done. BMI has Joanna there to help us!
I know some people get angry because of late posting, but you should not if u are in mileage world long enough
1 you should never count on those promotion miles for your travel plan because almost all promotion carry a clause“bonus miles will be award 8-12 weeks after the end of promotion”
2 there is no need to contact them before end of posting frame because they probably will ask you to wait anyway. Don’t waste your time, just be patient.
When I just join the miles/points world, I always called them before end of posting frame, things never get done because they always told me “8-12 weeks”.
Now, I wait until end of posting frame,most missing miles/points can be posted with 1 call, so be patient!!! you will feel a lot of happier than wasting your time on phone.
Posted by Troy under BMI Diamond Club, General Frequent Flyer Advice, Trip(Wyndham) Rewards and Other Reward programs |
June 22, 2010
My friend came up with a calculation that at certain location, using SPG points for Hilton award has better value than SPG own hotels.
I did some modification on his calculation, the calculation is based on 4 assumptions
1 ignore the SPG Points+ Cash award
2 two hotels are similar standard(doesn’t mean same award category, means hotel standard)
3 ignore the current American airline bonus transfer promotion
4 you are at least a silver elite at Hilton(super easy to get)
As we all know, 20K SPG points can be transferred to 25K AA miles, which can be transferred to 50K Hilton points。
so a 5 nights stay at SPG cat 6=80000 points, cat 7 is even much higher.
However, 80000 spg points=100,000 AA miles=200,000 Hilton points=5 nights free at Hilton cat 7 properties for VIP awards.
Using French Polynesia as example, there are currently having 2 spg cat 7 properties and 3 Hilton cat 7 properties. Since SPG cat 7 requires by way too many points, you can use just 80K SPG for 5 nights at Hilton Bora Bora.
If you choose to stay longer, then using SPG points at Hilton properties offer even better value. 6 nights at SPG cat 6 require 100K SPG points, but 6 nights at Hilton cat 7 only need 225K hilton points, which equals to 112,500 AA miles=92,500 SPG points.
If you factor in the current AA miles transfer promotion, then Using SPG at Hilton is the winner for all SPG redemption at cat 6 or above.
Best of all, AA miles transfer in count toward their lifetime elite status.
A new way to use SPG points.
Posted by Troy under American Airlines, Hilton, Starwood Hotels |
June 21, 2010
I just talked about the benefit of Fidelity my smart card account few days ago, now they increase sign up bonus for AA or DL miles with a new tier to get 50,000 miles.
Same logic, you should be able to get max bonus without too deposit, detail is in here
Posted by Troy under American Airlines, Delta, General Frequent Flyer Advice |
June 18, 2010
I saw the promotion yesterday, but did not pay attention until I think twice today. It’s a super easy promotion to get Plat+lots of miles with Delta(let’s forget the value of pesos for now)
Basiclly, Delta is offering double MQM+bonus miles for flight from Raleigh, St Loius,Pittsburgh,Nashville
registration is open to anyone and must book before Nov 30th 2010 and travel before Dec 30th, 2010, you will earn the following amount unlimited times,
5,000 bonus miles to Delta hub cities(Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis, New York/JFK and Salt Lake City)
10,000 bonus miles to other cities in the North America
25,000 bonus miles for international travel beyond North America in coach
50,000 bonus miles for international travel beyond North America in business class
There are two ways to play with this promotion for members who is not in that area.
If you have a lot of time, get a position flight to one of these four cities first, then start Mileage Run back and forth to a non hub City, you will earn 10K for each R/T+ double MQM.
If you don’t have a lot of time, get a position flight to one of these four cities, then fly to Asia(as far as possible such as PEK. PVG. HKG, BKK, SIN, MNL, GUM), All you need is 2 R/Ts from basic member to Platinum. you can easily find sub $800 fares to those Cities after Sep. 25K bonus each + double MQM.
Since Delta removed miles redeposit fee for Platinum, the value of PLAT is worth a lot more than before.
I agree DL miles have the worst redemption rate, but if you can figure out how to use them, they can be very powerful and creative. During the past few weeks, I have scored 6 business class low award tickets to Asia, Europe and beyond including 4 of them are summer high season and 2 in X’mas.So for now, I will still take them.
Posted by Troy under Delta |
June 16, 2010
View from the wing mentioned on this blog, don’t forget, if you register before June 30th, you will get 10% off on an Air Canada flight within North America for up to 2 passengers.
Posted by Troy under Other Airline Reward Programs |
