View from the Wing

For all the complaints about award travel, and this is something I’ve written about before (and by no means to brag), I really don’t have too much trouble finding award seats.

That’s partly because I have a critical mass account balance with several different airlines and major alliances, so when I go to redeem if there isn’t availability with one I simply query another.

But it’s also because I redeem nmostly for premium class international travel, and while those tickets aren’t always available on all routes by any means, I’ve often seen the biggest complaints - with a few notable exceptions - to be about the old fashioned 25,000 mile domestic awards. And those are hardly the best value anyway.

I’d just assume pay my $250 - $400 for a flight between DC and California, earn miles on those flights, and use the miles for a much greater return: the $10,000+ ticket I could never afford to purchase but that makes travel more than just an uncomfortable means to get from A to B.

Plus, there are a few tricks to the process.

Recently I used United Mileage Plus miles for two international first class awards from DC to Phuket, Thailand, with a stopover in Hong Kong on the return. That’s not the kind of award that the United website lets you search for, so it requires a phone call.

“Hello, I’d like two tickets from DC to Phuket in First Class, please.”

“Sorry, nothing’s available.”


“Are you sure? Is there availability on the Dulles-Tokyo non-stop, either with United or ANA, on my preferred date?”


“Yes.”


“How about Tokyo to Bangkok?”


“Yes.”


“And Bangkok to Phuket?”


“Yes.”


“Great! Let’s look at the return. Can I go from Phuket to Bangkok and on to Hong Kong?”


“Yes.”


“Great. Let’s hang out there for a few days, it’ll be interesting to see all the events surrounding the anniversary of Great Britain’s handover to mainland China. Now I need to get home. Can I go from Hong Kong to Seoul?”


“Yes.”


“How about Seoul to Chicago, on Asiana?”


“Yes.”


“Great! I bet we can even find seats from Chicago to DC, right?”


“Yes.”


“Great! I think we’ve found an award itinerary. Now, I still may want to work on the routing, so I’m not quite ready to ticket. But let’s put this baby on hold!”


“Have I met all your travel needs today, sir?”

Customers call and get told nothing’s available. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s available. Agents may be poorly trained. It may take work, the computer systems they’re working with aren’t perfect by any means and may only check a limited number of simple routings. And they may not want to go through all the work of testing segments one at a time, even if it occurs to them that they could.

So I’ve found one big secret to booking award travel is to do the legwork yourself. That’s hard to do on the phone with testy agents. But it’s much easier to do by yourself. But most airlines don’t let you do it! On their own websites, anyway.

The first thing to do is know the routings. Know the partners. Who flies where you’re trying to go? And especially if you’re looking for a premium class seat (and you really should be…), but even for coach, start with the hardest part of the trip to get. In this case it was the transpacific segmetns. Look, I know I can get from DC to Chicago or the West Coast and back. The hard part is going to be finding first class seats across the Pacific.

So before I call United I write out United’s partners that fly across the Pacific and the routes that they fly. Then I check for availability on those specific flights. And once I find availability, I work forwards and backwards from there, in order to (1) get to the transpacific gateway city, and (2) get from the destination of the flight I’ve found to the city I’m actually trying to get to, if necessary.

The way I do this when redeeming United miles is that I’ve signed up for an ANA Mileage Plan account. And ANA Mileage Plan members can use that program’s website to check availability on most of their Star Alliance partner’s flights. (Swissair seems not to come up as an option on the ANA site.) Air Canada offers something similar, though the ANA site performs better for me.

Working with other airlines it is often the case that you’ll need to sign up with frequent flyer accounts with many of the carrier’s partners and check each partner individually. A pain, perhaps, but worth the payoff when looking for the elusive three-cabin first seats to Asia.

Now it should be said that the results found on the ANA website are not going to be a perfect match for what United will let you book. ANA does a good job telling you what seats a Star Allaince carrier is making available as an award. But United then filters availability with some parnters on certain routes. So while Thai Airways might be offering an award seat from London to Bangkok, United might reply “not available.” They make it sound like Thai isn’t offering it, when in reality United just refuses to pay for it.

United uses a system called StarNet for booking these awards, and agents are only supposed to book what comes up there. Used to be that you could still grab an available seat via a ‘manual sell’… The agent sends a message to the partner carrier asking them for the award seat, and then it would come back confirmed, bypassing United’s filtering in StarNet entirely. But that’s exceedingly rare these days, as customer service reps are no longer supposed to do it.

I find the biggest problems with United’s filtering to be on Lufthansa, especially routes within Europe, and also premium class long-haul on Thai. They really don’t need to do much filtering with Singapre, as those seats are hard enough to come by on their own! (Although I’m always surprised by how much business class availability on Singapore is out there, and how frequently I can find a single seat in First… It’s that second seat on the same flights that’s so often vexxing.)

Still, the ANA tool is an excellent starting place, and tells you what flights to ask for when calling United. Doing the work for the agent on the other end of the phone is one of the absolute keys to finding the award seats you want.

It’s also helpful to know when to look for seats. United in particular releases seats both early and late. Check 5+ months out, check a couple weeks before departure, check 2-3 days before departure. Now, if you’re like me you look obsessively more often. And revenue management will release seats at various times. The idea for the airline is to offer as awards those seats they’re confident won’t be sold, and at the same time ensure that customers don’t book award seats that they’d otherwise purchase with cash.

Some seats get released when schedules are loaded 330 days out. But the ‘I called 330 days out and the seats were already gone!’ complaint misses the point. There may not have been any seats released yet. And just because seats aren’t available, doesn’t mean that they won’t become available.

At least until United’s premium cabin availability shrinks dramatically (and perhaps even then) with the introduction of their new business and first class cabins, it’s pretty much a lock to be able to find premium class transpacific flights days before departure.

This isn’t true with all airlines. In some cases, once seats have been booked, no more will be released, even in the case of an empty cabin. But United definitely dumps unsold seats into award inventory very frequently in the days leading up to a flight.

Check it yourself — search for international first and business class 2-3 days forward on various transpacific routes and you’ll be shocked at how easy they are to get.

Ok, fair enough, you don’t want to wait to plan a spur of the moment vacation. But you don’t have to. Just plan the best itinerary you possibly can when you’re doing your initial booking and “trade up.” Look for better seats. Maybe you found an undesireable routing, or you only found coach. Book it, lock in your trip, and then call back to make a change. Unless you’re a United 1K you’ll have to pay $100 per ticket, but it’s a fee I’d find worth it to go from coach to 3-cabin first for a day of flying in each direction.

A co-worker recently came to me for help on a transpacific trip. He was having no luck talking to United. We found some coach seats (what he was looking for) for a transpacific trip, on his preferred carrier even. Then I said “you’re so close to enough miles for business class, consider booking the coach ticket and go earn the difference in miles then re-ticket later.” He signed up for a United Visa (see here and here regarding the business visa), will soon have the points he needs from the signup bonus, and will be in a position to trade up later.

With 60,000 points for coach and 90,000 for business to Asia (just 15k more each way, and that gets you all the way from the US East Coast to just about anywhere in Asia!), the premium cabin represents one of the best values out there in award redemption.

Tyler Cowen points to what the cost of transportation used to be, from The Pursuit of Glory, Europe 1648-1815

In England it was calculated that one horse was needed for every mile of a journey on a well-maintained turnpike road. So, for the 185 miles from Manchester to London, 185 horses had to be kept stabled and fed to deal with the seventeen changes required by the stagecoaches which traveled the route. Those horses in turn required an army of coachmen, postillions, guards, grooms, ostlers and stable-boys to keep them running.

…

A journey from Augsburg to Innsbruck by stagecoach, although little more than 60 miles as the crow flies, would have cost an unskilled laborer more than a month’s wages just for the fare.

Kinda puts gripes about airfare in perspective.

This past weekend I cooked some more of the Thai food I learned to make in a cooking class earlier in the month in Khao Lak. This time, in addition to remaking the soup and chicken dishes previously mentioned, I made duck in red curry.

Gaeng Phet Ped Yang (Roasted Duck in Red Curry)

• roast duck
  
• red curry paste
  
• veggie oil
  
• coconut milk
  
• light coconut milk
  
• baby eggplant
  
• cherry tomato
  
• kaffir lime leaf
  
• lychee
  
• diced pineapple
  
• sugar palm
  
• fish sauce

Heat the oil, add chili paste, then add and saute thinly sliced duck.

Add coconut milk, light coconut milk, tomato, eggplant, kaffir lime leaf, sugar palm, salt, and fish sauce.

Serve with rice.

Yum!

I have a hard time understanding why Thai Airways runs their updated 3-class 747s with angled lay flat business seats and true flat first class seats on a short run like Bangkok-Phuket. Seems like poor fleet planning at first glance, though I haven’t looked at whether the planes also fly internationally and this is just a way to get a few extra hours’ of flying time out of them.

Asiana does something similar, flying 3-class planes sold as 2-class. (I flew Hong Kong-Seoul earlier this month, and an old style 747 was running the route on the day I traveled.)

Trick is just to request the first rows of the plane when traveling on a business class ticket. Worked no problem for me on both carriers.

Of course, American still does the same thing on certain domestic US routes (and sells two-cabin planes as all-coach on certain international routes) — a boon for American elites who can pre-reserve their upgrade while still unfortuantely receiving coach service.

Here’s the Thai Airways seat I had for less than 500 miles…

Cranky Flier used to work in revenue management for America West (which has since acquired USAirways and took their name). He points to the fare basis code for a USAirways one-way B fare codeshare from LAX to Sydney. Hint: it’s not family friendly.

He speculates that this one was inadvertant, though I do occasionally see fare basis codes designed to telegraph competitive intentions or otherwise send messages to competing carriers (the occasional ‘FU’ in the up to eight letter designation). In this case, the fare Cranky Flier refers to is likely not sending a message… just a funny confluence of designators.

I verified this myself, pulling up one-way USAirways fares using the KVS Availability Tool:

[KVS Availability Tool 2.8.5/Platinum - Sabre: Fares/ZUJ/SG/USD]




LAX Los Angeles Int’l CA US [KLAX]

SYD Sydney Kingsford Smith NS AU [YSSY]

OW Jul-Jun




US LAX SYD 1038 USD BLOWQE

US LAX SYD 1199 USD BKOWQE

US LAX SYD 1389 USD BLOWHE

US LAX SYD 1576 USD BHOWQE

US LAX SYD 1599 USD BKOWHE

US LAX SYD 1641 USD BLOWME

US LAX SYD 1895 USD BKOWME

US LAX SYD 2030 USD BHOWHE

US LAX SYD 2082 USD BLOW

US LAX SYD 2305 USD BHOWME

US LAX SYD 2348 USD BKOW

US LAX SYD 2802 USD BHOW

US LAX SYD 3998 USD YOX

US LAX SYD 4186 USD Y

US LAX SYD 9141 USD COX

US LAX SYD 10491 USD C

US LAX SYD 12386 USD FOX

US LAX SYD 12851 USD F

As United rolls out the new international premium class product, some aircraft will have the new configuration and some will not — and the planes have very different configurations, very different number of premium class seats.

United is famous for aircraft swaps, unfortunately this has happened most recently with mainline A320s to TED (no first class) and before that it was downgrading regular 737s to old Shuttle aircraft that used to service the West Coast only. These aircraft swaps are disruptive, with different seating configurations. And ticketed first class passengers, in the TED example, go to an all-coach configuration. Not as big a deal on domestic routes as long-haul international.

But dropping 21 business class seats from the 747 has the potentially to be hugely disruptive. Either United will hold back most upgrades until the gate when it’s certain it’s running one of the old-style aircraft (bye bye advance upgrades) or it will be faced with significant at the gate downgrades (very unpleasant) when swapping out an old style aircraft with a newly confiugured one.

While I don’t ever bet on United’s savvy, I do think they’ll hold back upgrade availability… and then coach passengers looking to upgrade will be hoping for older aircraft once the renovations are underway because there will be much better upgrade chances.

Still, on some routes upgrades won’t be the issue. United will either be turning away paid business class, or potentially downgrading paid business passengers (though if first class seats haven’t been sold out, they’ll be managing the problem through operational upgrades).

A minor point, but a problem that United does at least have some time to work through.

We have to take off our shoes walking through TSA security checkpoints, because Richard Reid’s shoes had wires coming out of them and nobody noticed. And lighters were banned because if Richard Reid had had a lighter he might have been able to light his shoes on fire.

But even the TSA now admits the lighter part is silly. Lighters are safe. At least they will be on August 4th. But as Mike Boyd points out, until midnight on August 3rd they are apparently still dangerous.

At least at some point in the future shampoo may no longer be dangerous. But I won’t count on it.

Update: Upgrade: Travel Better points out just how surreal it is that lighters carrying fluid that’s flammable are ok.. but water is still somehow a security threat.

According to HotelChatter, when Priceline books rooms for out of town guests to its corporate headquarters, they reserve the nearby Doubletree… they don’t actually name their own price on Priceline.

United is refitting its international widebody fleet with new first and business class seats beginning in the fall (with the 767s) and ending two and a half years from now.

United’s promo site is here.

Business class will feature:

• true lie-flat seats (not the angled-flat wedgie seats)

• some rear-facing seats in business class
  
• 15″ lcd video screens and video on demand

• iPod adapter and standard outlets for seat power

This will give United the best seats among US-based carriers. But they’re hardly world-leading. Virgin, Air New Zealand, Singapore, British Airways, and Cathay Pacific already offer similar business class seats. Those last three all offer first class as well, with products that will still surpass United’s (and we’re not even getting into the ’soft product’ of food, service, and amenities - more about that below).

Along with the business class upgrades come far fewer seats — the 747 goes from 73 seats to 52, the 777 from 49 seats to 40, and the 767 from 32 to 26. That’s make international premium class awards and upgrades much harder to come by.

Not surprising, of course, if United is going to invest the money in the product they want a revenue premium for doing so.

There will be fewer first class seats, and on the 747 a whole bunch fewer economy-plus seats. They’ll be packing more sardines in the back.

While first class is improved as well, the difference in hardware between two cabins is reduced. Other airlines that upgrade their business class product while retaining 3 classes of service differentiate the front cabin not just with fewer seats and better hardware, but with meaningfully better service and meals. It’s just hard to imagine United doing this … with designer amenity kits and pajamas, with truly gourmet meals (including good Iranian caviar, lobster, etc) and fine wines (even Dom fails the test for first class champagne), and with attentive, anticipatory flight attendants. I’m actually surprised that United didn’t go two-cabin with this investment and cabin re-fit..

The promo video courtesy of YouTube:

For the second half of September the Shanghai Radisson is pricing at $17 instead of $117 at GTAHotels.com.

It’s an ‘on request’ booking, so far from guaranteed that it will be honored.

Ghana withdrew Lufthansa’s right to offer daily service from Accra to Frankfurt (via Lagos) because Lufthansa refused to pay royalties to the Ghana state airline. That meant that, by treaty, they retained the right to twice weekly service, which they have chosen not to offer — viewing it as a money loser (most of the fixed costs without many seats to amortize them over). And then Ghana goes ballistic over Lufthansa’s “bad faith” decision to pull out of Accra!

Ultimately the government was unsuccessful at blackmailing Lufthansa for US$4 million, refused to back down from its threats, and now has lost Lufthansa’s international service. Clearly the people of Ghana are not better off for the actions of its government.

Sad, really.

Consumerist says you should shop for airfare on Saturdays. Like the traditional story about Wednesday at midnight, the idea of a specific day of the week that you’ll get the lowest price is a myth.

They do, at least, helpfully point readers to ITA Software, a powerful search tool — but only marginally useful for novices.

The real usefulness of ITA Software comes into play when narrowing searching with their advanced route language.

Folks who don’t want to go crazy learning it might be best advised to start their airfare searches with Kayak.

I’m recently back from Khao Lak, Thailand among other destinations in Asia. The trip was prompted by the Ugandan Schillings rate at the Le Meridien. My wife had three nights booked in the Presidential Oceanfront Villa and I had three nights booked in the Royal Suite. That satisfied the requirement that they’d only honor one reservation per person, and together we had six consecutive nights at the resort. The Presidential Villa wasn’t showing up for all six nights when we booked, so we had to settle for the smaller Royal Suite for half the stay when making our booking. As I saw pictures from others who had stayed in both rooms, I was actually getting disappointed. While the Royal Suite looked fabulous, the Presidential Oceanfront Villa was just breathtaking — how I’d hate to move!

When we arrived in Khao Lak, the hotel car was waiting for us. At 1800 Baht for the 70 minute drive it’s more expensive than a cab (~ 1300 Baht) but the incremental expense seemed worthwhile. I do tend to prefer a hotel car.

Upon arrival we were seated, greeted with cold towels and drinks, and checked in. I showed them both reservations and they noted that the Royal Suite had already been upgraded to the smaller oceanfront villa. Nice! But that still meant changing rooms, and I asked if we could just stay in the Presidential villa for both nights. (Both rooms are now referred to as oceanfront residences, but the internal code for the Presidential Villa remains unchanged, “PY“.) After checking in back I was told that wouldn’t be a problem. Nice!

We were taken to our room and we were floored. Even seeing the pictures in advance, it was still absolutely stunning. A 2-bedrrom, 2.5 bath room, 3100 square feet, full kitchen. Each bedroom had a large bathroom with two vanities and with a separate shower and tub. Each shower opened up into an enclosed, private outdoor rainshower. I just assumed the outdoor rainshower I had heard about was to was off from the beach before re-entering the room. Oh, there was that too — but these were really just outdoor private showers. The room had a private pool, its own stretch of beach, and a direct view towards the ocean. Plenty of pool chairs and a couple private beach chairs, as well as two outdoor tables perfect for enjoying room service.

Since it’s low season (ostensibly rainy season, though it rained only one night and briefly one afternoon in our six day stay) the resort was nearly empty, I’d guess 15% occupancy. As a result, all spa treatments were 25% off, and food & beverages 20% off in the restaurants. Of course, breakfast was included in our rate. And with the Thai Baht at an all-time high against the dollar, an hour long massage at the spa still came to less than US$40. We had three treatments apiece.

Service was fine, English-speaking was prevalent, but I suspect that was all a function of being low-season so they’ve retained only their preferred staffers and those folks were far from overwhelmed with guests. Spa was lovely, though spa reception was a big lacking (only provided with drinks and cold towels 1 of 3 times before entering treatment room, where of course we received them).

With the private pool and my own stretch of oceanfront we never did venture to any of the main pools or the main beach area.

We enjoyed the Thai cooking class, given to us privately by the chef of the hotel’s Thai restaurant. She was a marvelous grandmotherly lady who explained things well enough that I’ve already had some success preparing Thai dishes myself now that I’m back in the States. She’s traveled abroad with the Le Meridien chain, spending a month at the Le Meridien Picadilly in London in elsewhere. An outstanding couple of hours, though not inexpensive for Thailand at 2000 Baht apiece — still, a value for an activity like that at a nice resort.

That’s one of the /reasons why I love South Asia so much. Of course there are many others. But even at prime resorts things are sufficiently inexpensive compared to resorts elsewhere that I can enjoy myself without worrying too much about cost.

Food was ‘okay’ … nice breakfast buffet .. Most restaurants were closed, only the open air Bangsak restaurant (where breakfast is served) and Thai restaurant were open daily for dinner. Kukkuk, the nightclub just off the reception area, was open over the weekend but I didn’t visit it. The Thai restaurant was good, but menu options fairly limited. Room service quality was excellent and inexpensive.

While in Khao Lak we had some suits made. Visited Monty the Tailor, picked out style and material and had measurements taken. Then they came to us for the first and second fittings, and delivered the clothes as well. All for less than the price of off the rack.

If I were returning to Khao Lak and paying a regular rate for my room I’d probably choose the Sarojin over the Le Meridien, upgrades aside. And recent word is that getting upgrades at the Le Meridien is somewhat difficult. Starwood platinum members might obtain a suite in the main building, but generally won’t be given an upgrade from a standard room to a Villa of any sort. And it’s the room that made the property and stay extraordinary.

Service wasn’t as amazing as at the Sheraton Pattaya, one of the places I stayed during my trip to Thailand last year. But this may well have been my best hotel room … ever. And that takes into account the Diplomatic Suite at the Intercontinental Bangkok; a Terrace Suite at the Mark Hopkins; one of the preferred Overwater Bungalows at Bora Bora Nui; an Atlantic Suite at the former Westin Rio Mar in San Juan; and of course others that I’ve blogged about here over time.

Well worth the trip!

More photos after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

… from the Senate and applies for a job in revenue management and route planning for Delta.

(Okay, not really.)

Online Travel Review notes, though, the business advice that he’s been dispensing to Delta in response to their pulling out of the Binghamton-New York and Binghamton-Atlanta markets.

“Delta’s move is premature and poorly thought out. The New York City service had a solid start, and Delta needs to give it time to take root and let it prosper, while the Atlanta route has consistently carried a high volume of passengers.”

And since Chuck Schumer has extensive experience running profitable businesses in general, and airlines in particular, Delta should of course heed his advice and seek to lure him away from the Senate with a lucrative offer.

Or not.

USAirways and most other airlines have offered status matches — a way to pilfer the best customers of other airlines.

Elite status with an airline usually locks a customer into flying that airline. They get upgrades, bonus miles, and other perks. How can they give that up, even to change to another airline?

Airlines make it easier for customers to switch by advancing status to customers who already have it with a competitor — if I were an American Platinum member I could get Continental to give me Gold status right away so I’d still have elite benefits when I switched.

(The definitive discussion of the subject is a Flyertalk thread I started in October, 2003 that’s still going strong.)

Most US domestic airlines offer status matches of one kind or another. American has long required challenges — an accelerated way to earn status, rather than granting it outright (although with no need to demonstrate existing status with a competitor, but they’re also not granting status right away anyway). United has recently been offering temporary status matches of 90, along with an accelerated way to earn status during that 90 day period. Both are more restrictive than the traditional challenge.

But as Upgrade: Travel Better notes, USAirways has gone more liberal. They’re letting customers buy trial elite status and challenges. In other words, no longer is there a requirement that customers be an elite customer with a competitor to get instant status with USAirways. All they have to do is fork over some cash. Now, in my view the price probably isn’t worth it. And their product isn’t so good as to entice too many elites over. But someone who is really going to start flying USAirways a great deal due to their specific routes and who wants to get status right away rather than starting from zero might well consider the offer.

It’s generated some outrage on Flyertalk, and I understand the sentiment, but I don’t see it as a huge issue since I don’t expect elite ranks to be swamped by the offer. It’s much less of a big deal than USAirways offering their ‘all miles count’ promotion last year when some members earned even top tier elite status (which can’t be purchased through the current offer) by sending enough flowers…

Northwest is offering 500 bonus miles for booking a roundtrip on their website and paying with Paypal by September 30 for travel through the end of the year. (Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)

I do suppose that more payment methods are better, and this in essence gives customers the ability to pay via direct debit from a bank account in addition to a credit card, and they won’t need a Visa-branded debit card in order to do it. my hundh, though, is that the universe for this is rather small.

Paypal is a great way for small shops to begin accepting credit cards without much hassle, and to give customers confidence in paying by credit card when the vendor is a relatively unknown. But for larger institutions? I’m not really sure I follow the benefit to Northwest here. Presumably it’s not business-changing, but they view this as a big enough deal to promote it with bonus miles…

LanChile’s LanPass program is offering a signup bonus of 5000 kilometers plus additional bonus points for booking trips on their website. Offer is valid through December 31, 2007 and is restricted to residents of Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Germany. (Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)

I took advantage of a similar signup bonus last year and the 5000 points posted instantly. While I haven’t much used the program since, there are some really nice options in it. LanPass is a member of oneworld (a partner of American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, etc.) and there are a few values in their distance-based award chart. Pointrs transfers from Starwood to LanPass can be especially lucrative.

In April Amtrak announced that a new Guest Rewards Mastercard would be introduced in the fall, and that the card would come with a standard 2500 bonus points at signup — but that folks who registered using promo code 42507 would get 5000 points instead.

According to a new piece of email marketing from Amtrak Guest Rewards, they’ve upped the ante to 8000 points.

registration for the promo (using promo code 42507, you’ll be required to log into your account first) still appears to work.

The Amtrak Guest Rewards card is a good no fee card, earning free train trips and points are transferrable to Continental (at 1:1, so in some cases a better option than the costlier Chase Mastercard), Midwest Airlines, and Hilton.

A couple weeks ago I took a cooking class in Thailand, and decided to make a couple of the recipes from the class last night.

Tom Yam Goong (Traditional Thai sour and spicy prawn soup)

Ingredients:

• Medium to large prawns
  
• Straw mushrooms
  
• Cilantro
  
• Cherry tomatoes
  
• Small chilis
  
• Lemongrass
  
• Kaffir lime leaves
  
• Galangal
  
• Roasted chili paste
  
• Lemon juice
  
• Fish sauce
  
• Chicken stock
  
• Sugar

Based on my own preferences I replaced lemon juice with a squeezed lime and used brown sugar as my choice of sugar. My local Asian grocer didn’t have any kaffir lime leaves so I left them out.

1. Boil chicken stock
   
2. Add lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, roasted chili paste, sugar, mushrooms, chilis, mushrooms (if they aren’t pre-cooked)
   
3. Add mushrooms (if pre-cooked), shrimp, cherry tomatoes
   
4. Add lime juice and fish sauce
   
5. Garnish with cilantro

My preference is that a cherry tomato is sliced, but that’s a personal preference. Heat of the soup can be increased by slicing the chilis in half so the seats are exposed to the soup. It was delicious!

Gai Phad Med Mamuang (Sauteed Chicken with Cashew Nuts & Dry Chili)

Ingredients:

• Chicken
  
• Veggie oil
  
• Garlic, chopped
  
• Roasted cashew nut
  
• Dry chili thin slice
  
• Onion slice
  
• Spring onion
  
• Soya sauce
  
• Dark soya sauce
  
• Chicken stock
  
• Oyster sauce
  
• Cilantro (garnish)

1. Toast cashews (if untoasted)
   
2. Heat oil, add garlic
   
3. Add chicken
   
4. Add cashews, onion, dry chili, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, chicken stock, oyster sauce
   
5. Garnish with green onion, red chili and cilantro

Once the chicken is fully cook, everything goes rather quickly. After adding all the ingredients and chicken stock I probably let the dish reduce too long on the stove — it was quite wet when I learned it — but it was delciious nonetheless.

Jared Blank reports that 20% of Air Tahiti Nui flight attendants have been suspended for drug trafficking.

Information is limited, but it appears that like most things in French Polynesia narcotics are expensive. So there’s tremendous arbitrage opportunities buying cocaine, ecstacy, etc. in Los Angeles and carrying them to Papeete.