Finally got out to Inox in Tysons Corner, the new Jonathan Krinn place. Very good for DC, but not quite living up to its potential, at least on our visit.

Sweetbreads were oversalted. Vennison Rossini was really outstanding. (They clearly aren’t trying to do ’seasonal’). Desserts were well-designed on the plate but mediocre, made up for by excellent petite fours.

Service tried to be nice – very friendly, attention to detail in descriptions of the dishes, but the kitchen had a hard time getting both of our entrees out at the same time and the sauce on my wife’s plate had dried under a heat lamp. Bread was a good, though less interesting, than it was at 2941 [choices were garlic, olive, or pumpernickel and they did continually bring around plenty of it).

Complimentary valet, and they do manage to track coat check by table without the need for a claim ticket. But they failed to be ready with jackets, we had to point into the dining room at which table we had come from..

Will return at the price point (appetizers mid-teens, entrees low 30s) but if it gets more expensive as 2941 did, it will no longer be worth it.

I checked into the Sheraton Annapolis yesterday afternoon. I turned up at 2:40pm, was told they had me in a club room with two double beds. Umm, my wifeand I are still only a few years into our marriage, could we have one bed?

This place was busy, busy, busy. They told me they had no king rooms available, sorry. Could you downgrade me off the club floor and give me a king? “Nothing’s ready, you know it isn’t even check-in time yet.”

Ok, when could I have a king? “Check-in time is at 3pm sir, please come back in 20 minutes. I will block you into a king room on the 5th floor.”

I return at 3:30pm. They had me in … a club room with 2 double beds. I mentioned that I was told to come back at 3 and I could have a king bedded room. “Who told you that???” I described the woman working the front desk.

Woman approaches the more senior agent on duty, neither look at me, “Well we can do that but nothing’s ready.”

“Do you think you might be able to find out when such a room could be ready?” and I rather stare sternly at her. She picks up her walkie talkie and learns there are 2 king rooms on the 5th floor that are ready just not entered into the system year. I was given room 501 which had a plaque “Starwood Preferred Guest Room.” I guess that means it had one complimentary bottle of water.

Without comment they gave me 2 keys in a platinum folder and two breakfast coupons. I mentioned the cocktails and appetizer coupons a colleage received a couple weekends back as a plat while the lounge is closed on the weekend, and the agent grabbed two more breakfast coupons and crossed out breakfast, writing in appetizer.

A Flyertalk member noted this past Fall (Flyertalk thread is here) that Platinums are given one free movie but I forgot to ask about this, and wouldn’t have used it anyway.

I asked when breakfast was, they said 7am – 1pm on Sundays. Funny, we went to breakfast at 11:30am and were told it was closing but they kept it open for us (never refreshed the completely empty french toast or bacon for us though). Buffet is rather sparse, but they do offer cooked to order eggs or omelettes.

We went up to the 5th floor. Elevator is VERY slow. Got out and noticed a musty, mildewy smell. It was all the way down the hall (carpet needs replacement in the hall, btw) and even stronger in the room. A/C helped get rid of it in the room. SPG room had microwave and refrigerator, I was told by the agent only club rooms had those.

Sweet sleeper bed, flat screen TV, desk, stained lounge chair, mildewy tub… free parking and free wireless internet.

I had told them I needed 2pm checkout, but my key expired at noon sharp. it didn’t work at 12:10pm. Went down to the desk and they reprogrammed it, but it still didn’t work so back (down the extremely slow elevator) to the desk. They gave me a new key and that worked fine.

Housekeeping wanted to clean the room at 8am, even though I was checking out “oh, sorry, we’ll come back.” They were back at 12:20pm even though we were supposed to have late checkout “oh, sorry.” I should have put up the do not disturb.

The place is frequently cheap, it’s a category 2, and I was here because I needed a night in Annapolis and the Westin had a 2-night minimum stay requirement in place. They do treat platinums consistently, but it is not a particularly great property.

1:10 pm Hong Kong, Hong Kong (HKG) to Seoul, South Korea (ICN)
Asiana Flight 722 Business Class
Boeing 767 1,269 miles traveled

The Thai Airways agent brought the three of us across the terminal, dropping her off at immigration and us at the transit desk where another staff member was waiting for us – he already made sure that Asiana had printed our boarding passes, they just needed to enter our luggage information into their system and assured us that our bags would make it onto the aircraft. He then escorted us through transit security. We wanted to make a stop in some of the shops, so we excused him from further service. Then we made our way down towards the gates and lounge.

Asiana issues a lounge invite for the Dragonair lounge near gate 16. I don’t entirely understand the reason, since it’s not that much closer to the Asiana gate than the Singapore lounge.

No doubt the Singapore lounge is nicer, but we dropped into the Dragonair lounge anyway because I had thoughts of their cooked-to-order Hong Kong style noodles soup. It’s separate from the food counter inside the lounge, a separate counter where the soup is made (I didn’t even notice it the first time I was in the lounge).

We didn’t have much time, though, and I really wasn’t hungry, so I wound up giving the soup a miss. Instead, I just downloaded my email and it was time to head out to the gate.

Flight was full, boarding was efficient, and we settled into our ‘new’ business class seats. They’re quite similar to Thai Airways’ new business, which is to say angled-flat without much personal space. Perfectly fine for a regional flight, I’d find it quite uncomfortable for long-haul. The new entertainment system was nice although the choices were quite limited on the 767 (much more extensive AVOD on the new 747, but more about that later).

Bathroom was well-stocked with amenities.

Meal service was lovely, we both had the Bi Bim Bap and strangely it looked as though we were nearly the only ones in the cabin to do so. Everyone else opted for the Western meal. The food was excellent, and Asiana does a wonderful job with service from a cart and with high quality tableware.

Overall, Asiana’s Hong Kong – Seoul flight was much nicer than ANA’s Tokyo – Hong Kong flight a couple of weeks earlier in the same class of service – seat, meal, and service.

On arrival in Seoul there was no line at immigration, our bags came out first off the belt, and we walked through customs where a representative of the W was waiting with a sign and walked us outside while he called our driver.

We were approached in the lounge and introduced to our escort who would take us through security and to our flight. The Hong Kong flight was close-in, so no golf cart today. Instead, a short walk to the flight.

We boarded and were immediately offered some pre-departure champagne. Thai was serving the ’99 Bollinger, I had been expecting some 2000 Dom Perignon but Bollinger is still a respectable bottle. I assumed this was just for the Hong Kong flight, but some colleagues subsequently flew Beijing-Bangkok-Shanghai in Thai first and had the Bollinger on both segments, so perhaps this is provisioned for intra-Asian first these days.

The ‘new’ Thai First seat is nice, certainly an improvement over their old first class (beware the dreaded Thai aircraft swap!) but there’s no privacy to it at all. Perfectly nice for a short day-time flight intra-Asia, but not really world standard for long-haul.

Still, the seat is stylish and the tray large. And the ground experience makes up for anything Thai lacks in the air. I was so relaxed from my massage that I could have been downgraded to business and I wouldn’t have cared.

The lavatory has a window and is well-provisioned, though isn’t oversized as one finds in the latest first class products.

I was a little bit concerned about my connecting flight on Asiana. I had no boarding passes, and the flight had been downgraded from a 747 to a 767 and business was zeroed out. Was there some risk I would be downgraded for the Hong Kong – Seoul segment? Normally the prospect would have had me on edge, but relaxed as I was post-massage and sipping on Bollinger it was more a curiosity about how the rest of the flying day would unfold rather than a sense of dread…

A second glass of Bollinger was offered, because our flight was going to be briefly delayed – 25 minutes ultimately while they searched for and offloaded a checked bag that belonged to a passenger who had checked in but didn’t board.

Menus were distributed, a standard wine list but breakfast of course. The menus listed food for both the Bangkok – Hong Kong flight and the continuing segment on to Taipei.

It’s really rare that I’ll be a fan of breakfast offerings on planes, and since Thai Airways’ food usually is a bit off of my liking I decided to pre-order the Lobster Thermidor. Thai Airways first class offers a pre-order menu, it doesn’t vary by meal, so the Lobster Thermidor seemed like a decent enough brunch offering for the 2.5 hour 8am departure. (Candidly the lobster thermidor ex-SIN in short-haul business is more flavorful, though not as artfully presented.) mrs. gleff pre-ordered the Fish Chu-chee, which she enjoyed.

We arrived about 20 minutes late, just after noon, giving us about an hour ten minutes to make our connection. At Hong Kong not a huge deal, even arriving at the distant Thai gates and departing from the close-in Asiana ones. Still, having to pickup boarding passes on the other end of the airport, and clearing transit security, there was a chance things could be tight.

Fortunately, Hong Kong is Thai Airways’ second best airport for ground services. In addition to the above-average lounge they also provide meet-and-greet service. When we deplaned there was a waiting golf cart. Most of the passengers were continuing on to Taipei, but there was one passenger terminating in Hong Kong and the two of us connecting on to Seoul.

8:00 am Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) to Hong Kong, Hong Kong (HKG)
Thai Airways Flight 600 First Class Seats 2J, 2K
Duration: 2h 45m Boeing 747 1,063 miles traveled

We got up early for our 8am departure, wanting to take as much advantage of the Thai Airways Bangkok departure experience as possible. We caught the shuttle over to the airport just before 5am, and had the driver stop at the first dropoff area, the First/Business Class check-in. The driver took our bags out of the back of the van, I nodded over to one of the waiting porters who came over, I told him first class and he loaded up our bags and brought us over to the first class checkin lounge.

We had a seat, handed our passports over to the Thai Airways agent, and waited. And waited.

I finally got up to ask what was taking so long, it had been 15 minutes! The agent told me everything was fine, he’d be over in just a moment. Five minutes later he brought us boarding passes… for our BKK-HKG segment only, and we were continuing on to Seoul on Asiana. Apparently he couldn’t get his system to print the Asiana boarding passes, and we’d have to visit the transfer desk in Hong Kong for those. Our bags were checked the whole way, though, and he and a porter took our carryons and walked us over through first class passport control.

Once through the immigration formalities, naturally with no one else waiting, we walked down an escalator and our concierge invited us onboard the waiting golf cart for the short drive through the business class lounge to the first class lounge. He walked us inside, let the staff know who we were, and we were escorted to one of the private rooms on the side with a coach, chair, and flat screen TV.

We visited the food room, where we pointed at the items we were interested in. I had some wonton soup, as I usually do, and they also brought me a cappuccino.

I let them know that I wanted to visit the spa, and chose the hour-long full body massage

I only waited a moment in the spa waiting area, as soon as I sat down and they brought me a cold cloth and drink I was escorted into the first class area to my treatment room.

I was invited to take a shower, standard practice there but perfect as I hadn’t yet taken one before coming over to the airport from the Novotel. The towels are comfortable and the showers have full-sized L’Occitane bath amenities. I was the first person using the facilities of the day, the amenities were full, the only complaint I had was that the water took quite awhile to warm up.

During my shower the masseuse waited in the treatment room. I enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing massage, nearly unaware that I was in an airport. On rare occasion though an announcement could be heard coming from the terminal.

After my massage it was back into the bathroom for another quick shower to wash off the massage oils, while again my therapist waited in the next room until I was ready so she could escort me the 50 feet to the post-treatment area.

They advertise the full body massage as 75 minutes I think, and with a shower before and after it takes about that long in total. The actual massage is more like 55 minutes I’d guess. I went over at 6 am, and was back in the lounge at 7:20 am, about 15 minutes before they came over to take us over to our Hong Kong flight. (I seem to recall my last massage being a little longer, perhaps they adjust the time based on how much time remains before a flight? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least though I’ve never asked.)

And other useful tidbits in the new Upgrd podcast.

No starnet blocking, a likely expensive award chart (naturally, from the people who brought you the 285,000 mile first class award on Wantas – up from 135,000 a year ago), first class awards will be offered, they recognize the problems in partnering with United but not offering real international upgrades and yet unusable upgrade certificates aren’t helpful, and much much more.

First, I think the economy may be picking up, at least travel vendors have hiked their spending on PR consulting firms, I received five pitches today.  My favorite?  “Would you like a travel source?  Let me know if you need some amazing deals to write about.”  Umm… if you have some amazing deals, maybe pitch those to me?  But don’t promise me amazing deals and tell me about United’s latest “fare sale.”

My second favorite?  Bank of America wants travelers to know you can do banking from your phone to – get this – check their balance to see whether they can afford to spend one more day in paradise.  Great, haven’t banks felt enough heat for encouraging irresponsible financial management lately?  “Gee, honey, let me check our bank balance on my phone.   Wow, I guess there’s enough money left for an airline change fee, another night’s hotel, and maybe some room service.  We’ll have to send the kids back early, though, because we can’t afford the rollaway bed or food for them.  Oh, college fund?  Mortgage?  We’ll worry about those next month.”

And while I love reader mail, and have been known on many an occasion to map out entire award itineraries for folks and even plan whole honeymoons gratis (because I care — but I’m also not great replying to email so frankly it’s just when and how you happen to catch me), if you’re going to email me asking me for mileage runs to fly 10,000 miles as cheaply as possible, please tell me what city you’re based in….

Through July 26, Delta is offering 2500 miles each way (no roundtrip required) on the Delta Shuttle between DC, New York, and Boston. Registration is required, and all standard paid fare classes qualify (even L, U, and T fares).

That’s 5000 bonus miles roundtrip, and I’m seeing weekend fares under $150. Since it’s “per segment” a shuttle flight in conjunction with a longer itinerary should count, at least that’s my read, so (especially if you live in a shuttle market) you may want to add connections onto your larger Delta itineraries to include shuttle flights.

Sadly, for those with Northwest elite status, you’ll need to credit to a Delta Skymiles account in order to earn this bonus.

Hotel: Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport
999 Suvarnabhumi Airport HotelMoo 1 Nongprue Bang PhliSamutprakarn – 10540 BANGKOK – THAILAND
Tel : (+66)2/1311111

My recollection from past stays was that the airport Novotel had a representative outside of door 4. This time as we headed over there two Thai ladies were at a desk inside the door, checking guests against an arrivals sheet. She asked my name but I wasn’t on the list. I showed her my printed confirmation for my prepaid rate, and we invited me out the door to the waiting hotel shuttle bus.

We pulled up to the front of the hotel, grabbed our bags, and went upside.

One of the staff members was ready to assist me, and it turns out that I walked in just in time because a sleuth of guests queued up behind me though I’m not sure where they came from because I arrived on an otherwise-empty hotel shuttle and imagine the next one would be several minutes behind.

Again the agent at the desk couldn’t find my reservation, so I showed her my confirmation. Now it was my turn to be embarrassed, she pointed out that I was indeed arriving on the 23rd.. of April… while my reservation was made for the 23rd of May.

I had a prepaid, non-refundable and non-changeable reservation. But she just asked politely if she had my permission to change the reservation to be used that evening instead. Why of course! And moments later we were up in our room. She was kind and could easily have made things difficult but she didn’t, I had never done anything of the sort before I’m usually so careful, but fortunately the mistake didn’t cost me a thing.

There’s not much worth sharing about the hotel, it’s impossibly expensive for what it is in Thailand but it’s just so convenient to the airport and will become so much more convenient when they (finally, eventually) open the underground walkway to the property that’s been promised since Suvarnabhumi opened.

Twelve hours of internet is 500 baht, and you have to call the business center for a password. They manage to have things set up such that I wasn’t able to use my wireless to allow both myself and mrs. gleff to use internet at the same time, that would have taken two codes (or someone more technically savvy than I) and thus two charges.

About the only thing to mention was the view of the airport terminal from the room.

A minor note for most, to be sure, but after November 1 it will no longer be possible to earn American miles flying Air Tahiti Nui.

I don’t know the backstory here. For years Air Tahiti Nui was a redemption-only partner of American. Then they added Northwest as a redemption partner, there was talk of linking up with Delta for redemptions, and they began offering mileage accrual with American as well.

Now the notice says that redemption will conitnue, but no more accrual.

Of course, it will still be possible to accrue miles in Air Tahiti Nui’s program. But they don’t really have too many partners, most people flying Air Tahiti Nui will only do so once (roundtrip). For those who can build up a decent stash of their miles, though, upgrades are pretty easy to come by and they do offer family accounts.

3:30 pm Chiang Rai, Thailand (CEI) to Bangkok, Thailand (BKK)
Thai Airways Flight 135 Business Class Seat Assignment at Check-in
Duration: 1h 15m Airbus A300-600R 414 miles traveled

We left the hotel a little bit after 2pm for our 3:30pm flight and even that was more than plenty early. We were at the airport in about 10 minutes, checked in within two minutes of our arrival (after running our bags through security screening at the entrance) and there was no line whatever for security screening before the gate area.

There’s a Thai Airways lounge at the airport, but it’s not much better than waiting outside in the terminal. A woman checks eligibility for entry into the lounge, but there’s a sign on her desk that says “Self Service.” Although there’s not much service you can provide yourself! That bathroom is clean, there are some very modest snacks and beverages, and an ancient TV and some newspapers. The lounge is tiny although a mirrored wall gives it a slightly larger feel. No wireless internet, there was a single mid-90s computer available for use.

The airport isn’t well trafficked, our flight was mostly full in back, and about 1/3rd full in business class. By the time boarding was announced the lounge had become really packed, I’d hate to be in the lounge with a full business class. (Many of the lounge guests were elites rather than flying up front.)

The gate area was nearly deserted when we walked into the lounge, though it did fill up somewhat with our flight’s passengers.

Next to the gate itself is a comfortable seating area with a sign that it’s reserved for Buddhist monks.

Another A-Bloody-6 for our aircraft, but that’s preferable to the 737s that run the other couple of flights on the route. This time it was an aircraft with the foot rests protruding from the back of the seat in front of us instead of attached to the bottom of each person’s own seat.

A snack was served, it was a fruit gelatin cup of some kind and some of the fruit seemed rotten, I didn’t eat but a couple of bites.

A short hour passed and we arrived at Suvarnabhumi. We had a gate this time, no apron position, so we were off the flight quickly. Unfortunately the wait at baggage claim seemed interminable.

Once we had our bags we headed out towards the airport Novotel.

On our last morning at the resort we scheduled a cooking class.

I don’t like early morning departures, I’m tired and I’m not relaxed and that really cuts against the whole point of the resort stay. But afternoon departures can leave us feeling antsy, basically just waiting around and killing time until it’s time to fly. So we always try to schedule an activity for the last morning, and on Southeast Asia trips in particular that usually means a cooking class. I enjoy cooking Asian dishes, and usually do bring back what I learn in the class to prepare at home.

In advance of the stay I e-mailed Le Meridien to find out whether they offered classes. I did look into what else one might do in Chiang Rai, and there are options, but the hotel has a nice setup and I decided to take them up on it.

We met out front at the resort at 6am (yes, that meant I was going to be tired – but it was a relaxing and fun tired, which is different than schlepping off to the airport that early. For me, there’s a strange logic in it…)

They’d start later if you wish, but the early a.m. meet up meant that the chef/instructor for the day would take us out to the local market first. A hotel driver was there as well, and we made our way into Chiang Rai town. The market was extensive, busy, and inexpensive and offered a plethora of things we could never get at home – and naturally would never be permitted to exist given government health department regulations. One of the reasons I love visiting other countries so much is their lack of regulatory rigor (think cheese in France! I long for unpasteurized cheeses at home in the States…).

We were able to ask our chef/instructor questions about the different fruits and meats, and then it was back to the hotel where he showed us around the Le Meridien’s garden where they grow various fruits and vegetables for use in their restaurants. He also told us there’s an intention to build a cooking class facility over by the garden, though I didn’t ask other hotel staff members about this.

In the meantime, cooking classes are set up on the river outside the Latest Recipe restaurant. They set up our stations while we went to the other side of the restaurant (outside again, naturally) to have our breakfast.

The two of us and our cooking class instructor each had our own cooking stations set up, with portable burners and pre-prepped items that we’d be cooking with. I need to import this into my own kitchen, prepping always takes me the longest amount of time and is the least fun part of the cooking process!

At around 8 a.m. we were ready to get started.

The cooking class materials said we would be cooking until noon, and would then eat the lunch we had prepared, but in reality the class lasted until not quite 10 a.m. Perhaps we were just expert students! (More likely their materials need updating with the plans as they actually work in practice. While we were given a ‘certificate’ and the recipes for each dish we prepared, the materials also told us we would receive a picture of ourselves. No big deal that we didn’t, I snapped pictures of my very cute better half wearing the chef outfit they provided – an apron, towel, and chef’s hat).

We opted to prepare the “Khon Muang kitchen (Lanna Khan Tok Style)” menu.

Nam Prik Ong: Northern style dipping of minced pork and cherry tomato
Yum Jin Gai: Spicy Shredded Chicken Soup with Spices
Gang Hung Lay Moo: Northern Dry Spicy Pork Curry with Pickled Pearl Garlic
Larb Muang: Warmed Spicy Pork Salad
[Deep fried banana

They offer another Thai menu, but I was already familiar with cooking the dishes on it, having taken up a few of the items after taking a class from the Thai restaurant’s chef at the Le Meridien Khao Lak a couple of years ago.

Quote:

Finally they offer an Italian menu prepared in the kitchen of Favola, their riverside Italian restaurant. But I couldn’t imagine coming all this way to cook Italian food, and my wife could easily teach me everything on that menu…

Quote:

After cooking our dishes were taken from us, we walked back over to ‘our table’ at the restaurant that was already set up for us (everyone at the resort knew which one ‘our table’ was, of course). And our food was brought out to us, along with some sticky rice as an accompaniment.

Outstanding, delicious!

Then, after our lunch – which was a little bit earlier in the morning than I had planned, I really shouldn’t have eaten so much at breakfast – we went back to the room, changed, and went out to the pool for our one last visit there. Again, as in nearly every other time, no other hotel guests availed themselves of the lovely pool while we were out. Back to the room, we were already packed, and it was time to check out.

Via One Mile at a Time, US Airways is offering a 50% bonus on hotel and rental car activities through July 31. Hotel points transfers are included in the offer, too, and registration is required.

This is pretty exciting for Starwood points transfers — for example, 60,000 Starwood points normally transfer to 75,000 US Airways miles (since they give you 5000 bonus miles for each 20,000 points transferred). With this promo the same 60,000 Starwood points yields 112,500 US Airways miles. Make the transfer 65,000 Starwood and you wind up with 120,000 US Airways miles — enough for a first class Star Alliance award from North America to North Asia.

For example, you could fly ANA first class from Chicago to Tokyo, connect on to Shanghai, and then fly Asiana first class Shanghai to Seoul and back to Chicago. And don’t forget a stopover is permitted too. And in my experience, in practice, US Airways permits routings via the Atlantic as well.

They also have some relative values in their award chart, such as Europe to South Asia for 110,000 miles in first class. And even North America to the South Pacific at 140,000 miles in first class is a relative bargain or at least competitive.

Sadly US Airways charges a premium for North America to South Asia in first — 160,000 miles (United charges 145,000 via the Pacific, more via the Atlantic) — but with no blocking of partner award inventory other than the occasional technology program (US Airways’ reservation system is garbage) and this 50% transfer bonus, even that award seems a relative value.

Further, top off your account with a couple of US Airways Mastercard signup bonuses (here and here) and you’re well on your way!

One caveat, though. I really do recommend making the transfer and redeeming awards right away rather than banking the US Airways miles for future use. Dividend Miles isn’t a program that I trust at all, they have a history of making changes to their award chart without notice, and the airline takes a schizophrenic and unfriendly stance to its customers at times. This isn’t a program to view as a long-term store of value.

For the first time in a year (and even then, that was the first time in 7 years..) my cross-country upgrade didn’t clear and I flew in coach. And it was Delta coach, it makes me realize just how much those extra 3 inches of legroom on United matter, though even that’s not pleasant because width is just as important.

I had an aching neck since much earlier in the morning, and boy coach didn’t help. It was a 757, no onboard internet. And live TV is boring because, well, most TV is boring. Though if HBO’s Big Love or Entourage showed new-ish episodes I might’ve paid the $2.

Instead I happily had downloaded the latest Upgd Podcast, so that helped kill half an hour.

Fortunately my return upgrade cleared, I don’t think I can do this again for awhile.

I pinged a few tour providers in the Chiang Rai area and they were all quoting prices close to what the Le Meridien was asking for the tours arranged through the hotel. I decided to go with the hotel booking for convenience (of course they are contracting with a local tour operator, but do handle everything and ensure the guide and driver are there for us on time, provide their waters and cold cloths, etc)..

I did feel a little bit trite in requesting their “tour #7” Doi Mae Salong / Golden Triangle full day tour. But after emailing the hotel and having them send me a list of the tours they offer (a one-page .pdf sheet of each, which is also duplicated in a book in the room) I decided that it actually mirrored what we were looking for, except that they usually begin at 8am and I preferred 9, thinking that would be perfect for a leisurely breakfast before being on our way.

We drove up to three Chinese villages, they’re relatively remote and with varying degrees of (quite modest) prosperity. The very North of Thailand’s Chinese population ultimately settled in the area as refugees from Mao. They’ve historically been quite removed from Thai society, though there are development efforts to incorporate them. This includes building roads connecting the villages to main arteries, though the roads aren’t of especially high quality and one in particular felt quite treacherous on the side of a mountain with plenty of bumps and no guard rails

We wandered the villages as our guide explained their history, in each place most of the people went about their business ignoring us but there were a couple of folks selling tourist items of little interest to us. In all cases we were approached by small children selling crafts, and I’m always a bit torn as to how to react. On the one hand it certainly tugs at the heartstrings, but on the other hand these are items I have no interest in. If I buy them, I encourage more of these crafts that I’m uninterested in and will be swarmed by more of these kids. Fortunately (for me and for them) we were preceded by a group tour, so they were the richer target.

Village life is a stark contrast to modern city life in Thailand, and Chiang Rai generally is a contrast to the touristy beach towns let alone Bangkok. While there are pockets of prosperity, one understands the uneven distribution of development.

In one of the Chinese villages I spotted a resident’s shack that was stamped as having come from USAID. It announced that it was a gift from the American people. In English. Somehow the American aid agency expected local villagers to appreciate the dilapidated shack as a result of this message, when many speak Chinese and not Thai… let alone English.

Following the villages it was up Doi Mae Salong, we stopped at a tea shop and tasted locally grown teas much of which are exported to China. It’s supposed to be representative of the crop substitution efforts, with government subsidies attempting to push out heroine cultivation.

A very touristy Chinese restaurant for lunch (it wasn’t bad by any means, but was hardly frequented by the locals)

We visited the Hall of Opium (it’s frequently mentioned as an attraction, I wasn’t all that impressed).

But the Golden Triangle was worth seeing, if only for a short while. It’s just beautiful and tranquil, seen from afar and on high on the Thai side.

Then we took a boat, crossing into the Myanmar side, and back out – we didn’t get off there. And we briefly stopped on a Laotian island which features all sorts of shops selling tax-free items like liquor. Very touristy, presumably, though we were the only non-Asians there.

By request (thanks Colleen), my predictions on what new credit card legislation will mean for earning miles and points.

It seems a rather odd time for Congress to be pushing legislation to reign in “excesses” of the credit card industry, certainly the narrative isn’t that banks are taking advantage of poor people and earning too much profit. (If that were the case, they wouldn’t be on the TARP dole.)

Certainly there are industry practices which strike many as ‘egregious’ with respect to changing fee and terms and conditions that customers may not understand.

At the same time much of the alarmism is misplaced.

It’s been a common refrain that if we take revenue away from the credit card companies in one dimension, they’re going to have to make up for it in others — spelling the end of rewards cards as we know them.

But that would seem to misunderstand the economics of rewards cards. Banks offer rewards to their better customers in exchange for charge volume. “Each dollar spent earns a mile.” The mile costs the bank money, shaving their margins on each charge, but each incremental charge earns greater revenue for the issuing bank. These cards are usually offered to individuals that are better credit risks, because assuming no default it’s hugely profitable to offer rewards. These aren’t an expense to pull back on, these are the incentives which generate incremental consumer spend, each dollar of which generates incremental profit. Banks compete for this segment of high spending customer, and ratchet up rewards to do so. If a bank is generating 1.75 cents per dollar and paying out a penny, they’re making the difference (which does involve covering costs as well but the marginal cost of an additional customer and additional charge volume are quite low).

The current credit card legislation doesn’t do anything to change that economics.

The only way it would make sense to believe that making it more costly for a credit card company to offer credit to lower income or poor credit risk customers would have any effect on the rewards offered to generally better credit risk customers is if the former were cross-subsidizing the latter. In other words, if banks were making money on bad credit risk folks paying high fees, and losing money on good credit risk folks paying low fees and earning rewards. But that’s an absurd model, because if it were true banks simply wouldn’t be offering the rewards (at a loss) in the firs place. They could kill of that customer segment and increse profits just by firing their customers. The mere fact that banks offer large bonuses to acquire this segment of customers suggests banks believe that they’re independently profitable. So we can expect banks to continue to compete for this segment of customer, offering rewards to do so.

In other words, little risk to our rewards as a result of credit card legislation.

The real risks are to the lower income or poor credit risk borrowers where the legilsation focuses on industry practices that increase interest rates in the event of detault, push out the period of time in which a customer has to pay their bill, etc. While some credit card practices may seem ham-handed, and there may be better techniques to limit risk or recoup losses (banks do continually innovate along these fronts, e.g. offering incentives and interest-forgiveness for on-time payments with certain cards), the reason these fees end practices exist in the first place is because the poor credit risk segment is a costly one to service. “Charging more interest and higher fees to the poor” isn’t at all unfair, taken in context. If a class of customers has a 15% change of default, the credit card company stands to be left holding the bag with significant unpaid balances. They need to not lose money offering credit to this segment. If they can’t take actions which their data suggests limit or recoup their losses, they can’t service the segment.

The simple expectation would be that limiting credit card practices with respect to lower income or poor credit risk boorrowers would be that credit card issuing banks limit the availability and amoutn of credit offered to these customers.

But that doesn’t limit the need for credit that these customers have. Which means their set of options are limit to other channels, credit cards take the place of payday loans — or of even less above-board and more-costly sources of credit.

The point is made incredibly crisply by an old Onion article, lamenting the way that the credit card industry is driving away customers from traditional loan sharks.

Not so long ago, the loan shark flourished, offering short-term, high-interest loans to desperate people with nowhere else to turn. Today, however, Pistone and countless others like him are being squeezed out by the major credit-card companies, which can offer money to the down-and-out at lower rates of interest and without the threat of bodily harm.

So while I’m not a fan of what Congress is trying to do, because in the end I think it’ll hurt the people it’s intended to help, I don’t fear for rewards cards as a result of this legislation.

On the other hand, rewards are at some risk for some borrowers — if those borrowers are in a customer segment that banks believe carry an increased risk of default. Card issuers are tightening standards, cards are baing cancelled or having their credit lines cut (American Express made some news recently offering to ‘buy out’ customers who were carrying balances if those balances were paid off). That’s because risk of default eats into the slim per-dollar margins on rewards-issuing cards. Awarding miles and points only makes sense when the underlying balances are going to be paid, and the issuer can accept say half of one percent of dollars charged to a card for their service.

So some cardholders’ points-earning will be at risk from the overall economy, but not as much from current legislative proposals.

Frugal Travel Guy experiences a common, annoying scam in Bangkok. He shows up at a tourist site, is told by a local that “it’s closed” and is offered an inexpensive tour that winds up at a jewelry shop. Relatively harmless as far as scams go, but can easily ruin a day of sightseeing.

It’s one reason that, in an inexpensive destination, I like to hire a guide for the day on my first visit to a city. I’m basically paying one tout to fight off all the others for me, and give me a more seamless experience…

Here are just a few more photos to leave you with.

Resort from the river

Pool view from our room

Various views around the resort

Having everything ready “just in case” seemed to be a major theme of the property. They seemed fully staffed, with more employees available at all times than guests anywhere you went. They have an activity schedule of such things as archery, Thai boxing, ball exercise, Batic Art (I admit, I had to look it up) and Yoga. Guests almost never showed up, but the staff members were prepared and in place – just in case anyone did.

The same is true for the pool, and the gym. The fitness facility is lovely, with a large supply of bottled water and towels and a nice bathroom to accompany the brand new machines with built-in TV (I didn’t notice if there was internet, but don’t think there was) and weight machines as well as ample free weights. The gym attendant would offer to assist with workouts. I don’t think anyone else visited the gym besides us during out stay. [Tip: if you want self-service complimentary bottled water, and for whatever reason the hotel doesn’t give you enough – they do deliver to your room more than once a day, and provide it at the pool, but only a bottle each at a time – you could grab some down in the gym.]

The pool, at least with how deserted it was during our stay, was a highlight.

There’s a pool attendant whose job is to make up lounge chairs and bring each guest a cold bottle of water and cold towel. He’s invisible and non-intrusive, while you approach and pick out your preferred spot. But once you make your selection he comes running and springs into action. (I did like that the pool lounge chairs had stowable drink trays built-in.) The staff member at the pool would wait hours and hours on end, just in case somebody decided to come out to the pool. Chances are, no one would.

The pool-side menu was served from the Italian restaurant, Favola, right next to it. The food arrived quickly and was high-quality.

The revenue manager explained that the Italian restaurant focus was aimed to some degree at the local Chiang Rai market – a nice Italian place on the water to bring in outside business. We did see some non-guests there our first evening (a Saturday) but not again during our stay.

The one criticism I’d have of the pool service, and it’s minor, is that one day during our stay it began to rain heavily. We gathered up our stuff, and retreated back to our room. This would have been a perfect opportunity for the pool staffer to come out with an umbrella and escort us.

In addition to the pool, there’s a lovely spot to relax with lounge chairs right on the river.

Consistent with Le Meridien’s branding themselves with art, there’s a complimentary hotel shuttle which takes you not only to Chiang Rai town and back (four times daily) but also to the Royal Collection of Lanna Art at Rai Mae Fah Luang (twice daily, timed to give you a little over an hour to visit before bring you back).

Evening turndown service included not just refreshed towels and more waters. They also brought a different history card each day, talking about the local area, for example Doi Mae Salong, Wat Prakaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha), Monument of King Mengrai, and Phra That Doi Tung.

And each evening different chocolate treats were delivered complimentary, along with a note about an honor or accolade the hotel had won (it’s on the Conde’ Nast Hotlist for 2009, for instance). Usually the accolade was written in chocolate on chocolate, accompanying the chocolate.

The spa was an outstanding facility. And of course nobody was using it. They were offering 20% off as well as treatment specials in order to encourage use, and the spa manager would accompany a masseuse out to the pool on occasion when guests were there to offer a complimentary brief massage, in the hopes that such might stimulate the thought of additional treatments. I didn’t take them up on it poolside, but did have a couple of excellent treatments.

There’s wireless internet in the lobby, and wired internet in the guest rooms. It’s complimentary in the lobby, you just need to get a code (which you sign for) for one-hours’ use from the library attendant (the library is a very peaceful space) or from the concierge if it’s outside of the library’s usual hours. One tip is that the code they give you for wireless in the lobby will also work for wired in your room, so if you load up on those codes then internet in the room can be had for free as well.

Personally I’m not a fan of wired-only internet in the room, which is why I bring my own pocket router. That way we aren’t tied to the desk, and we can both be online at the same time.

One little frustration was the desk area, there just weren’t enough outlets, they really could use a power strip by the desk. The outlets are universal, so I never took out my converters during the trip, so that was a positive.

The room has a menu of extensive Instant Award offerings, from room upgrades (the bottom room category up to the Grande Deluxe River View runs 2250 points/night), late checkout (6pm checkout is 2250 points), DVD Player – which the hotel website lists as standard in all rooms though mine didn’t have one – at a whopping 4500 points per day, airport transfer, spa services, meals, internet access, day tours, even sundries like floss and shaving gel.

I realize in re-reading this review that I’ve focused mostly on the small negatives, and other than the room service issue on our first night they weren’t even really negatives at all. In point of fact, Le Meridien Chiang Rai was amazing. On the whole, it may well have provided the best service I’ve had at a hotel – in large measure because it was universally warm service. Everyone knew you, knew your name, knew your preferences, sought to engage you (but also to be unobtrusive).

When we left the resort, the General Manager was there again to see us off. But she wasn’t alone. We had mentioned to her how much we had enjoyed the food, and so the hotel’s chef was there to thank us for the compliment and bid us well. And that last morning we had done a cooking class at the hotel (more on that in a subsequent post), and so the chef who guided our instruction joined them in seeing us off.

I have no idea how well the hotel will execute with occupancies at 70% (or for that matter even 50%!) but it was a special place, indeed. I’m truly lucky to have visited and to have had the place virtually to myself. I like the Le Meridien Khao Lak, for instance, because it offers the best value for money in hardware – an oceanfront bungalow with private pool for less than $250 a night. But the food, service, and ambiance were so much better here. And in essence we had our own private pool – the resort’s main three-layered infinity pool.

All in all it’s better than what I have seen at one of the Four Seasons properties in Bali. And such a value, with rates running around $135 a night or $45 plus 2800 points for a cash and points redemption. And there’s some chance perhaps that if they’d reduce rates a bit (and perhaps they do, in package offers?) that they would wind up a category 2 next year.

There weren’t enough towels in the room, just a couple of bath towels at a time, and the toiletries weren’t refreshed except for the shampoo on the fourth day. I had run out, and was about to ring up for some, when housekeeping appeared apologetically for having forgotten to replace the shampoo. (They didn’t bring other items, but none were needed, apparently they replace only those which are virtually used up.) For a brand new hotel, and a stylish one at that, I was disappointed that the bathroom had a standard shower head and not something more interesting.

We ran into a couple of snags shortly after our arrival. First, a bug infestation in and around the sugar packets that accompany the in-room coffee. We rang the desk and the sugars were replaced while we were walking around the resort, and bugs didn’t return to our room during out stay.

After getting a feel for the place we decided to just have dinner in our room. We rang up room service, and a frustrating affair began.

We looked over the room service menu and started to order, but the staff said they didn’t have any of the things we wanted. Hmm, did they just not leave an updated room service menu? I asked them if they could bring us a new menu. No, they didn’t have a menu listing what they had to order. Instead they wanted to know what I wanted? And thus began a “Who’s on first?” routine. I could start naming foods, but odds on they wouldn’t have the item. I wanted to turn things around and have them tell me what they had, but they didn’t seem to know or “would have to check with the chef.” They kept suggesting a club sandwich. Finally, after three phone calls we determined that I could order a spicy seafood soup, some pineapple fried rice with foie gras, and.. a club sandwich.

It was delivered to our room, presentation was lovely, and the food was flavorful (well, except for the club sandwich). The soup was incredibly spicy, and the foie gras accented the fried rice just right – I would never have thought of the combination.

But the experience of not being able to order room service easily, and the hotel not having many food options, began to sour our expectations for the stay. My wife and I kept speculating on what we’d be eating on property, whether for breakfast or dinner in the restaurant… club sandwiches?

We were quite surprised, then, to find one of the more bountiful breakfast buffet spreads we have encountered. We even felt a little bit guilty. The entire buffet was set up… for us? After all, there was no one else around.

The breakfast was a real highlight. Each morning we picked the same outside table, after we selected the table a second time we never had to ask for it again – every staff member just automatically brought us there when we entered the restaurant.

Breakfast is served in the restaurant Latest Recipe. There’s all-day dining there, and we ate there incessantly. The “concept” restaurant is Favola, Italian food on the river. But honestly, I don’t come to Northern Thailand to eat Italian. And the Asian dishes at Latest Recipe were all quite good. Usually I’m not a fan of resort food, there’s a lowest-common denominator element to it where they try to satisfy all tastes and wind up with bland, overpriced food. That wasn’t the case here at all, and the Northern-style dishes were all especially interesting and flavorful.

The best parts of breakfast were the excellent cappuccinos, the varied hot items (dim sum some days, other days a hot soup bar, in addition of course to cooked-to-order eggs and such), not to mention that it’s complimentary to Platinums.

The breakfast buffet even pays attention to the little things (not just the delicious juices above!) like how honey is provided, straight out of a honeycomb:

But the thing that really set it apart is that the staff would bring out little tasters of different dishes that weren’t available on the buffet, usually every 10 or 15 minutes. That was especially appreciated because we tend to go to breakfast and just drink coffee for an hour or so before ever going up to the buffet, just relaxing but sometimes we wait too long to eat. This way the food came to us while we enjoyed our coffee and the beautiful scenery.

Dinner at Latest Recipe was a highlight, as well.

During my stay the General Manager explained the room service debacle (and acknowledged it was handled badly). Since we arrived the day after Songkran, they had been having issues with food delivery. My supposition that the lack of food items was related to low occupancy was incorrect, they do keep at least three of every item on hand at all times in case guests want any of the items on the menu. And the delivery issues were solved by our first full day at the resort.

In fact, we gave room service one more shot and it was quite good – Latest Recipe’s food (more or less, with a little variation in the menu) along with outstanding presentation.