Our flight from Toronto landed just a few minutes early, but that meant before 5 am. And Hong Kong is a ghost town at that hour. We quickly went through transit security and found our way over to the Wing. It opens at 5, but the first class side doesn’t open until 5:30 am. We waited and wandered — most parts of the lounge, the Game Room for instance, were deserted. But the main sitting room was jam packed.

Once 5:30 rolled around we went upstairs, and immediately asked for a Cabana. We shared one, which was perfectly fine, and in my opinion this makes for one of the nicer shower facilities after a long overnight flight. My wife and I aren’t separated, which means we can mill about and meander slowly given our four-ish hour layover. And there was enough space and in a tranquil enough environment (most lounge shower rooms are pretty antiseptic) that we could relax. I asked a staff member to bring us coffees, and they happily obliged.

The cabanas offer shower, bathtub, and sink area, and an ‘outside’ patio area with lounge chairs looking out over a man-made stream. The patio area has a barrier separating each cabana from the one next to it, and the stream of course is shared.

After an hour or so freshening up, we found a spot in the lounge itself, looking out over the gate area.

Immediately an attendant came over to take drink orders, which were promptly fetched. The lounge quickly filled up. It is, after all, open not just to first class passengers (of which Cathay has many at their hub) but also all top tier oneworld elites. As a result it felt like a very nice business class lounge rather than an exclusive, quiet oasis (the way the Thai first class lounge in Bangkok, the Asiana first class lounge in Seoul, and the Lufthansa First Class Terminal do — although even that last gets pretty busy at peak times). Put a different way, I never have a problem walking away from my spot and leaving my carryons including laptop in the Frankfurt First Class Terminal. Here I’m not sure I’d do that.

The first class dining room in the Wing is called The Haven, and had a well stocked buffet catered (and, I think, staffed) by the Peninsula. But there are many tables, close together, and while I was there most of the tables filled up. That made it feel more like a busy cafeteria than a comfortable, quiet space. So I decided to take a plate of food back into the bigger lounge space.

Soon enough it was time to board, we headed over to our gate in the 20s, and boarding quickly commenced. This time we had another 777, once again the aircraft had only one other passenger besides us in the cabin, and I took a center seat while my wife took the window.

Shortly after takeoff menus were distributed for this short ~ 711 mile flight, and it was time for the third (!) breakfast of the morning.

Starters
Juice selections

Fresh seasonal fruit

Low fat fruit yoghurt

Assorted cereals

Main Courses
Omelette with creamed spinach, grilled breakfast steak, chicken sausages, potatoes, mushrooms and vegetables

Dim sum served with chili sauce
[i]Chicken and ham in bean curd skin, pork siu mai with crab roe, seafood dumpling, mushroom and vegetable dumpling, port and chive dumpling

Bread Basket
Assorted breakfast bread
Served with preserves, honey and butter

Tea and Coffee

Unfortunately, my cappucino didn’t quite come out right, no foam and lukewarm. I didn’t bother with a second try at it.

Instead, after breakfast there was just time for a quick refresh in the oh-so-spiffy Cathay Pacific lavatory, and we were nearly ready to land in Manila.

After landing, baggage was first off the belt. We walked through customs and there was a staff member waiting for us with an Intercontinental sign. He took us out across the street to the generic air conditioned “hotel lounge” (the higher-end properties had their own designated lounges). This was basically just a room with several contracted staff members with various hotel signs waiting to head into the terminal to pick up guests or coordinating vehicles. A couple of minutes later a hotel Mercedes pulled up to the back side of the lounge, we walked out, our luggage was placed in the back, and we were on our way. It turns out that it’s a contracted car service, rather than owned or managed by the hotel, but it did the trick as we meandered around the massive airport complex and passed by the far off domestic terminal.

Back in January I blogged that the Tom Bihn folks offered to send me some sample products to try. I was in the market for a laptop bag in particular, so I asked to try both their Checkpoint flyer and Empire Builder bags.

I fell in love with the Checkpoint flyer, I’ve been using it as my primary bag ever since, and it’s logged a ton of miles.

What then to do with the Empire Builder? It’s a very nice bag. But I don’t need it. I thought about making it an every day bag while using the Checkpoint flyer TSA friendly bag for travel. But I don’t like switching, and I’m perfectly happy with the Checkpoint flyer for every day use.

It’s a $170 retail bag, and that’s just for the base bag. And I want it to get good use. By a real traveler. So I’m going to give it away!

The bag has been their mainstay laptop bag for a decade, it’s really sturdy, with plenty of pockets and nooks and crannies for electronics, phones, tickets, pens, etc.

You can attach an organizer pouch, which they sent me an I’m including a couple. I’m also throwing in some packing cubes.

The main compartment has 3 removable hard plastic file dividers.

It’s also where the Brain Cell laptop case goes, for keeping a laptop safe inside. Since they prepared the bag for me, and I use a pretty small laptop (I work off a Lenovo x200s), it’s a Size 5 Horizontal Brain Cell:

interior dimensions of approximately 11.3 × 9.3 × 1.4 inches

The piece retails for $60. But if you have a larger laptop, you might prefer to purchase one separately.

Note that the brain cell itself is detachable from the bag and can be carried separately, it has its own handles.

The back of bag has a slot to slip over a rollaboard carryon’s handle. The slot zips shut so that it can also be used for papers.

Here’s one rub: the bag has no shoulder strap. See, Tom Bihn bags don’t come with shoulder straps included. They sent me one of their “Absolute Shoulder Straps” with both bags, and I’m using it with the Checkpoint flyer. You can either cannibalize a shoulder strap from your current bag, or buy one of their special $30 straps.

All-in this is a $260 bag. Rather than the signature bright Tom Bihn colors, I asked for it black-on-black. I do try to strike a more professional look, and don’t like to draw nearly so much attention to myself when I travel.  I’d probably be carrying it myself every day, if I hadn’t already settled on the Checkpoint flyer.  So I’m giving it away.

Here’s how the giveaway will work. 

There are two ways to enter:

1. Leave a comment on this blog.  One comment entry per person.  I will choose one comment at random.  If your comment is selected, I will search for duplicate entries, to ensure only one entry per person.
2. Follow me on Twitter.  I will choose one Twitter follower at random.

Enter by 12:00pm Eastern time on Friday, April 23.  And then at random I will select between either the commenter on this post, or the Twitter follower.

In total that means you have two separate chances to enter.  I will email or Twitter Direct Message the ultimate winner for their address, and I will cover the shipping of the bag.

There is only one prize, I will interpret all rules as necessary and such interpretation is final.  This is a giveaway, I’m coming out of pocket for the shipping even, I just want to see this bag used and enjoyed rather than sitting in my closet.  So hopefully everyone will take this ‘sweepstakes’ in the spirit in which it’s intended.

If you do have questions, though, please do not post them as comments. Because I might miss them. And because you can only enter once with a comment, a second or third question would disqualify you. Hah! So instead just send me an email.

And remember, leave a comment here to enter and follow @garyleff for another change to win!

After months of anticipation and significant stress making it up to Toronto to start my trip, it was finally time to get underway.

The KLM lounge in Toronto was disappointing to say the least. They did announce boarding, at least, and walk around letting everyone know it was time to head off. I couldn’t help thinking, though, that they were really just shooing us out of the lounge so they could close down rather than being helpful.

So off to the gate where things were a bit of a madhouse. We lined up for boarding (boarding call was made rather prematurely in the lounge) and finally made it onboard. All the unpleasantness and stress melted away upon entering the aircraft. A flight attendant walked us to our seats, showed us the closet for our carryons, and began service.

I kept looking around the cabin because the day before the flight was showing full up in first, but eventually only one other passenger boarded. We weren’t alone but the cabin was only full 3 of 6. Clearly this should be a good flight.

But my seat was acting strangely. Sitting on the ground it kept shifting itself, one jerk at a time, towards bed mode. I’d move it back. And it would jerk forward again. I thought I must be bumping something, but no, the seat was possessed. With as many open seats as there were in the cabin I wasn’t worried, but thought this strange. As soon as we took off, though, my seat must have exorcised itself, perhaps the ghost went back into business, because it stopped behaving strangely.

Shortly after takeoff we were asked for our dinner selections. I asked in return if it would be alright if I dined with my wife. They understood perfectly — I wanted to sit across from my wife in her suite, dining opposite from each other as though in a proper restaurant.

Menu

Caviar and Smoked Salmon
Caviar and Balik salmon “Tsar Nicolaj”

International Favourites
Leek and potato soup with fried leeks

Mesclun salad with marinated bocconcini, pine nuts, kalamata olives, and lemon herb vinaigrette

Grilled beef tenderloin with red wine demi glace, gratin potatoes and oven roasted vegetables
or
Mushroom ravioli with tomato vodka sauce, grilled portabello mushroom and Parmesan cheese

Chinese Favourites
Chicken with young coconut soup

Cold plate – snow cabbage with soy beans

Sauteed prawns with kung po sauce, steamed rice, stir-fried choy sum, carrots, and mushrooms

Cheese and Dessert
Mini Oka, Goat Herb Cheese, Cheddar, Cambozola

Fresh seasonal berries with citrus syrup

Chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream and berry coulis

Black sesame dessert

Tea and Coffee

Pralines

When they were ready they invited me over to her seat. Once properly situated on the ottoman, they installed a table extender which locked in perfectly. It would have been a bit tight for me to excuse myself during the meal, and the buddy seat/ottoman is narrow, but it’s a really lovely way to enjoy a meal with a companion in-flight, and especially because the seats themselves are so private. One minor note about the ottoman, because it’s so narrow, it’s really quite difficult for someone as wide as me to manipulate the seatbelt. So after this first meal together, future meals where we dined together I sat unbelted.

A little Krug to begin.

Lovely caviar presentation. Though for my tastes the portions are modest. Still, at this time of night I wasn’t hungry enough for more and didn’t ask for seconds, which they would have gladly provided.

I went with the Chinese option, as is always advisable on Cathay.

For dessert, the chocolate lava cake was fine but initially served too cold (the chocolate center solid) and needed to be reheated.

My wife went with the warm black sesame soup, which I tasted and ordered later in the flight.

After dinner I headed into the really quite lovely larger of the restrooms in the cabin (the restrooms are different sizes and one larger one has upgraded décor in the 777). I changed into my PJs — a large, which I had asked for, which worked fine with the top but the pants were exceptionally long. Mental note for later, the medium would work much better.

Upon returning to my seat I found that my bed had been made.

This was perfect for lounging for awhile before I was ready to sleep. I watched a couple episodes of Entourage and then tried to watch Couples Retreat. Even the Bora Bora scenery, which brought back memories — nor my fondness for Jon Favreau — could make that dog watchable, and so I retreated to an old favorite, Before Sunrise (Before Sunset on the other hand remains an all-time favorite).

I slept for four hours and woke up a bit puckish, so I had a look at the snack menu.

Frankly the choices were a bit limited:

Assorted sandwiches

Crab cakes with tartar sauce and rocket

Braised beef brisket with noodle in soup

Ice cream

From our series of classic Signature dishes
Hot pot rice with pork spare ribs with black bean, served with chicken broth

I had the soup, and followed it with a bowl of the black sesame dessert, pictured earlier.

That kept me in good stead until breakfast, which was good but a bit modest compared to what I’m used to on a transpacific flight. Better than a United breakfast, and certainly more interesting than what I’ve had transatlantic with BA or Air France. But it wasn’t really a substantial multi-course affair.

I much enjoyed the Strawberry, kiwi and banana energizer. I had another glass of orange juice, which I had enjoyed on boarding — fresh squeezed, not too acidic, just the right amount of pulp. I didn’t go in for the fruit, yogurt, or cereal. And opted for the dim sum over the eggs or congee.

Ok, with all of the choices one certainly could have had a bit of everything. And I wasn’t particularly hungry after the late dinner and midflight snack.

The dim sum was excellent – chicken glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf, chive and pork dumpling, shrimp dumpling, and siu mai. And I am a fan of the sirachi sauce, or similar spicey sauce, served alongside soy sauce with the dim sum.

Oddly, Cathay Pacific won’t seem to prepare or serve coffee while the seatbelt sign is on. Which meant that I couldn’t have my cappuccino with breakfast, while sitting back in the buddy seat of my wife’s suite. So I wound up having to wait until returning to my own seat for my morning pick-me-up. And I stuck with cappuccinos, which were fine. Interestingly, unlike the other better Asian carriers I’ve flown, they don’t market particular gourmet coffees (e.g. Jamaican Blue Mountain).

Ultimately I do have to say that this was the most comfortable seat I’ve ever slept in. Cathay’s inflight entertainment system is outstanding. The food was all high-quality, though the options and portions not nearly as myriad as the first class offerings on some carriers. The seat is hardly ideal for couples traveling together who actually like each other and want to spend the flight together although the seat itself is actually wide enough for most couples to spend a bit of time side-by-side if they really wanted, and the option to dine together is magnificent.

Service I’m a little bit vexed by. It was certainly friendly. It was precise. Every time utensils were placed before me, they were done so with care. Cathay Pacific logos faced me. They never forgot truffles when their procedures called for delivering them. And we were even gifted an unopened box prior to landing (the glory of a half-empty cabin and overnight flight).

But Cathay service standards seem to be to stay out of the cabin. The pilot announced after his takeoff announcement that you wouldn’t hear from him again until close to landing, which was true and appreciated without actual need for mid-flight announcements of grave import. The flight attendants similarly didn’t circulate, either. I’d hit the call button and they’d be there instantly, but they weren’t so proactive as to notice when you needed something before coming to the conclusion that you needed their help. Service in that way really wouldn’t be considered ‘anticipatory’ — something that carriers like Singapore certainly do better. Don’t get me wrong, all of my needs were met, and it was nice not to have the aisles cluttered or constant activity when trying to sleep. But the best carriers don’t swing in that direction either, they seem to notice from an unobtrusive spot exactly when they’re needed and to appear only when it’s helpful for them to do so, without being called. Cathay didn’t hit that sweet spot.

Also another minor bit, not a complaint mind you but just a difference. Whenever I’ve entered the lavatory in All Nippon’s first class, it’s been freshly cleaned with the toilet paper folded over. That’s not something you could imagine on a United flight, of course! And it happened once or twice on Cathay but not consistently. Still, the lavatory itself was beautiful and again no complaints.

A marvelous in-air experience, my 15 hours absolutely flew by, and I was thoroughly refreshed on arrival just before 5 am local time. They held disembarkation while the three of us in first class exited the plane. And then it was off to transit security and the Wing to freshen up in a cabana…

As most of y’all no doubt know, American Airlines AAdvantage is unique in its lifetime status qualification — miles from all sources count, not just flown miles.

• One million miles earned = Lifetime Gold
• Two million miles earned = Lifetime Platinum

I’ve never been a regular American customer. I’ve long leaned much more towards the Star Alliance. I don’t think I’ve done more than 25,000 or 50,000 total qualifying miles on paid oneworld tickets in my entire life.

But stay around these programs long enough, watch the promotions, chase after some of them, and the miles build up. And with all the partners and promotions that American has had over time, they’ve been great to build mileage balances up with.

In particular, churning Citibank co-branded credit cards over time was very good to me with signup bonuses (may she rest in peace for most, though do consider getting a business card if you haven’t already had one, a flavor of card like Visa or Amex if you haven’t had one, etc). And BankDirect, for sure.

In the last five months since I’ve written about American lifetime elite status I’ve picked up a couple hundred thousand miles.

So I’m really on the cusp on 2 million miles earned and lifetime Platinum. I’m sitting at 1.9 million, or a little over.

Now I’m desperately resisting the urge to transfer in a boatload of Starpoints, just to push myself over the top. It’s long been speculated that this unique feature of non-flight miles counting towards lifetime status would go away, and somehow I worry that it would go away right before I reach the finish line. It’s an unpublished benefit so there’s no reason to think if it were pulled it would be done with advance public notice.

Of course those Starpoints are more valuable sitting where they are, maintaining their flexibility.

Some might ask why I’d even want American’s Platinum status since I don’t fly American? That’s fair. If they gave me lifetime Executive Platinum I would certainly become an AA customer! But Platinum gets you double miles and higher priority on waitlists of various kinds, more or less (not to mention the 4 international confirmed upgrades you get when you cross the 2 million miler threshold). It’s not enough to sway my business, really.

Still, it’s lifetime status. There’s an allure to that, and of course I don’t know what my future needs or preferences will be and risk-averse type that I am I’d love to lock it in.

Though I guess if American stopped counting non-flight miles towards lifetime status tomorrow, I’d just have to actually fly about 95,000 miles… But that’s the fun in that???

Details were made available on Flyertalk, but registration won’t open until May 1.

The skinny is this — One free weekend night for every three stays between May 1 and July 31.

These nights will need to be consumed by 19 December 2010 at properties up through Category 6 (so excludes Category 7 properties).

Hyatt’s offer is a free night every two stays, valid all week long, but with a shorter redemption period. Hilton’s offer is a free night every four stays (or 10 nights) with a slightly longer redemption period.

So this offer hits a sweet spot in terms of how easy or hard it is to earn a free night. And the free nights are valid for a reasonable period of time. But they’re only redeemable Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

This is a good defensive move since both Hyatt and Hilton have free night offers on top of the usual points earning, and of course to my mind Starwood has plenty more properties one actually wants to redeem at compared to Hilton.

Whether this is an especially lucrative offer though depends on how your redemption patterns work, for most folks a weekend restriction is not problematic because vacation stays will correspond with at least a weekend and that’s how typical redemption patterns work. But if you’re not a weekend redemption type, the offer is far less valuable.

I do rather like Hyatt’s model of offering bonus points as an option. The free night is much more valuable, but there are people traveling so much for business without personal time to redeem the nights they earn, and such high volume customers would certainly value an option without near-term expiration.

But on the whole this is a very nice promo. At three stays per night it’s hard to get the economics to be overly favorable mattress-running jus for high-value free night redemptions, though it’s certainly not impossible. But it’s a big incentive to stay loyal to Starwood. And an even bigger incentive to hotel hop when you need to stay anyway. There are plenty of great clusters of Starwood properties, for instance I would probably switch back and forth between the Sheraton Grande and Westin in Bangkok because moving would just be so darned convenient.

I’ll no doubt offer up a reminder of this offer when registration opens.

Radisson et al’s Goldpoints program is offering progressively more bonus points for longer stays through May 28. Registration is required.

Stay 2 consecutive nights and earn Double Gold Points
Stay 3 consecutive nights and earn Triple Gold Points
Stay 4 consecutive nights and earn Quadruple Gold Points

Hint, don’t think it has anything to do with whichever makes a better match (which is clearly Continental).

Holly Hegeman nails it.

[A]n eventual deal will depend heavily on the role current members of upper management at United Airlines take in any deal. Particularly United Airlines Chairman and CEO Glenn Tilton. As I wrote this week in PlaneBusiness Banter, one of the big factors in the failure of the Continental deal, and a complicating factor in a proposed US Airways’ deal was Tilton’s insistence upon keeping control in both deals.

But at the same time, Tilton knows that both US Airways and Continental would like to link up with United. And pressure is building on Tilton to get a deal done. He’s only been talking about doing one since he took his position with the airline in 2002.

Frankly, I think Continental would be better off to sit and wait out the current matchmaking attempts. Unless Continental CEO Jeff Smisek and his management team can take control of the new merged entity…

With US Airways, sources who are involved with the deal tell us that CEO Doug Parker appears willing to let Glenn Tilton stay on in the role of Chairman, with Parker taking the CEO position. But would Tilton be willing to give Parker the control he would need to put together a new management team?

One thing is for sure. This deal, when all is said and done, will be all about ego. Forget routes, forget aircraft compatibility. Forget which deal the markets finds more appealing.

Separately, there’s even been some talk of a 5% stake in a merged entity for management, as a payoff to get things done.

When ultimately there’s little question that a Continental – United merger at least makes a little sense (wtih Cleveland going away, and Dulles downsizing, but with myriad fleet commonality issues and workforce cultures that likely aren’t worth the potential upside). Whereas United and US Airways seems just silly — Philadephia, Dulles, National, and Charlotte hub operations? (Ok, National isn’t technically a US Airways hub but it might as well be.) All three categories already have alliance partnerships, United and Continental obtained antitrust immunity, and any can park their planes wherever they wish without going through the merger.

Instead as Holly observes it’s about egos. And payoffs/payouts.

If true, April 14 was a huge day for web glitches or incorrect statements on program websites.

First, Delta took their close-in booking fees off their website but then later in the day put them back.

Then the british midland Diamond Club website said accounts were being migrated over to Miles & More.

But just a few hours ago, joanna from Diamond Club posted on Flyertalk that this is all just an IT glitch:

Please don’t worry, Diamond Club is NOT being closed.

However, since we no longer operate flights to and from The Netherlands, Israel and Ukraine, and in response to member requests, we’re transferring our members in these countries into Miles & More. These members can then continue to enjoy ffp benefits when flying on other Lufthansa sister airlines as well as with Star Alliance. Unfortunately, the web page that members in these markets click through to from the email we will be sending them accidentally appeared in the main navigation on our web page. We’re very sorry for the confusion this has caused.

My sense is that if they’re transitioning some members to Miles & More that they don’t consider Diamond Club to be a program that they’re nurturing for the long-term. So it’s only a matter of time for the rest of us. But that for most of the world, the end will not be mid-May.

Open question whether it’s possible to migrate one’s bmi Gold membership to The Netherlands, Israel or Ukraine in order to become a Lufthansa Senator.

That was fast!

This morning I blogged that Delta had eliminated close-in booking fees for awards. No longer would Delta charge its customers to book awards less than 21 days in advance, following the move United made last summer.

But now the fees are back! They’re waived for Platinum and Diamond elites and for American Express co-branded Delta Platinum and Reserve credit card holders. But everyone else will pay the fees. And the fees have gone up, they’re now as much as $150.

Should’ve known that there wouldn’t actually be a customer-friendly move coming out of Delta.

For almost two years there’s been speculation that the bmi program would be ending, folded into Lufthansa. It’s seen some changes, like increases in the cost of first class awards and a premium for first class on Lufthansa (likely because Lufthansa First was so darned available).

The speculation really heated up of late, although it was mostly centered on increased costs for the award chart.

But today there’s a fast-moving Flyertalk thread which caused me to log into my own (elite) bmi account.

When I log into my bmi Diamond Club account, there’s a link on the left hand navigation that says “Miles and More” — click on it and the text reads:

Thank you for registering for the status match and miles transfer offer, from the Diamond Club frequent flyer programme to the Miles & More frequent flyer programme.
 
Whilst the membership account transfer process is in progress, your Diamond Club account will be suspended and from 16 May 2010 you will not be able to earn or redeem miles against this account. When the miles transfer and status match is complete, your Diamond Club membership will cease to exist and you will no longer be able to access your old membership information via flybmi.com.

Please ensure you now begin to use your Miles & More membership number against all future flight bookings and for all other miles earning and redemption activities.

So it looks pretty darn likely that – while there’s been no other communication of late — that the IT folks have let slip that bmi members are being migrated over to Miles & More. Presumably this means the end of the separate Diamond Club program. A sad day, indeed.

Now, as a bmi elite member I rather like the idea of a status match into Miles & More. If I’m given new Senator status now, the hope is that it lasts for two years (as is the norm), expiring February 2013, with a soft landing to two years at the Frequent Traveller (Star Alliance Silver) level if I do not requalify for Senator.

Of course when programs combine, your balances that used to be in separate accounts can get combined, and that’ll be helpful to some that are saving for awards.

One strong benefit of Lufthansa Senator is the 50% off redemption for a companion on the same award. That’s not matched by bmi’s offerings.

But bmi Diamond Club was otherwise so much more valuable, in particular the items that will be missed:

It had to happen eventually, the bmi program was a scrappy little value-creation machine, especially for elite members flying paid premium class fares and redeeming for premium cabin international travel.

And I’ve certainly valued my complimentary lounge access when flying domestically in the US as a result of bmi status as well.So assuming this isn’t all some giant hoax by the Diamond Club IT staff, it marks a sad end to a great program.

(Hat tip Stevenshev)

Flyertalk member GUWonder points to a TSA procurement solicitation for new uniforms.

It’s a $2.6 million contract with options up to $98 million and estimated spending of $11 million to $13 million per year.

Superguy reads the document and shares these details:

Provide uniform items to approximately 12,000 new hire TSOs

TSA revises the uniforms in some form at least every 2-3 years.

Standard issue includes a team jacket (Go TSA!)

Commando sweaters (whatever those are – might explain a lot), parkas, ball caps, and knit stocking caps are optional items

Looking for designs for the following: Raincoats, gloves, multiple shoe/boot choices, cardigan sweater, Honor Guard items – headgear, white gloves, aiguillettes, ascots, corfam shoes, belts, and cargo pants

These uniforms will be at least as effective as, if not more effective than, Whole Body Imaging (aka nudo-o-scope) devices in providing security.

Delta has eliminated their close-in award booking fees. So no more charges for booking award tickets less than three weeks prior to travel.

United eliminated these fees last summer.

Delta takes a lot of heat for me here over their poor award availability, especially in premium classes, for their very much broken award pricing engine and website functionality, and for refusing to even publish an award chart for trips that originate outside of North America.

So this is a rare positive move from the Skymiles program, and one that deserves some applause. What’s more, and confusingly, it was done without fanfare. The fees were in place as recently as Monday, and now they’re gone, and I haven’t seen any comment from Delta on the development at all. Naturally, it was noticed on Flyertalk.

American still charges $50 to $100 for awards booked close to travel. Time for American to AAdjust!

US Airways is offering double miles that also count towards status through June 15.

Double elite quaifying miles offers don’t usually also earn double redeemable miles. But the offer does overlap Southwest’s double credits offer (and lasts a couple more weeks).

Registration is required and the offer applies only to tickets issued after registration. And as usual for these sorts of promos, the offer applies only to flights on the airline’s own metal (and Express carriers) but not to partner airline flights.

This offer does make it a little more likely that American and then United could do double elite qualifying miles offers over a similar period. But a little more likely doesn’t mean it will happen and I’m guessing that US Airways won’t be enough to trigger the big boys’ reactions. It would take Delta, and if Delta were to do it my bet is it’s only on higher fares. Developing… but a good time to credit to US AIrways whether you’re in search for status or not!

Update: Ben offers good advice — hold off booking tickets with American, United, and Delta for a couple of weeks if you can. This US Airways promotion only counts for travel booked after registering, there’s a good chance if the other majors do match they will follow suit. It would be a shame to book May travel now and have it not count towards potential double elite qualifying miles. We’ll know soon enough whether anyone else matches, so don’t buy any tickets on a carrier that hasn’t matched for the never several days if you can help it.

Cranky Flier relays a story about booking what appeared to be a premium class fare online but learning that the operating carrier saw the reservation as being in coach.

In all likelihood the issue is driven by the website booking a fare class that it though was in a premium cabin, but that the airline considers to be a coach fare.

Cranky’s general advice for this situation is sound:

Always double check with your airline after booking through an online travel agent to make sure everything is in order.

I’d actually expand this a bit. This is true for third party bookings. It’s also true for flights involving partner carriers, whether ticketed by one airline but involving a flight on another or involving a code share, and especially with partner award tickets.

I once booked an award on Lufthansa and Thai with United miles. I put the award on hold involving a flight back from Shanghai. I changed the award prior to ticketing to come back a day later from Beijing. No problem, tickets issued, United website showed my itinerary correctly. But Lufthansa still saw the Shanghai – Frankfurt flight in the reservation, and when I no-showed it I’d likely have had the rest of my itinerary cancelled. Lufthansa couldn’t change it, as United has made the booking. And goodness knows I didn’t trust United to fix it when they told me they didn’t even see the Shanghai flights on their end. So I just waited until my outbound when I was in Frankfurt’s First Class Terminal, and I asked my kind personal assistant there to fix it. And magically it was fixed. But I’m glad I knew there was an issue, which I wouldn’t have without checking.

Similarly, I flew Air Canada on a United codeshare, United ticket stock, tickets issued by Mark Travel (United Vacations) and while the outbound was fine somehow the return ticket got disassociated from the reservation. I couldn’t check in online and it took close to half an hour to sort out at the airport — prior to Toronto’s insane security and of course US immigration preclearance procedures.

In this case I had actually spoken to the airline and had been assured that everything was fine!

So it makes sense to call and even then there’s no guarantee. Things can go wrong. But usually under the premise of dealing with seat assignments one can discover if anything is amiss with a reservation. And it’s generally a good idea to take such precautions.

I’ve visited this lounge twice in two weeks, both times around breakfast. It’s perfectly well-provisioned for what it is, which is unimpressive by international standards but certainly better than a red carpet room.

It was busy, though with plenty of seating, certainly clean and staff were visibly picking up after folks and restocking the modest breakfast selections.

I took a walk over to the restrooms and was reasonably impressed.

But it was the shower room signs that stuck with me.

Heh Heh. That sign’s cool, Beavis.

I spent this past weekend at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto. This was from the United Vacations $600 off a $700+ Canada package from back in December.

For $550 all-in I got 2 roundtrip tickets to Toronto (with 5000 bonus United miles apiece) and 3-nights at the Fairmont Royal York. We’re upgraded to a suite and we get complimentary internet as Fairmont Presidents Club members. And breakfast was a throw-in as well.

I checked in, our suite was confirmed, but they didn’t see breakfast in the system. The desk clerk added it without argument. The paperwork had said breakfast was to be taken in “York’s Kitchen” restaurant. We asked the concierge where that was and were directed down to the basement level shopping arcade. We found the restaurant, but it was closed that first morning.

Back upstairs, and that same desk clerk Christopher who checked us in re-confirmed that we were to get breakfast, he had added it, and it was ‘our choice’ between the main restaurant Epic and York’s Kitchen. Well, Epic was open so we took our breakfast there. We identified breakfast as included in our rate and the restaurant acknowledged this.

The buffet was rather small, not much beyond a standard Hilton breakfast, though the check for 2 people came to $72 which they told us would be credited back to us.

The next morning Epic was closed, but York’s Kitchen was open. The buffet was almost identical, but the restaurant space at York’s Kitchen was more cafeteria-like (now I did feel like we were eating at a Hilton!) and it was much cheaper, the check for two came to ~ $44 rather than $72 and again we were told it wouldn’t be charged to us. The credit slip read “B/B” for bed and breakfast rate.

And yet… both mornings’ breakfasts showed up on our bill.

Meanwhile, I had a long chat with a cabbie about the property, from his perspective it was way overrated. There was a long line of cabs in front of the hotel, and Steve was out front calling them over. Now, Steve had a thick accent, asked us where we were going and repeated it to the cab driver. Steve got it wrong, fortunately I told the cabbie where we actually wanted to go and that was no problem. The driver explained that Steve enforces a $5 kickback on all airport runs, so he always needs to know where you’re going. If a cabbie doesn’t pay the $5 bribe, Steve advises guests against taking a particular cab because ‘they get into lots of accidents.’ The cab driver said that never happens at the Four Seasosn, they don’t accept bribes there, at the Royal York it’s required.

Housekeeping was friendly and efficient, though at turndown service when they close the drapes they weren’t too concerned tripping over luggage underneath the window. They provide a couple of bottles of water, no chocolates, which is fine.

The rooms themselves are nice, very old school, but in need of work. The wallpaper in our bedroom was significantly bubbling off the wall. The toilet in one of the bathrooms smelled pretty badly. And the water in the shower took over 5 minutes to heat up.

The hotel is huge, but everyone was generally friendly. And I wouldn’t hesitate to stay here again on a similar deal. But it’s an old, aging property, once with much glory but ultimately ‘almost nice’.

Oh, and this was amusing down the block:

Chris Elliott rails against US AIrways for their award redeposit fees.

Award tickets are not free. Victoria Casey knew that when she made plans to fly to Europe on US Airways this summer. Each reservation cost her $50, in addition to the 320,000 miles she spent for four first-class tickets.

But Casey never imagined she’s be paying the airline for nothing — and paying it a lot more than $200.

Hers is a cautionary tale about the value of frequent flier mileage programs.

Yes, frequent flyer programs are some sort of trap to suck out your money.

Granted, US Airways charges award ‘processing fees’ in this case the $200 referenced above for 4 tickets. That does strike me as unreasonable, a fee for the privilege of booking a free ticket. And that’s entirely apart from the telephone booking fee (waived on itineraries that can’t be booked online such as partner awards, which makes partner telephone redemptions cheaper than US Airways ones). So it’s not a fee for telephone assistance, just a redemption tax.

I don’t like that fee at all, but I deal with it because US Airways miles are easy to obtain and they’re great for international premium class redemptions.

But the person writing to Chris cancelled their trip,and they were charged award redemposit fees.

If these were paid tickets, there’d be a cancellation fee as well. Most tickets will retain their cash value minus that fee, and award tickets get the miles back. You can’t withhold the fee from the miles, so they take the fee upfront in cash and refund all the miles.

Of course this fee is optional, you don’t have to pay it if you want to let the miles go to waste. You’re just buying back your miles, and in this case buying over 300,000 miles for an incremental $1000 is hugely worth it.

I will say that the amount US Airways charges — $250 on an international itinerary — is high. It’s very high. British Airways charges $70. Air Canada charged CDN$90. American and United do charge $150. And US Airways says they’ll charge the fee on redeposits or on any change at all in advance of travel, and no changes or redepostits once travel begins. They/re certainly on the high side here. But for an optional fee that’s worth it that mirrors paid tickets, it is what it is.

Ultimately I’d like to see these fees more closely mirror paid tickets that allow changes and credits for a fee. That fee is taken out of the value of the ticket. Why not allow the cancellation fee to be paid in miles? Though if this option were introduced, it would probably be for too many miles to be worth it. Still, it seems a reasonable thing to ask for.

The point of the column, as I take it, is be aware of the fees you face.  And since top tier elites at most programs don’t actually face these fees at all, it’s another argument for focused loyalty.

Delta elites above the silver level, Skyteam Elite Plus members, and business class passengers get, wait for it… “Sky Priority!”

Gee whiz, what is that? Well, it’s mostly (a) what they already get and (b) marketing schmaltz.

It was announced on Flyertalk and they’ve created a website to promote it.

And all it is is.. new branded signage and banners across Delta’s websites and in the airports, “we try to get you on your way in under 10 minutes” when checking in for folks who already get priority checkin, dedicated elite security lines where those already exist, priority boarding, priority baggage tags (“we’ll try to do better with that going forward…”), and special phone lines for lost baggage.

In other words, elite benefits!

The Wandering Aramean reports on the one actual improvement to this offering: Gold elites and above (and partner elites of a similar level) sitting in coach will now get a complimentary beverage or buy on board snack.

That’s a real benefit.  The irony is that one nuggest of substance doesn’t quite sizzle, so they’ve spend tons on marketing and branding.  But they’re not really offering anything meaningfully new.

In other news, Delta Skymiles are still very tough to use for international premium class award travel compared to every other major program in North America.  And the Delta website makes booking awards appear even tougher than that.  Fix the nuts and bolts, Delta, don’t just spin with Sky Priority…!

For two days before my trip began, I checked the weather obsessively.

I was connecting up to Toronto to begin my first class oneworld award. Missing the start of the trip would be a serious pain. Fortunately oneworld awards are pretty changeable, even after travel begins, but there are no changes to routing. And if I don’t even start the trip, then I’m at the mercy of award availability… from the looks of things I could fly Toronto – Hong Kong – Manila in first class the next day if I missed my outbound flight. But certainly that availability could have changed, especially with Cathay Pacific where availability sometimes seems to come and go for no logical reason at all. I certainly didn’t want my first class flight to Hong Kong to turn out to be business class and lose a day of the trip no less.

So it certainly mattered that I make it up to Toronto in time. But the weather was looking like it might not cooperate — severe storms with significant winds, and here I was flying United Express with no likely backup flights that could get me to Toronto if my flights cancelled.

I thought about catching an earlier flight up to Toronto, it’d be easy to do, the United flights were wide open and I was on an award so it was fully changeable. But I didn’t want to, I had people visiting from out of town for just a day and wanted to visit with them longer if possible. Still, the costs of missing my connection were high. But knowing my luck, I’d switch to the earlier flight… it would cancel, the other flight I was supposed to be on would go off just find but it’d be sold out and I wouldn’t be able to get on it!

So what to do?

I shot off an email to Cranky Concierge. I figured if there was a good time to give Brett’s new service a try, it was now, when I had a flight that was likely to give me problems. I could simultaneously review his offerings, and get someone to bounce ideas off of.

He took my flight details and my cell phone number for texts and my email address as well.

Cranky Concierge kept updated on the weather, the big factor that would influence our strategy. The afternoon before he let me know..

this could turn into a 4 to 5 inch event. That’s crazy, but it’s not snow so it’s good. Most of the discussion I’m seeing is not predicting thunderstorms, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. It will be windy, and that could be the problem. I have one source predicting east-southeast winds from 20 to 30 kts gusting to 40 kts. That could mean they can only use the one cross runway and that would spell trouble.

.. So, it’s going to be ugly tomorrow no matter what. We can see tomorrow if United is planning on doing a lot of canceling or not.

Then late the night before I got an update with the planned operating schedule for the aircraft I was supposed to fly, and also for the earlier flight I was considering.

Both flights were coming to DC from Montreal, where weather looked good, and flying to Montreal from Chicago. So as long as the schedule held, and these planes made it out of Chicago which was expecting rain, we should at least have aircraft at our disposal.

Then at 8am, updated weather — indeed, the storm was hovering North of DC, we’d get lots of rain but the worst of the storm wouldn’t hit, and it didn’t look like United was cancelling lots of flights. The aircraft in question were beginning their flights just fine. A prediction that we’d be ok.

Still, I decided to make my way up around noon instead of 5pm, figuring in the absence of perfect knowledge better to have time on my side. Besides, with the uncertainty of the weather I wouldn’t have been much of a lunch companion for out of town guests.

I got an update that my new earlier flight took off from Montreal on-time. And indeed everything was smooth as can be. Off to Dulles, that place was deserted. Nothing going on in the Red Carpet Club (by the D gates, the one that used to have the rat problem if I recall correctly). The departure monitors showed a good 95% of flights operating on time.

Another email from Cranky Concierge with departure and arrival gates, offers of suggestions on wireless internet, restaurants, or shops…

But this was the end of the line for working with Cranky, though I did receive an arrival email in Toronto I didn’t have him monitoring the rest of my trip.

Flight to Toronto went off without a hitch, but then so did the original flight I was scheduled for. The pressure was off at least. Would I have been ok without Cranky Concierge? Sure. But it was nice to bat around strategy with someone. And no doubt for a traveler who isn’t me (no arrogance intended), it’s a huge value at $25.

Now we were in Toronto with a better than 10 hour connection. Toronto weather was awful, hovering just above freezing and raining sideways. Didn’t want to head into the City, I just grabbed a room at the Sheraton attached to the airport.

We arrived Terminal 1 so took the airport train over to Terminal 3, which is the same stop as the Sheraton. Walked into the hotel (with brand spanking new reservation), they had already blocked me into a large room on the club floor and let me know my benefits in lieu of the club, since the lounge is closed on weekends.

Strictly speaking the lounge was still accessible via keycard, there’s just no service, but the coffee machine was operational and there’s a refrigerator with drinks which was great for grabbing a few waters.

They provide breakfast in the restaurant via vouchers (we’d be long gone), and instead of happy hour a CDN$40 credit for use in the bar or restaurant. Great, a nice lunch. And free internet. Well worth it, we were fed and could relax until it was time to head into the terminal.

It was just your average Sheraton room, though in a corner so a bit oversized with a very long hallway. The bathroom was by the entryway, and the bedroom on the other end of the hall.

The view from the room was just of the parking lot, but you can see the rain. We stayed here on the way back as well with a room overlooking the runways. Out the window by the elevators though on this stay we saw the Terminal 3 action.

Then around 10pm it was off to the terminal to check in for Cathay Pacific. I won’t go through details of the check-in process besides saying that there was no line for Cathay First, but nothing special to the experience. We checked our bags through to Manila, were handed boarding and lounge passes, and headed over to security. Only a few people ahead of us but that process took at least 25 minutes as nearly everyone got full patdowns and hand swipes and several folks had full searches of their bags. Not to mention the requirement to take out laptops, my Checkpoint Flyer laptop bag is of no use in Canada!

Once through we headed to the utterly mediocre KLM lounge and prepared for our just past midnight Cathay Pacific First Class departure.

Now that piece was worth waiting for, and sadly you’ll have to wait to read about it…

Chains on the doors are way too easy to defeat. With a rubber band, no less.