Back on April 21 I noted that US Airways is offering new Dividend Miles members 1500 miles for signing up by July 31 by using promo code NM15.

The offer is here.

I figured that a post noting the offer by Points, Miles, and Martinis is a good reason to mention it again in case anyone comes across this blog that isn’t already a US Airways frequent flyer member. 1500 free miles makes it worth signing up.

While I don’t love the airline, I’ve certainly found the frequent flyer program to be lucrative — lots of great promotions for earning large number of miles at low cost, and amazing redemption possibilities using Star Alliance partner airlines with a reasonable award chart, no blocking of partner award seats (as United unfortunately does), and very few routing rules.

In the current month’s Wise Flyer, a regular feature in Inside Flyer (subscription required.), Randy Petersen answers a reader question about services that help you search for frequent flyer award tickets.

AwardPlanner by MileageManager .. is part of a paid mileage manager service so you actually get far more for your investment since MileageManager manages your frequent flyer accounts–including help with expiring miles. AwardPlanner, a dedicated award tool, allows you to search for award seats from all the programs in which you have miles–making it a one-stop shop for watching for award seats. If the tool is unable to find your award seats at the time of your request, it will put your request into a queue and re-check daily for you until it finds an award seat and will then notify you via email. If planning in advance, you can let this tool run daily for you for several months. It has a really good track record of actually finding award seats (for when airlines change award inventory or other members change their plans). It is often preferred over the Yapta.com solution because it is looking at the actual awards you may be eligible for. For example, most programs set aside a differing and more generous selection of awards based upon your status with the airline. The cost is $14.95 annually and the list of programs includes most if not all major U.S. programs and several European and Asian programs.

So, these services can greatly assist you with watching for award seats, particularly at the lowest levels as they search daily for award inventory.

And the final part of your question I think refers to other types of services. Yes, I did at one time offer a service for a fee to assist members with award redemption. It was popular and operated for many years with great results. But I discontinued it about two years ago to concentrate on technology solutions.

The good news is that at least two enterprising groups now offer similar services. Both are run by knowledgeable individuals who are up to the task of securing the award seats you want. Typically these services are best used when searching for multiple business and first class seats internationally. Not inexpensive, but neither is having to purchase a ticket to wherever you may be going.

The first is BookyourAward.com and the second is available as part of the MileageManager.com service as one of two options of the AwardPlanner service. The good thing about this is that with the tool included in your AwardPlanner membership, you can use the AwardPlanner tool first to find and waitlist your award searches and if that doesn’t work, you can choose to use the paid service. If I were not able to find my own awards, I would not hesitate to use either service.

Randy’s MileageManager service is pretty neat in that you can set it to search for award seats on the websites of major North American programs, and it will keep on checking. It’ll only find those seats that are discoverable online, but that’s still huge in that it’ll e-mail you when seats become available.

And for paid, live help the MileageManager premium service is offered in conjunction with One Mile at a Time blogger Lucky. And BookYourAward.com is of course my offering.

I do book international first class awards, such as on Cathay Pacific and All Nippon, Lufthansa and Asiana, most every day!

For the “I would not hesitate to use either service” endorsement, Randy, of my service right alongside yours.. I do much appreciate!

From the perspective of a frequent flyer, I’ve had (3) main questions about a United-Continental merger.

1. Starnet blocking. United is the only airline in the Star Alliance that will not allow its mileage members to book any award seat taht its partners offer to them. United often doesn’t want to pay for the seats, to they program their computers to respond that award seats other Star Alliance carriers are offering “aren’t available.” Continental has explicitly rejected such a strategy. This month blocking has been at a minimum, though that’s part of the normal cycle (I usually see blocking at its lightest in February/May/August/November). So I’m not ready to take this as a clue that blocking is done for a merged entity. Whether or not blocking exists in the combined entity is – to me – the difference between whether Continental miles are just made less valuable as a result of the merger, or whether United miles become more valuable.

 

2. Two-cabin or three-cabin aircraft? United offers international business class and first class. Granted their first class cabin soft product is weak — no pajamas, amenity kits aren’t high-end branded, meals don’t feature rare and expensive offerings like caviar or truffles, and there’s no Dom or Krug. But it’s a smaller cabin with better seats and more space. It’s better than business! Continental on the other hand offers business class only. They call it ‘BusinessFirst’ and once marketed it as a hybrid between business class and first class, but they don’t even have industry-standard flat bed seats fleet wide, it’s a subpar business product not a notch above. And they even fly narrowbodies transatlantic. Will the combined entity continue to play in the international first class market? My guess is not, though those long-haul transpacific routes really call for it. Here’s hoping that the Continental leadership gets bitten by the bug of needing to be a world-class airline once they’re the largest…

 

3. Economy plus? United offers coach seats with extra legroom for free to elites, and for purchase to everyone else. Continental does not. It’s a huge elite benefit for those times you’re stuck in coach. What would a merged entity do here? American used to offer ‘more room throughout coach’, extra pitch for everybody, and reconfigured the cabin to take htat away. It’s possible to remove the better seat configuration just as it’s possible to add it. And you’d think they’d have to strive for consistency fleet-wide, at least eventually.On this last piece, Wandering Aramean thinks he’s caught a clue as to Continental’s intentions in their announcement of planned Boeing 787 service from Houston to Auckland. If the airline’s press release is right on number of planned seats in the aircraft, the cabin dimensions suggest an economy plus offering.

Now, of course there are other questions, and we don’t know the answers yet. Will United Red Carpet clubs offer complimentary alcoholic beverages? Will there be a 75,000-mile elite tier added to the 25/50/100k mix? What will happen to capacity at Washington-Dulles (with Continental’s strength at Newark) and Cleveland (with United’s strength at O’Hare)? And many many more.

But the above three questions are the ‘biggies’ from my own value-proposition perspective.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve written about this, so the reminder this week from the MilesLink newsletter is much appreciated – that United still offers the College Plus program which awards students 10,000 free miles upon graduation.

You have to join College Plus prior to graduating and send your final transcript within 12 months of graduation to get the miles.

So for everyone about to graduate, sign up now! (Or anyone in college not quite ready to graduate, sign up now so you don’t forget later…)

USA Today reports on another flyer ‘list’ kept by the government:

Airline passengers who get frustrated and kick a wall, throw a suitcase or make a pithy comment to a screener could find themselves in a little-known Homeland Security database.

The Transportation Security Administration says it is keeping records of people who make its screeners feel threatened as part of an effort to prevent workplace violence.

Remember – you must respect their authoritah!

The database was created in late 2007 as the TSA launched a program to prevent the nation’s 50,000 airport screeners from being attacked or threatened, agency spokeswoman Kristin Lee said. At the time, TSA officials voiced concern about passengers disrespecting screeners, and they began issuing new uniforms with police-style badges pinned to shirts.

(Emphasis mine.)

But how’s this list of folks on double secret probation with the TSA working out?

Lee said attacks and threats against screeners are “rare” and the database has records from about 240 incidents. Most are screeners in conflict with other screeners.

No surprise there…

(Via Musings of the Global Traveller.)

Flyertalk member Evan! points out that the US Airways 50% Bonus on Hotel, Rental Car Earning and Points Transfers I posted about yesterday (registration required) means that you can earn 4725 US Airways miles on a 3-day Avis car rental through July 31.

That’s because the US Airways 3000 mile bonus for a 3-day Avis rental is eligible for the bonus.

Wonderfully lucrative for any 3-day rentals you’ve got coming up!

ABCNews.com ran a piece on why there are no North American or European airlines amongst the Skytrax top 10 in quality.

Skytrax acknowledges progress in US and European ‘hard product’ such as seats and entertainment. Indeed, United’s new business class seats (installed fleet-wide on 767 and 747 aircraft and just beginning to roll out on their 777s) are very good. And British Airways has set a world standard for business class seats for many years. Air Canada has some outstanding seats, similar to the Air New Zealand (which makes the list) and Virgin (which does not) offerings. The new Swiss business class looks pretty great, though I haven’t tried it. Of course, American’s business seats and Air France’s are in my opinion quite awful and neither has a solid plan for replacement.

But the piece lays out some of the niceties offered by Asian and Middle Eastern carriers (and Air New Zealand, which unmentioned in the piece can help even coach passengers inflight with planning their activities in New Zealand).

Then it speculates on the differences — the things North American and European carriers lack, and why.

On differences in service:

Thai Airways first class passengers have a private check-in lounge, are escorted through private immigration, taken by golf cart to the lounge and then escorted later to their plane.

“It is truly someone else’s problem to worry. You don’t even know what gate you are leaving out of,” Leff said. “Their whole purpose is to make sure you are taken care of.”

Elite passengers here do get to skip a few lines but generally, Leff said, “you watch the departure board and show up at the boarding gate and fight the masses onto the plane.”

Now in fairness, not all Asian carriers are great on the ground. Singapore and Cathay, for all their in-flight excellence, are rather mediocre even at their home airports. And Lufthansa in Germany has them beat at the airport, though certainly not inflight.

But why the overall differences?

A lot of the differences have to do with the intangible pleasantries that come with good service. Overseas, emphasis is placed on exceptional service.

Compare that to the United States, where “the flight attendants are here primarily for your safety,” said Gary Leff, who writes the View from the Wing blog.

I told the author of the piece I didn’t really want to wade into the whys and wherefores behind this, so he got AirfareWatchdog’s George Hobica to do it instead…

For instance, British Airways — currently dealing with a strike by its cabin staff — pays flight attendants two to three times what Singapore Airlines does, according to Skytrax’s Plaisted. At those rates, you can hire a larger to staff to ensure that check-in lines are short and passengers get prompt drink refills.

“Ever see a 60-year-old flight attendant on Singapore Airlines?” said George Hobica, president of airfarewatchdog.com. “Asian airlines aren’t restricted by fair hiring laws; they can pay staff less — especially younger staff, and younger workers take fewer sick days. U.S. airlines are saddled with paying for their employees’ health insurance plans; not so in most Asian countries.”

I was sorta waiting for the payoff here — though certainly not the exclusive reason for the differences, unions and how they feed into corporate culture certainly do matter. There are plenty of great crews in the US, I’ve certainly had them with United (and Alaska..), but in most cases it’s a result of individual flight attendants taking pride in what they’re offering. And those that don’t really see downside for lack of effort.

All the meta-discussions aside, the actual Skytrax list is a bit silly. Ranking Asiana as best in the world is odd. Their service is very very good in my experience (though speaking personally I’m at times frustrated by the lack of English skills of some of their flight attendants). But their seat while good certainly isn’t great. The food and entertainment are top notch, though selection doesn’t compare in either case to the best of the best. And while I find their first class lounge in Seoul an oasis, it doesn’t compare to Thai’s ground service in Bangkok (or even really in Hong Kong) or Lufthansa’s in Germany.

I think ANA deserves to be on the list, ahead of Thai and Malaysia. And while Qantas is a good carrier I’m not sure it’s great. I’m also surprised not to see a Kingfisher or Jet on here.

Still, the airlines making the list are all ones I’d choose to fly over carriers offering flight attendants primarily for my safety.

Through July 31, US Airways is offering a 50% bonus on rental car and hotel mileage earning, and points transferred into Dividend Miles from hotel points programs. Registration is required, and bonus miles are scheduled to post weekly.

They ran this promo last summer as well. As I pointed out at the time, a transfer of 65,000 Starwood points would yield 120,000 US Airways miles — enough for a first class award from the US to Hong Kong (grab some of those sweet Chicago – Tokyo All Nippon first class award seats that are available in February..).

The June issue of Inside Flyer runs a cover story on the value of miles, how to think about when to use them, and what value to expect back in return for those redemptions.

The piece includes a sidebar Q&A with me and with Lucky.

We agree on most points. Delta Skypesos are the least valuable major mileage currency in North America. United’s Starnet blocking is a huge detriment to the value of their mileage. International premium cabin awards are the best use of miles, though they aren’t ‘worth’ for most people the sticker price that airlines charge for paid versions of the same itineraries.. We both like Aeroplan.

Our disagreements? Lucky thinks miles have gotten less valuable because of award chart inflation (a fair point) while I think that on the whole they’ve gotten more valuable because they’re easier to earn and alliance awards have come about and become more robust (with addition of new partners).

What say you — are miles worth more or less than they were five and ten years ago?

Another Frugal Travel Guy pointer, American is offering 35,000 miles after $750 in purchases within 4 months of cardmembership for your choice of Citibank co-branded Mastercard, Visa, or American Express.

The especially nice thing here, indeed, is that you can get the bonus for signing up for one of each card — that’s 105,000 miles for three credit card signups.

This specific offer doesn’t come with an annual fee waiver, so the card costs $85. Please let me know if you come across this same offer with a fee waiver, that would be ideal.

The previous best offer — which some will prefer because a first year fee waiver is available — is 30,000 miles after $750 in purchases and 5000 more bonus miles after $5000 in purchases within 12 months.

Update: Thanks to a reader in the comments and by email, here’s the offer with fee waived the first year. 35,000 miles for an American Airlines credit card. Best generally-available offer for an Ameircan co-branded card I’ve ever seen from Citi!

Via Frugal Travel Guy, here’s a link for an online offer of 50,000 bonus United miles (presumably after $250 in spending on the card within three months) and first year fee waived for the United Visa.

Outstanding offer, I’ve never seen a better one. This was recently available as a phone-in opportunity, but that was pulled.

This link is likely intended to be targeted to folks who received a specific mailing. But it should still work for anyone. If by some change you don’t automatically receive your bonus, be sure to have printed each page along the way or saved them as .pdf files to show the offer you signed up for. That said, I wouldn’t anticipate that there will be any difficulties.

Most folks are able to get the signup bonus for each specific card only once, so if you’ve had a personal United Visa Signature card in the past you may not be able to get the bonus again. But ‘your mileage may vary’, as they say.

Flyertalk member 1Ksuperstar reports on a miracle of modern domestic lounge innovation: the Alaska Airlines Amazing Pancake Machine.

It’s self-serve, push button pancake technology, 1Ksuperstar’s photo:

This has to be topped only by the Amazing Beer Machine in the Tokyo United Red Carpet Club:

It’s truly the little things. And when you’re used to domestic lounges in the US, the littlest things really do impress. After all, no Lufthansa beer gardens here in the States!

Folks in the rest of the world are often shocked to learn that Qantas actually charges Australians to join its frequent flyer program.

Now, the easiest way around this is to use an address elsewhere, I joined Qantas Frequent Flyer for free here in the U.S. Or credit your miles to American if you can (e.g. if most of your miles are from flying, and if you aren’t going to fly enough where upgrades are an issue), American has a more generous premium class long-haul award chart for sure.

But this Flyertalk thread points out that you can save the AUD$85 joining fee by signing up through Woolworths Everyday Rewards.

Most of the media attention on the current situation in Bangkok doesn’t really differentiate between areas of conflict and the rest of the city (or country, for that matter).

Via Bangkok Pundit, Richard Barrow has been frequently updating a Google Map that shows where violence is taking place in Bangkok.

Areas to avoid in Bangkok this weekend: Sala Daeng/Silom area, Lumpini Boxing Stadium/Bon Kai area and Ratchaprarop to Din Daeng area including Victory Monument.

Would I head to Bangkok now, all things equal? Probably not, though I have no concerns transiting Bangkok at this point. And if I had an overnight and didn’t want to stay at the airport I’d probably head down to the river via the Chonburi expressway, though I might take a less direct route depending on the hotel I was staying at, I might not get off at the Silom exit.

Others no doubt have other recommendations, but I did find the map useful.

Update: Apparently the Dusit Thani has come under fire.

A luxury hotel overlooking the sprawling protest site came under gunfire in the early hours of Monday morning and was rattled by an explosion, prompting guests to shelter in the basement…

At the Dusit Thani hotel, which overlooks the Reds’ encampment, guests evacuated their rooms and rushed to the basement as staff warned them the hotel was under attack, according to an AFP journalist inside.

“I was in bed. There was a big explosion very close to my room. I went out of the room, other people did too and at that moment the wall outside was hit by bullets,” AFP photographer Pedro Ugarte said by telephone.

The 100 or so guests sheltering in the basement were later moved to a lobby, far away from the street.

It was unclear where the shooting came from.

On the heels of Brazilian carrier TAM joining Star Alliance, comes news that Air India’s entry is delayed again.

The invitation for Air India to join Star was made in late 2007, and their new timeline for getting their act together and meeting all requirements is now March, 2011. So it will have taken them more than 3 years. The biggest remaining hurdle, apparently, is that they have to integrate the IT systems of their two separate carriers (Air India and Indian Airlines).

Meanwhile, Star must be getting impatient as Air India acknowledges that Star is having conversations with Jet Airways as well.

‘India is a growing market. So it can have more than one member. The market is bound to grow. But we have made it clear to Star Alliance that Jet Airways should join after us as we would like to have the first mover advantage.’

With Kingfisher apparently joining oneworld, Star doesn’t want to be shut out of the Indian market. Jet Airways is a far better carrier than Air India in any case.

(…a continuation of my trip report “Cathay & British Airways First Class, Philippines and Macau, a Presidential Suite, and the Fat Duck Restaurant”)

When planning my American Airlines Oneworld award, I decided to pop through London on the way back to the US. It meant that I’d be able to try British Airways First Class (I’ve flown ClubWorld only in the past) and I’d be able to eat at the Fat Duck Restaurant.

Ever since my meal at El Bulli in 2008, I’ve wanted to try the Fat Duck. At the time of the meal, only Heston Blumenthal and his three Michelin stars had bested El Bulli in the San Pellegrino/Restaurant Magazine ratings over the previous 5 years.

Now, in fairness I’ll be the first to quibble with those rankings. In many cases they lavish praise on restaurants that aren’t even the best in their given city, let alone in their region of the world. Any such ranking will be flawed. Nonetheless, they do highlight some of the better establishments in the world. And since the Fat Duck offers molecular gastronomy in the El Bulli tradition, I did want to compare.

It’s far easier to get reservations at the Fat Duck than at El Bulli. In the latter case, one has to email on the third Monday of October to request reservations for the entire next year, and some say that there’s a one in several thousands chance of securing a booking. But with the Fat Duck, they open their reservation book for each day exactly two months in advance. They open at 10 a.m. London time, and one simply has to call at precisely that time.

Using two phones I dialed the Fat Duck for 30 minutes before getting through, but once they answered I managed to secure a lunch. Dinner bookings were still possible as well, but I’d be arriving from Hong Kong the night before and with the time change I couldn’t imagine staying awake and engaged through a meal late into the evening. Lunch it was!

So having enjoyed a Cathay Pacific first class flight the night before, and gotten a good night’s sleep at the Waldorf hotel, we ventured out towards the town of Bray which is on the other side of Heathrow from Central London. As I mentioned in an earlier post, having had it to do over again, I probably would have just grabbed a room at a Heathrow airport hotel for the night and ventured out to lunch from there. (One could even manage a lunch at the Fat Duck during a long Heathrow stopover, if one could secure the reservation.)

I imagined that in the small town of Bray it would be easy to find the Fat Duck, but we almost missed it. Fortunately, everyone in town knows where it is and some friendly folks directed us.

We were welcomed into the restaurant and seated at a table by a window in the small restaurant.

A waiter shared the menu with us, took drink orders, and returned to ask for any specific likes or dislikes so that they could tailor the day’s offerings accordingly.

LIME GROVE
Nitro Poached Green Tea and Lime Mousse

RED CABBAGE GAZPACHO
Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream

JELLY OF QUAIL, CRAYFISH CREAM
Chicken Liver Parfait, Oak Moss and Truffle Toast

SNAIL PORRIDGE
Jabugo Ham, Shaved Fennel

ROAST FOIE GRAS
Rhubarb, Braised Konbu and Crab Biscuit

MOCK TURTLE SOUP (C. 1850)
“Mad Hatter Tea”

“SOUND OF THE SEA”

SALMON POACHED IN LIQUORICE
Artichokes, Vanilla, Mayonnaise, Golden Trout Roe and Manni Olive Oil

POWDERED ANJOU PIGEON (C. 1720)
Blood Pudding and Confit of Umbles

HOT & ICED TEA

TAFFETY TART (C. 1660)
Caramelized Apple, Fennel, Rose and Candied Lemon

THE “BFG”
Black Forest Gateau

WHISK(E)Y WINE GUMS

LIKE A KID IN A SWEET SHOP

We let them know that their day’s menu would suit us nicely. Were these the ideal dishes for us? We honestly had no idea. And conspicuously absent from the menu was the ‘bacon and egg ice cream’ that I’d long heard so much about! But when one travels to such a temple of molecular gastronomy, one puts oneself in the hands of the chef to enjoy the ride. At least the first time through!

For the first course, a palette cleanser. Using nitrous, they froze lime and alcohol tableside — the effect being quick salivation (fron the intense lime) and cleansing (from the alcohol).

This was followed by the red cabbage gazpacho

And then the ‘flavours of the forest’ as was explained to us, they created a gaseous smoke emanating from the woods in the center of our table, and then deconstructed flavors of truffle toast, chicken liver, and oak moss.

This was followed by the snail porridge which I really enjoyed. While my wife will tend to order escargot at a good French bistrot, it’s usually not my preference in the least. Still, I was pleased to be on the tour enjoying something I wouldn’t ever have ordered on my own.

Their take on foie gras:

I probably don’t know the story of the Mad Hatter‘s tea party well enough to do this next course justice. We were initially presented with a story card to read before anything else came out.

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily; then he dipped it into his cup of tea…

‘Have you seen the mock turtle yet?’

‘No,’ said Alice, ‘I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.’

‘It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,’ said the Queen.

We were given a bowl which would ultimately be mock turtle soup, and a tea cup with a gold watch dangling inside.

They pour hot liquid into the cup and we were instructed to use the gold watch as a teabag, stir up the contents and it became the tea (with gold flecks inside), which we then poured into the soup bowl to make our mock turtle soup.

Very clever, all very much tied to the story, but – and while the soup was perfectly fine – it wasn’t particularly outstanding as food. And that is when it first occurred to me that everything about the meal thus far seemed to be more about the drama and presentation than about the food.

And while I can only imagine the shock and horror from heston blumenthal (note the lack of capitalization, how e.e. cummings!) at the comparison, I immediately thought of the old commercials for the teppanyaki restaurant chain Benihana with their slogan, “It’s a meal and a show!”

And with that came one of the more interesting examples of that show, the first time I’ve ever used all my senses during a meal. I’m quite sure I had never been served a course for which sound was an integral part of the experience…

First, we were delivered a sea shell containing an iPod.

And then we were presented with a dish that was essentially the flavors of the sea.

We weren’t given much instruction here, and that seemed to be a mis-queue on the part of the staff. We were ahead of most everyone else in the restaurant, everyone was more or less having the same thing, so we saw the dishes we had just experienced being presented elsewhere. And other tables received more instruction than we did.

We each listened to the iPod for a moment, and heard the crashing of waves and the soothing sounds of the ocean. We took out our iPods and tasted the dish, containing ground crawfish masquerading as sand, seaweed, and sliced raw halibut.

A waiter came over and politely suggested “that the food tastes better with the earphones in.”

I put in my earphones and immediately noticed the difference. Indeed, I could feel the ocean as I tasted the sea. The flavors really did change, they were magnified several-fold.

My wife, on the other hand, took offense. We were being scolded by the wait staff for how we were eating the food. It’s true, they were right, it was better. But we didn’t know that it would be since the staff had failed to explain to us what to do with the iPod when the food arrived. And here we were, enjoying our lunch together, and we were being told not to speak to each other but to listen to an .mp3 instead?

The way the interaction played out did underscore that the restaurant wasn’t quite as polished as others that purport to be of a similar caliber that I’ve visited. When I had a request of our waiter at Tetsuya in Sydney (and it was no small request), he responded, “of course, it is your evening.” Here, it was Blumenthal’s dish and had to be eaten as instructed.

My imagination, though, was quickly recaptured by the dish that I thought worked the best as food, the salmon.

Afterward was the pigeon, served almost raw and with blood pudding. I admit, this last was the only thing that I swallowed hard over — really just the idea of it, though it tasted simply sweet.

The famous hot and iced tea fit the pattern I had come to expect, it was very neat to have both hot and cold (one on top of the other) in the same glass. But I wouldn’t consider it to be the best cup of tea I’ve had…

It was now time for dessert, all of which was quite tasty. Here’s the tart and the black forest gateau. Really excellent.

But dessert wasn’t over yet! They brought out gummies stuck to a plaque showing where the whiskey for each had come from..

.. Tennessee (Jack Daniels), Orkney (Highland Park), Speyside (Glenlivet), West Highlands (Oban), and Islay (Laphroaig). We could taste the subtle differences in each, an interesting way to offer a study in whiskey.

And what did they serve with it? Well Glenlivet Water, naturally!

Time to wipe our hands at the end of the meal, the tricks weren’t over yet! Remember Instant Farm, where you’d drop pellets into a cup of water and the pellets would become farm animals? Well they brought pellets to which they added water and those become the towels for our hands.

And now that the meal was done, they brought us a bag of treats which we brought back to our hotel.

So what’s the bottom-line on the meal and the restaurant? It was absolutely worth doing and worth the 150 pounds or so per person (plus service charge). But I wouldn’t count it among my top 5 meals (which thinking back, I’d definitely rate El Bulli and perhaps include Tetsuya, Villa Mahana on Bora Bora, possibly Joel Robuchon in Paris). No doubt though it would make the top 10.

Each course was a surprise, and for the most part a delight, more because I was consistently intrigued than because I savored any particular bite. No doubt recommended, but I’m not sure I’d make a special trip to Europe for it. Fortunately, with a bit of advance notice about such a trip once can secure a reservation.

By reader request, here’s my take on the very best airline mileage award values. I’ll offer my top five.

New York-JFK – London Heathrow roundtrip in Virgin Upper Class for 63,000 ANA points. What’s more, they don’t hit you with the extortionate fuel surcharges that Virgin does with their own program when you redeem the same flights. (Theirs is a distance-based chart, from other nearby East Coast cities the roundtrip award is 68,000 points). The award would cost the same on other Star carriers as well.

East Coast of the US to Europe in business class, 4 stopovers in addition to destination, for 80,000 Asiana points using Star Alliance partners. Even better if you earn those miles for $40,000 in spend on the Bank of America-issued Asiana American Express. The Asiana chart is distance-based, the total mileage of the award needs to be kept under 10,000 at this price.

Air Canada Aeroplan 120,000 miles for first class from North America to South Asia (as far as Singapore — Malaysia and Indonesia bump the price significantly) using their Star Alliance partners. The real value here is the ability to route via the Atlantic or the Pacific or one ocean in each direction, as well as to have two stopovers in addition to the destination. And arguably even better:, it’s just 140,000 miles from the US to Australia and you can route via Asia (with stopover) so add those Bangkok – Sydney – Bangkok first class flights on Thai for an incremental 10,000 miles each way!

Alaska Airlines’ North America to Africa in first class for 140,000 miles via Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. Same mileage as US to Asia only.

US to Israel for 80,000 miles in business class on Turkish via Turkish Miles & Smiles. The trick here is that Israel is in their ‘Near East’ zone rather than Middle East..

Surely there are other outstanding awards out there that I’m missing in my top five, that are better than the ones I’ve listed, what are they?

Ripped from Gary Steiger’s site:

20,000 American Airlines offer.

• Open and fund a qualifying Citibank regular checking account with a minimum of $1,000 by June 30, 2010.
• Within the first month of opening your account, start making:at least one (1) monthly direct deposit into your checking account; or at least two (2) electronic bill payments each month from your account; or five (5) or more qualifying signature purchase transactions each month using your Citibank debit card and continue doing so for three (3) consecutive months and earn your first 10,000 American Airlines dvantage® bonus miles.
• Continue for the next nine (9) months and earn an additional 10,000 Advantage® bonus miles.
• I leave it to you to carefully read the terms and conditions and fees for both the miles offer and for the account.

Last November, after my stay at the Prince de Galles in Paris, I decided that I would always endeavor to pick a hotel in a major European city that had an executive lounge.

Now, the Euro has been falling relative to the dollar in recent weeks (oh, those profligate Greeks, Portugese, and Spaniards, you make the Italians look fiscally responsible!). But Europe is just really hard on my wallet, and a lounge there yields especially good value — for my morning coffee, for breakfast, for access to water. I’ll never ‘get’ Europeans who don’t drink water and no I’m not willing to chug multiple bottles of marked-up Evian over lunch every day.

So I decided to burn some Hilton points for London, and as a Diamond I had heard that the executive lounge at the Waldorf Hotel was perfectly reasonable.

For such a short stay – only two nights – in London, I was also pretty location-sensitive and the Waldorf fit the bill.

In the future if I were going to be having lunch at the Fat Duck the day after arriving in London, I’d probably just grab a hotel at Heathrow for the first night — since Bray is on the wrong side of the airport relative to Central London — and then change hotels. But I did both nights at the Waldorf.

I wasn’t impressed with the place relative to other hotels I’ve stayed in, or stayed in on this trip. But it fit the bill for a major European city where I could use points and save cash.

It’s the archetypical ‘once-nice’ property that lives on the past glory of its reputation. It’s clearly a four rather than five-star hotel. An aging physical plant, and it’s way too much a Hilton to be truly nice. Just as the stylized “Hilton Breakfast” brochures in the room felt out of place on Cebu in the Philippines, they felt out of place for an ostensibly luxury European hotel. The generic sunrise graphic just seems to smash any sense of place, making it seem as though I could be at any generic Hilton Garden Inn in the middle of flyover country in the U.S.

Had I been in the US I would have felt like I was in a tiny room, but I clearly received an upgrade as a Diamond in this older European property. There was an entryway before reaching the bedroom, the bedroom wasn’t tiny, and it had two closets as well:

There was a hallway between the bedroom and the bathroom that housed a desk:

The bathroom was small but functional.

.. though it wasn’t especially well designed. The glass shield didn’t do a good job keeping water off the floor in the bathroom. It also made the shower/tub combo feel especially narrow. A curved shower rod and curtain would go a long way in this tub to let one stretch out. Further the showerhead was immobile which meant I had to be directly underneath it, between the wall and the glass, and couldn’t stretch out behind the end of the glass. That said, given the shower design this was an important feature rather than flaw — otherwise even more water would get onto the floor. And the most annoying feature? The bubbling up of the bottom of the tub, I felt like I sas surfing in the shower as the floor popped beneath my feet. Then there was the loud noise from the pipes when flushing the toilet…

I never visited the lounge in the evening so can’t speak to their canapé offerings. But the space is nice enough, and breakfast fairly abundant with both hot and cold offerings.

The one thing the lounge especially lacked from my perspective was bottles of non-carbonated water that I might take with me. The hotel did provide one big bottle in the room each day, but my biggest need besides breakfast and coffee out of a lounge is access to water. But fortunately there was a market across the street where I could pick up as many bottles as I wished perfectly inexpensively.

To follow up on my earlier post about receiving cashback or miles for travel bookings — something I try to remember to do for the myriad bookings I wind up making for other people especially — I surveyed the cashback offers at e-bates.

Some of them are pretty good, and several of them are ones I hadn’t realized existed.

For instance, I rent from Avis all the time. I book at their website, and never go through a portal. So I’m giving up my 3% cashback from ebates. (Dollar offers 3.5%, Thrifty 3%, and Enterprise 2% but I wouldn’t ever rent from Enterprise.)

I’m an Intercontinental Royal Ambassador member, I make my bookings on their website, and don’t go through the ebates portal — I’m giving up 5% cashback on Intercontinental/Priority Club family hotels. Wow, missing out bigtime. Marriott family properties offer 1%, not as generous but if I have to make a Marriott.com booking it’s better than a hole in the head as my grandfather used to say.

I can generally remember that the major travel portals (eg Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity) offer 1% cashback, so that’s my usual path towards making bookings for other people, at least I get something out of the deal. It’s almost like the commissions of old are back, albeit at a lower level!

And I love Pricelining (or booking via Hotwire) for other folks, because I’m earning 2% back on Hotwire via ebates and of course using someone else’s money for the booking. With Priceline, Fatwallet is the better value at 3% cashback.

Even packages are available through providers like CheapCarribean, a site I recently recommended to a junior employee in my office looking for a discounted beach package trip. It didn’t occur to me he could get 2.5% cashback…

And there are others too like Delta.com at 2%, Fairmont at 3%, and even stingy United.com kicks back two bucks for a booking.

Now, full disclosure, if you do use my link to signup for ebates we both apparently get $5 after your first purchase through their portal. Don’t want anyone unaware of that, disclosing potential conflicts of interest and all. And I still suggest checking out EV Reward to peruse potential better offers from any given travel provider that may come up. But the shocking thing for me is how many travel websites offer you a kickback, how many of them I use every week without taking cashback. I’m literally leaving money on the table.