For my short trip to Kuala Lumpur, I stayed at the Hilton Doubletree. As a Category 2 hotel, it’s only 10k Hilton points per night, which is a great deal, especially as a Gold member when you can get free breakfast and lounge access. The Hilton Doubletree is attached to the Intermark Mall, so you…
Given that my flight arrived from Sydney so early in the morning, I thought I’d try to hang around the airport for a little bit before heading into the city and trying to check in early to my hotel. Thankfully, at the Kuala Lumpur airport, both arrivals and departures are mixed, so it is feasible…
MH 140 SYD to KUL Depart: 9:40pm Arrive: 4:30am Duration: 8h 50m Aircraft: A330-300 Seat: 2A To get from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, I chose to fly Malaysia Airlines. This was my first time flying Malaysia Airlines, and I’m saddened that they’ve had so many unfortunate incidents and are going through hard times as I think…
Besides flying Qantas First Class on the A380 (which turned out to be a really disappointing experience), I was super excited to visit the Qantas First Class Lounge in Sydney, given that I had heard it was one of the best airport lounges in the world. While I didn’t get to try the complimentary spa…
For my trip to Sydney, I decided to stay at the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel. This hotel has a convenient downtown location that’s within walking distance of a lot of touristy places as well as a number of ferries to get to other touristy places. To book this stay, I booked two 50k awards out…
QF 426 MEL to SYD Depart: 11:00am Arrive: 12:25pm Duration: 1h 25m Aircraft: Boeing 767-300 Seat: 4A After being impressed by the Qantas Domestic Business Class Lounge, I headed to my short flight from Melbourne to Sydney to check out Qantas’s domestic business class in-flight offerings. I was immediately impressed by the cabin. 2-2-2 seating…
After getting off my international flight from LAX and clearing customs and immigration, I headed to the domestic terminal for my connecting flight to SYD. Australia seems to have a lot less security theater than the US, which was very much appreciated. Qantas has two sorts of domestic lounges: Qantas Clubs and Qantas Domestic Business…
QF 94 Los Angeles (LAX) to Melbourne (MEL) Depart: 11:30pm Arrive: 8:20am +2 days Duration: 15h 50m Aircraft: A380 (Phyllis Arnott) Seat: 2A After leaving the new oneworld lounge, I walked to the gate and admired both the new TBIT terminal and all of the A380s sitting at LAX. I think I saw China Southern,…
I was really excited to try a number of different airport lounges on this trip, and first up was the relatively new oneworld Business Class Lounge at Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. Unfortunately, the first class lounge wasn’t yet open by the time I was there (and in fact opened up only a month…
Earlier in 2014, there was a brief period when Qantas released a bit of first class award space to Australia. Qantas first class is a pretty challenging redemption, so I jumped on the opportunity, even though it meant that I would be heading to Australia during its winter. I redeemed 72,500 American miles for a first…
