I’m planning on going to Vietnam next year, and I had originally booked an award routing SFO-LHR-BKK-HAN on United Global First, Thai First, and then Thai Business. I was excited to fly LHR to BKK on Thai First because I thought the route was going to be served by an A380, and I had such…
The New York Times recently published an article entitled, “Why the Airline Industry Needs Another Data Revolution”. In the article, there’s a brief outline of how the airline industry used to be at the forefront of technology, pioneering things like computerized reservation systems and revenue management, but now, airlines seem to be stuck with archaic…
Seoul is one of my favorite cities. The food is great (assuming you like Korean food…), the city is really accommodating of tourists (e.g. lots of museums are free, they’ve had promotions where they’ll give you free postcards and mail them for you), public transit is great, there’s interesting history as well as modern influences,…
British Airways has announced that Toronto and Newark are going to be the first routes that will be served by their new Boeing 787s. Toronto is starting on September 1st on BA 93/92 while Newark is starting on October 1st on BA 187/186. The flights are supposed to be bookable as of today, and they…
One of the most well-regarded lounges in the world is the Thai First Class Lounge and Royal Orchid Spa at Bangkok airport (BKK). The service is supposed to be spectacular, and part of the appeal is that departing First Class passengers get a free hour-long massage at the spa. There seems to be a bit…
UPDATE (1/4/2014): Here is an updated link to Asiana’s routes with Quadra Smartium service. Right now, the following routes have Quadra Smartium seats: New York (OZ 222/221) San Francisco (OZ 212/211) Los Angeles (OZ 204/203) London (OZ 522/521) Osaka (OZ 112/111) Ho Chi Minh (OZ 735/736 4 times per week) Asiana Airlines is well-known for…
Since starting this hobby of collecting and maximizing miles and points, I’ve focused almost exclusively on airline miles. The majority of my credit cards are from airlines, most of the points that I’ve transferred from Ultimate Rewards or Membership Rewards have been to airline partners, and most of the awards I’ve redeemed have been for…
Singapore Suites on the A380 is one of the most aspirational redemptions out there. If the load is light in the suites cabin, they’ll even make a double bed for you to sleep. Given how great this cabin is, Singapore has done a good job of “protecting” it, so it’s traditionally been very hard to…
I hate it when travel bloggers write things like, “I redeemed 67,500 American miles for a one-way first class flight to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific which retails for $8,000; therefore, I got a value of over 11 cents per mile!” This is completely wrong. For one, you didn’t get 11 cents of value per…
Looks like the first long-haul destinations will be Shanghai and Tokyo. Mid-haul routes are slated to be Perth, Honolulu, and Papeete. Although it’s typically quite hard to find business class award space from North America to New Zealand nonstop on Air New Zealand, award availability is usually pretty good from Asia, if you’re willing to…
