Since every other travel blogger has posted multiple times about this, I might as well throw my hat in the ring as well, but I’m not going to talk/speculate about the devaluation itself so much as write about things tangential to the devaluation. 1. So many blogs posted about the supposed devaluation, which I guess…
Breaking Down Two Mileage Runs for 30,000 EQMs to get AA Executive Platinum Getting a Chinese Visa Planning a Mileage Run to Shanghai Vegetarian Economy Meals on American Airlines Hotel Review: Crowne Plaza Shanghai Eating in Shanghai Getting a Chinese Massage aka Tui Na First Class Lounge (No. 69) Shanghai Pudong PVG Concluding Thoughts on…
I’ve written before about my dilemma on whether or not I should mileage run for American Airlines Executive Platinum status, and I pretty much concluded that it’s not really rational for me to do so. I would be booking incremental (i.e. not already planned/largely unnecessary) trips to get the status, and since I don’t have…
We’ve finally received email confirmation: American Airlines is going to honor the “Fast Track Your Way To Elite Status” promotion, much to the delight of people who registered in time and to the chagrin of many current AA elites. I received the following email today, confirming my eligibility for the promotion as I don’t currently…
One of the Ultimate Rewards transfer partners that never gets much attention is Amtrak. Perhaps understandably so, since most people don’t think of train travel as particularly aspirational, and trains aren’t planes or hotels, but I think that Amtrak should merit a closer look. When I was younger, I took Amtrak with my mom from…
Assuming we’re not talking about fixed-value points currencies like those of Virgin America or Southwest, the marginal value or incremental value of a point can vary wildly. This is due to the fact that most loyalty programs have redemption levels, and if your points haven’t reached a given redemption level, they’re not really worth that…
Last week, there was a very brief period of time when you could sign up for an apparently untargeted promotion that offered American Airlines Gold status after flying 6,000 miles, Platinum status after flying 12,000 miles, and Executive Platinum status after flying 30,000 miles between September 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013, as long as…
Traveling would probably be better for most people if all airports offered free wifi, but they don’t. For those that don’t, or those that have time restrictions on their free wifi, what’s a traveler to do? An unhelpful answer is to get lounge access, since I can’t think of a lounge that doesn’t offer free…
American Airlines 179 New York (JFK) to San Francisco (SFO) Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013 Depart: 10:30am Arrive: 1:45pm Duration: 6h 15m Aircraft: Boeing 767-200 Seat: 3D American currently has their first class cabin on the flagship transcontinental routes (such as LAX-JFK or SFO-JFK) arranged in a 2-1-2 fashion. This means that the best seats for…
Since I was already in the American Airlines Admirals Club anyway while visiting the Flagship Lounge (the Flagship Lounge is located within the Admirals Club) at Terminal 8 in JFK, I decided to take a tour of the Admirals Club to see what the differences were between the two. The physical amenities were largely the same:…
