Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for June 2013.

Trip Report: LAN Flight 841 SCL-IPC Premium Business Class

by Harlan 3 Comments

Also see:

As soon as I landed in Santiago, I only had 15 minutes to connect to the Easter Island flight. Shit! Luckily, all planes were being held because of intense fog on the ground at SCL. I ran through immigration and customs like a madman, and thank god SCL is a small airport. I got my passport stamped, paid the stupid reciprocity fee of $160 and sped along to the gate, where my friend Chris was waiting to board (he landed in Santiago the previous evening).

After the lovely flight down from Miami, I settled in to seat 3A still catching my breath. The lady in seat 3C had just experienced the same mad dash, and we got to talking about our plans on Easter Island. She ended up being awesome! We spent most of the trip hanging out. So funny how stuff like that happens.

Anyway, this flight was nearly identical to the previous one: same hard product, very similar menu and service, although a smaller amenity kit with just socks, eye mask, and shoe/laundry bag.

The flight was a hair over five hours, and I spent most of it watching “Life of Pi” which is about 2 and a half hours. So that, getting into airspace, and landing, was pretty much the whole flight. The movie was so good. Dear god. I cried like a little bitch at the end when the tiger walked into the jungle… My seatmate was asleep by this point. Good thing she didn’t see me dabbing the tears out of my eyes.

2013-05-19 12.19.24

Middle. Of. Nowhere.

 

Right after the movie, we started descending and I got my first glimpse of Easter Island. I got a feeling of such complete happiness and gratitude that it shook me to my core. Easter Island is a place I’ve always wanted to visit and it was this flight that made that dream a reality.

Stepping out of the plane was surreal. My first impression was that it was much hillier and lusher than I’d expected. I thought it would be more… barren.

My ride to Easter Island

My ride to Easter Island

 

Freshly arrived at IPC

Freshly arrived at IPC after 20 hours of travel

 

Since this was sort of a “test” of American’s international partners, I’d say the LAN business class hard product really impressed me. The food was so-so, but not a deal breaker at all. I’m really looking forward to having more reference points as this was my first international biz class experience (!). I will say already, though, that I LOVED the lie-flat seats and can see why the other bloggers bitch about the angled seats so much.

Next up, gratuitous pics of a (surprisingly) tropical island!

Platinum on American…

by Harlan Leave A Comment

…with only one trip this year!

AA-Platinum-Status

After Chile and booking the Xmas trip

American was kind enough to let me complete a status challenge. To achieve Platinum, I had to accrue 10,000 points in the three months following May 16th (my start date). Well, on May 18th, I headed down to Chile and was Platinum by the time I arrived in Easter Island.

Now that I’m back, I have a nice amount of activity in my AAdvantage account:

AA-Activity-2013

 

The Easter Island trip netted me 15,088 EQMs, 22,634 EQ points, 4 upgrade “stickers”, and a lot of redeemable miles. Beyond that though, it really makes me want to hit 50K miles on American this year to keep the status. And this, combined with Delta’s move toward a revenue-based system and other assorted asshat-ery makes me want to stick withAmerican from here on out. I’m also highly unimpressed with Amex, Delta’s credit card partner, as has been noted often.

I also really liked redeeming 81K miles (90K – 10% back) for business class MEL-AUH on Etihad yesterday. I dunno. I’m warming up to it. My only regret is not buying another $900 ticket to Chile while I had the chance…

I have my first revenue flight on American in August to Anchorage (and maybe sooner!) and am really curious to see the Platinum benefits in action. Already, I’ve experienced better phone service. To book the award last night, I got a great agent after only one ring.

Yes, I think I’m going to kick damn Delta to the curb. Two final thoughts:

  • The little things.
  • Devil’s in the details.

🙂

Just booked: JFK-LAX-NAN-AKL-SYD-MEL-AUH-CAI-JFK

by Harlan 7 Comments

And I’m super freaking excited about it.

So the title is a bit of a fib: I have a flight alert and fare tracker set for LAX-NAN and will buy it if I have to, and I haven’t gotten the initial JFK-LAX but am not really so worried about it.

This is what the trip will look like:

25,000 miles and all around the world

25,000 miles and all around the world

 

So far, I’ve used 132K miles per person and gotten over 6 cents of value out of each one. This trip would be nearly $17,000 if bought at retail price.

It’ll be from Dec 24th, 2013 to January 7th, 2014. It includes Christmas in Fiji, New Years in Sydney, stopovers in New Zealand and Melbourne, and a quick trip to see the pyramids on the Gaza strip in Cairo.

So how’d I book it? Segment by segment, and with a combination of AAdvantage, MileagePlus, and Avios miles.

The breakdown (notice there’s no Delta!):

JFK-LAX: will most likely use AAdvantage miles when I earn a few more, or maybe MileagePlus if necessary

LAX-NAN: would like to use AAdvantage miles for this. Might have to purchase it, and it would be the only leg I’d have to buy. However, it’s only $750 right now and would net me a nice amount of miles as I’m Platinum on American and the flight is on Air Pacific. Still, I’m holding out for award space.

NAN-AKL: 17,500 x 2 (so 35,000) MileagePlus miles on Air New Zealand

AKL-SYD: 9,000 AAdvantage miles for one and 10,000 Avios for the other – both on Qantas

SYD-MEL: 4,500 x 2 (so 9,000) Avios on Qantas, baby. Wonderful redemption rate!

MEL-AUH: 45,000 x 2 (so 90,000) AAdvantage miles for Etihad business class to Abu Dhabi

AUH-CAI-JFK: 60,000 x 2 (so 120,000) MileagePlus miles transferred in from Ultimate Rewards. Includes a 17-hour stopover in Cairo, then back to NYC in business class on Egyptair.

All-in-all, a very good award IMHO. 5 new countries, four new airlines, and two new business class products (I didn’t feel the need to book the short hauls in business) – not to mention an amazing life experience! This is exactly why I’m so crazy about collecting points and miles: I can go on awesome trips like this and actually 1) afford them and 2) travel in style. And the best part is that, with a little strategic planning, you can really maximize what you get for free.

As a litmus test, I went and found the exact flights over on Kayak and priced out how much the itinerary I booked would cost on the retail market. Here’s what I found:

FIJI

 

When I factor in the two remaining legs to book, I estimate this itinerary will be over $17,000. Cray!

Here’s where I was able to extract even MORE value out of this booking aside from the goal value of 2 cents per mile:

  • Having the Citi AAdvantage Select card gives me 10% of redeemed miles back per year, up to 10,000 miles. I just redeemed 100K miles and will get 10K back – making my cost here only 90K miles. I value 10,000 AAdvantage miles at roughly $200, so it’s totally worth paying the annual fee of $95 to get those miles back.
  • The Barclaycard Arrival came with a $440 signup bonus, which I will redeem for the taxes, booking fees, and fuel surcharges. This means that there was literally ZERO out-of-pocket expense in booking these awards. Amazing.
  • My partner has a Chase United Explorer card which gave us access to Saver awards even when the site told us none were available. That’s huge.
  • I just need to add that this booking really shows the value of Avios. I know the program gets knocked quite a bit, but I was able to get some great value out of it. I also am factoring in the flight times into the equation. I had the pick of literally dozens of flights – all for free. Having all those choices is something I really loved.
  • Lastly, thinking of this award booking as one project instead of individual segments really helped me justify the “not amazing” redemption values of some segments. The first on Air New Zealand, for example, only got 3 cents of value per mile. However, on the Etihad segment, I got over 13 cents of value for each mile. That is a huge WOW. By thinking of it this way, the average value of all my miles really came into focus.

 

Very much looking forward to the flights, trip reports, and of course all the amazing new places. I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, and my heart is bursting with excitement and gratitude at being able to actually do this. More soon as always.

Trip Report: LAN Flight 7701 MIA-SCL Premium Business Class

by Harlan 1 Comment

First of all, let me begin this post by saying how much I loathe the Miami airport. Walking from the D concourse over to J just about killed me. Anywho, after lounging around in the unremarkable America Club “J” for an hour or so, boarding time rolled around. I was excited to experience and brand new premium product, a new airline, and after that, a country I’d never visited before. Safe to say I was beyond excited for this flight.

Boarding was lovely. I strolled right in and sat down in seat 3A. Shortly after, I had a glass of wine and waited to pushed back from the jetway.

 

2013-05-18 22.31.30

So much leg room!

 

Wine and nuts (I drank the water)

Wine and nuts (I drank the water)

 

After takeoff, amenity kits were distributed. I didn’t take a picture of it, knowing I’d get three more by the time I returned home. I will include pics in a future post, but must say it was a nice one. Face cream, hand lotion, lip balm, comb, toothbrush and toothpaste, pen, socks, ear plugs and eye mask were all included. It was from Ferragamo, an Italian brand, and was based around “memories from Tuscany” or something similar to that. Odd for a South American, an specifically Chilean airline, but whatever. I thought they’d have something more regional, but certainly not complaining!

 

Dinner menus were handed out next.

 

Nom!

Nom!

 

I got the salad, soup, steak, and fruit. The steak was only so-so. A bit tough and overcooked. All the other stuff was nice, if a touch run-of-the-mill. There were some nice touches and I appreciated the presentation.

 

2013-05-19 00.43.44

First course

 

After dinner, I pretty much passed out till we got to Santiago. The lie-flat seat really does lie all the way back. I watched “Oz: The Great and Powerful” and then slept for a few hours. I awoke to the flight attendant tapping my leg. Then she brought out breakfast, which I’d ordered before the movie. It was too dark to take pics, but it was my first experience with Juan Valdez instant coffee. Unbeknownst to me, it would not be my last. Chile LOVES instant coffee. The breakfast was that kind of pre-packaged airplane food, but certainly not terrible. Soon after, the plane landed.

We de-planed at Santiago late after being delayed in Miami and also due to some serious fog at SCL. Then I ran like a bitch to catch my flight to Easter Island. And that’s when the fun really began.

The Kaspresky/Staples Drama is OVER: Got my miles (finally)!

by Harlan 1 Comment

Last update to the torrid drama of the free 1500 AAdvantage miles from the free-after-rebate software purchase from Staples that originated back in March. When last we heard, I’d received the checks but not the miles. Welp, I am happy to report I’ve finally received all 1500 miles.

Screen shot 2013-06-02 at 4.54.02 PM

 

…but not without a lot of followup! I value 1500 miles at around $30, but hot damn did I have to work (and wait!) for it.

I sent an email to the Cartera people on April 26th. They were great with the followup and sent me emails on May 11th, 20th, and 31st. The last one was to say the miles had posted. I checked my account and there they were. Yay!

I also found something else that sparked my interest. I now have $25 in Staples rewards that I can spend after the June statement closes. I’m wondering if I have purchase an e-gift card, then use it after clicking through a portal to generate even more FREE miles. That would be simply awesome. So while the Staples saga is over (this one, anyway), the quest for points and miles soldiers on.