Category Airlines

Alaska Adventure Trip Report Part 1:  Intro and JFK-SLC-ANC on Delta

Delta Flt. 1773  JFK to SLC, Boeing 737, Domestic First, 5h 31m
Delta Flt. 2312 SLC to ANC, Boeing 757, Domestic First, 4h 48m

For a while, there have been periodic sales on a variety of airlines for flights from the East Coast to Alaska.  I had a few vacation days to play around with, and thought this would be a good opportunity to explore a new state and earn a healthy amount of Delta MQMs, so I booked a trip for early May for about $300.  The one thing I didn’t realize when I booked, though, was that I was traveling literally days before the “season” begins for Alaska tourism, so a lot of tours and parks would not be open.  Whoops.  Nonetheless, I had an enjoyable few days.  Alaska was a fascinating place, unlike any other place I’ve ever been, and the scenery was gorgeous.

It’s a long flight to Alaska, no matter how you slice it.  On Delta, your options are via Minneapolis or Salt Lake City, or via Portland or Seattle connecting on Alaska Airlines.  (Delta has seasonal service starting in the next few weeks from Atlanta and Los Angeles; and year-round service starting from Seattle.)  I went with Salt Lake, as it not only breaks up the trip into two equal segments, which I like for a daytime flight, but also gets the most miles.  (To my surprise, the flight from JFK to SLC is longer than the flight from SLC to ANC.)

As I mentioned yesterday, I am getting ready for my big summer vacation to Europe in a week and a half.   I figured I’d give a bit of a preview, explaining how I came up with the routing/itinerary, and asking for any tips readers may have.

There are two main legs of the journey, Austria and Finland, which may seem like an odd couple.  The genesis is a bit romantic, though.  In January, I decided it was time to plan my summer Skymiles redemption – something I’ve done each of the previous two summers with a fair amount of luck, getting business class seats at the low redemption rates, on or around dates I wanted, maximizing stopovers and open jaw rules.  This time, though, my boyfriend was coming along with me.  In discussing where we might want to go in Europe, his major consideration was that it be a place neither of us had been, so we could truly explore it together.   Finding actual destinations that meet those criteria was pretty hard, though, as I’ve traveled a fair bit myself, and he lived in France for several years, so had done many a long weekend trips throughout Western Europe.  We realized two countries stood out as untouched:  Austria and Finland.

Booking about 5 months in advance, I was able to get us 2 business class seats on a pretty decent itinerary.  On the outbound, we’ll be flying on Delta in business class from Newark to Paris, connecting to an Austrian Airlines-operated, Air France codeshare flight to Vienna.  A tip on this – I find Newark to often be a forgotten Skyteam originating point for Skymiles redemptions, thus leading to better availability than JFK.  In fact, of my three summer redemptions, all have departed from Newark.   If you’re not NYC-based, of course, this is less useful due to fewer domestic connections into Newark, but its worth a shot. Currently, Delta has flights to Amsterdam and Paris,  Alas, Alitalia has stopped its EWR-FCO service.  But it will be interesting to see what happens with London given Virgin Atlantic’s LHR flights and the new relationship between Delta and Virgin.

Some folks have told me that I should not have b...

Ok, so this isn’t really about a stupid article as much as about stupid people, and several “journalistic” outlets who have not done their job of skepticism.

The story, widely reported but originating in the Los Angeles Times,  is as follows:

Self-described “experienced travelers” call Turkish Airlines to book a flight to Dakar, Senegal.
They book said flights.
They go on said flights.  LAX to Istanbul, no problem.  About halfway through their second flight, they realize they are going to Dhaka, Bangladesh, instead of Dakar.
They blame the airline.  The airline flies them from Dhaka to Istanbul to Dakar, at no extra charge, but it takes 9 hours for them to figure this out.
They rant and say they should be given refunds, oompa loompas, and snozberries. Now.
They claim that the agent put...

I’ve had a number of domestic trips over the past few months, but in an effort to catch up on blogging, I won’t be recapping most of them.  Two stood out, both to states I’d never been to before:  New Mexico and Alaska.  Here’s the first one.

I had the fortune of spending a few days in New Mexico, a state I had never been to, and a state in which I had no idea what to day for a few days.  Springing off a supercheap $240 roundtrip flight from New York on Delta, I put together an itinerary mostly focused around Santa Fe, but allowing some exploration of the natural beauty throughout New Mexico.

I was scheduled to fly from New York to Albuquerque via Salt Lake City.  (Although Santa Fe has its own airport, most people use Albuquerque, as Santa Fe only has limited regional service on American Eagle, and the cities are about 60 miles apart .)  My departure was set just as the sequester was kicking in, and delays at New York’s airports were crazy, so I was a bit nervous about making my 1 hour connection in Salt Lake.  Fortunately, my flight from JFK to SLC kicked off without a hitch.  This was my first time flying Delta since it started printing TSA Precheck eligibility on boarding passes.  Previously, you had to guess whether your boarding pass would produce three beeps when it was scanned, indicating you were cleared.  Well, on this trip, my boarding passes showed I was cleared for Precheck.  The only problem? Delta doesn’t have Precheck at JFK.  My experiences since then have shown that Precheck appears on all my boarding passes, regardless of whether I can use Precheck or not.

If you are a regular reader of a few of the major travel/points blogs, it would be understandable if you thought two things: (1) every two or three days, there is an AMAZING credit card deal you would be a fool not to sign up for, and (2) American Airlines is the most amazing air carrier in the world, all of its planes have brand new lie-flat state of the art seats, and that its elites are treated like royalty.  Neither of these things are true.

As I’ve said before, I generally avoid American Airlines.  I’ve had bad experiences flying it, I find its loyalty program useless for all but its highest tiered passengers, and I think its moves to announce a “New American”  while in bankruptcy and merger discussions border on breach of fiduciary duty ,and are more about Tom Horton wanting to get as much in as possible before he is shown the door/golden parachute.  Of late, I’d been amused by American’s delusional self-promotion as to the “New American.”  But I’ve particularly grown frustrated with certain bloggers who have become extensions of American’s very good PR machine, and in my mind lost any shred of credibility that they might have.

First, I’ll acknowledge that every blog is different, and thus, what a reader should expect will be different from every blog.  My blog, for example, is primarily a personal blog.  I don’t write it to make money.  It is mostly for my friends, family, and people I’ve met throughout the world traveling—and for myself.  Other blogs are targeted at much broader audiences though – businesses aiming to make money off the “advice” they give to others about flying.  For your advice to be worth anything, though, it should reflect what the average reader can reasonably expect.  There is an inherent tension here for certain  bloggers, though, as they never fly coach, only fly airlines and stay in hotels in which they have top-tier status, and have access to perks and  customer service that you and I do not.   When they do a trip report, it isn’t a trip report you can model your behavior on.  (And I also would love to see their tax returns, as I don’t think putting pictures up of your flight for a weekend drinking and clubbing makes the trip a “business expense.”)

Want to know about American’s new business class on its 777-300ERs?  It will be easy to find on google, because American gave free flights to dozens of bloggers to blog about their experiences.  Several of them accepted the flight, and  some of them didn’t but used points or cash to fly them anyway.  I argue, though, that it is  irrelevant whether you accepted it or not.  The fact that an airline is offering you a free flight, or special treatment, itself will have a subconscious (or conscious) impact on your impression of the airline.    And even if you pay for your flight yourself after its been offered to you for free, you can be sure that someone from corporate knows what flight you are on and is looking out for you, especially since some of the flights seem to have been packed with bloggers.  For a slightly different perspective on this, check out Gary’s post here.  I would say, though, that the New York Times would never publish a “review” of a product where the journalist had been tweeting with the company’s PR department for his entire flight.  There are some bloggers who I just don’t read anymore, since I can’t tell what is objective, and what is an attempt to ingratiate more with airlines or to drum up credit card business.  (Don’t get me started on summaries of destinations which are simply one paragraph blurbs about hotels and sights that the author has not visited or stayed at.)

The reviews of the 777-300 business class have s...

This is my last post of my adventure through East Asia.  My apologies for the delay, and I hope to return to posting non-trip report posts soon.  There’s been a lot going on in my life travelwise and otherwise, so blogging hasn’t been a huge priority.  But I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts about my experiences!

 Lufthansa Flt. 412, Munich to Newark, 8h 2o min, A340-600, First Class

Alas, no one was waiting for me when I got off the plane in Munich from Paris, so I had to find my way through the terminal without any assistance.   The terminal itself was very nice, quiet – not surprising on a Saturday afternoon, with free newspapers (still not in English) and coffee provided by Lufthansa.   There was no wait at passport control, and soon I was in the non-Schengen terminal.  I followed the signs to the First Class Lounge and rang the bell.

Changing my routing to go through Munich instead of Dusseldorf not only got me on Lufthansa’s newer first class product, but also allowed me to check out a Lufthansa First Class Lounge — which are only located at Munich and Frankfurt (not to be confused with the Frankfurt First Class Terminal, which is a whole different ballgame).

The woman at the front of the First Class Lounge was very friendly and directed me to “Passport Control” while she registered me.  I’m not sure why, but I had to surrender my passport for my stay in the lounge.  Although the Lufthansa website suggests that there are “Personal Assistants” available, the agent explained to me that I would have to direct myself to the gate for the flight, and get myself through security.  Not a big deal, but definitely different than the Thai First Class experience.  It seemed most of the perks for First Class passengers in Munich really were only for passengers originating and thus checking in in Munich.

Munich First Class Lounge

Once through...

Note: Hidden in this post is a stupid mistake I made, but realized before any significant consequence.   If you spot it before I reveal it, you get a gold star!

Lufthansa Flt. 2229, Paris CDG to Munich, 1h 30 min, A320, Business Class

The Hilton CDG is on the airport property, but given the size of CDG, that’s not saying much.  It wasn’t too bad, though, as I took the CDGVAL airport shuttle train two stops to the Terminal 3/Train Station exit, and the Hilton was a few minutes walk from the station.  The property is modern and a fairly typical airport hotel.  As I arrived, a Qatar Airways flight crew was checking in, so I waited patiently.  Then two French people walked up and literally stood about 3 feet in front of me, as if I were a hologram.  My face must have shown my repulsion/shock/anger and the clerk called me over, and said, “Sir, it’s okay.”

Hilton

I had booked the Hilton because of a competitive rate, about half that of the CDG Sheraton, its location, and my Hilton HHonors Gold status – though before the recent massive devaluation of Hilton HHonors points.  Hilton treats its mid-level elites very well, though, with upgrades, free internet, and free breakfast, which all came through on this stay.  I was pre-assigned to the Executive Floor, the highest in the hotel, and given access to the Executive Lounge.  The room was fine, with cool views of the runway, but nothing remarkable.  I decided I’d head to the gym first as I was fighting to stay awake to get my body closer to New York time.  I was exhausted though, and lasted only about 25 minutes.  The gym was also adequate, and there was a small indoor swimming pool which French teenagers were enjoying.  I then headed up to the Lounge, only to find it’s hot hors d’ouvres service had ended, and though the lounge was open for 2.5 more hours, there was no food available at all except a fruit bowl.  (The sign suggested there was “salty mix and beverages” til 11pm, but alas, no salty mix.)  The lounge was nothing special, so I had a diet coke (no booze available) and an apple and then headed back to my room.

Thai Airways Flt. 932- Bangkok (BKK) to Paris (CDG), 12hrs, Thai Royal First, Boeing 777-300ER (77W)

First class is amazing.  Until this trip, I had never flown in international first class before, only in business class.  I have no delusions that my experiences as a first class passenger on Thai Airways would be mirrored if I flew the “first class” offered by American Airlines or United, as even the Lufthansa First experience was not quite as awesome, but for a 10,000 mile premium over business class, I felt pampered in a way that I actually feel guilty about.

As I noted in my previous post, in order to extend my vacation, I had to give up my Singapore Airlines First Class experience.  I still wanted to get a premium experience, and found a routing that took me from Penang to Bangkok in Thai Business, Bangkok to Paris in Thai First, Paris to Dusseldorf in Lufthansa Business, and Dusseldorf to New York in Lufthansa First.  Four flights seems like a lot, but in reality, using Star Alliance carriers, you’d have to do at least three to get from Penang to New York.  And although I ended up having to overnight in Paris at the airport Hilton, it was nice to break it up.

Now, where we…

Thai Airways Flt. 426- Penang to Bangkok, Business Class, 1h40m, Boeing 737

A downside of the backwards way I planned the end of my trip was that I had an 8am departure from Penang Airport to Bangkok on Thai Airways.  It wasn’t so bad in that it would allow me several hours to experience the AMAZING First Class ground experience in Bangkok, but the long ride to the airport and the fact I was taking a shuttle service meant I had a pickup scheduled for 5:05 a.m.  Since there was no hot water at the Holiday Inn until 5am, I had a wakeup call for 4:30, figuring that would be more than enough time to finalize packing and get dressed.  I was thus caught a bit off-guard when the shuttle driver called from the lobby at 4:45.  I felt a little bad when I came down at 4:55 and saw there was a couple waiting in the van, but at that hour, 20 minutes early is very early.

The ride to the airport was much quicker than on my way in, as there was no traffic at all, totaling about 40 minutes.  At 5:30, the airport was a zoo and many counters weren’t open yet – including the Thai counter.  Immediately I saw dozens of people dressed in all white waiting on the Thai line, with boxes and boxes of what seemed to be glassware.  They started to be checked in one by one, but, thankfully, within minutes, someone opened the Business Class check-in counter.   Thai uses Malaysia Airlines staff at Penang, and the agent was courteous, but with surprisingly poor English skills.  I was given my boarding passes and an invitation to the Malaysia Airlines lounge, and was on my way.

Early am at PEN

White Party

I didn’t even bother to ask for late checkout from the Eaton, so left pretty early for the trip to Hong Kong International Airport.  There are shuttle buses that the Hong Kong Airport Express train runs on various routes picking up and dropping off passengers at hotels, and bringing them to/from the Airport Express train station.  I didn’t wait very long, and soon I was the only passenger on a 23-seater shuttle bus, for a fifteen-minute ride to the Kowloon Airport Express station.

The Airport Express station looks like an airport terminal.  After buying my ticket for 90 HKD (about $11), I headed to the Cathay Pacific Business Class check-in counter, where I got my boarding pass and checked my suitcase, before heading down to the platform for the 20 minute trip to the airport.  The only issue was that I was asked for proof of onward travel, since I only had a one-way ticket to Malaysia.  I had printed out my return itinerary, though, and that was sufficient.

Airport Express station

As a bit of background, I ended up choosing to fly Cathay Pacific to Penang mostly through process of elimination.   When I extended my trip, I found first class availability out of Bangkok on Thai Airways.   So I needed to find somewhere that (1) I could fly from to Bangkok early enough to make my Thai flight, and (2) that I could cheaply (in points or miles) fly to from Hong Kong.  Given I would only have 2 nights, I preferred something I could get to nonstop from Hong Kong.  And given all the time I had spent in cities, I thought a beachier or otherwise smaller city would be a nice place to end the trip.