Time to Panic

The new year means all your status trackers reset to 0.  I'm starting to freak out over this because I have a greatly reduced slate of business travel in 2012, so I need to make up more out of pocket.  I used to be able to become a 1K in October only with business travel.  Now I'm lucky to gather 20,000 miles for work travel.  

0's Scare Me

It's time to start collecting any cheap miles I can find.  Lucky for me, Southwest is starting new service to Providence, RI and United may match Southwest's low introductory fares, so cheap same day weekend trips may be out there.  

Points Inflation Strikes Again

It’s been a rough few months for points inflation. British Airways killed their zone based reward charts that had some great values and moved to a segment mileage pricing model.  Now My Coke Rewards has raised the price of a free soda from 30 points (24 points when I joined) to 40 points, a 33% increase.  Luckily I didn’t have a large balance in either program so I did not lose very much. 

It was 30 points last week

This does serve as a warning against sitting on large balances in programs because the prices can change without warning.  I have a diversified mileage collection with several carries, several hotel chains, and credit card points holdings.  Once you have enough for two round trips in first to anywhere you would want to go (or about 300,000 miles), you should think about diversifying your holdings.

South American Adventure - Miami

1. Booking
2. DEN-IAD-ATL-MIA
3. Miami
4. MIA-SCL
5. SCL-IPC
6. Easter Island
7. IPC-SCL
8. Santiago
9. SCL-MVD
10. Montevideo
11. MVD-SCL-MIA-IAD-DEN

I booked the Sheraton Miami Airport hotel on SPG points because I would receive about $0.04 of value from each point.  My personal SPG spend threshold is $0.03 of value per point.  I was arriving in the evening and staying by the airport; getting to sleep sooner was more important than getting into town.  The hotel shuttle came by in less than 5 minutes and it was about a 3 minute drive to the hotel.  The check in process was fast and I was in my room less than 10 minutes from leaving the terminal. 

I was upgraded to a suite, but I had never had one like this.  It was two floors tall and a regular room wide.  There was a spiral staircase connecting the lower living space with the upper bedroom.  The room was a little dated, but everything worked and the bed was the Sheraton standard and wonderfully comfortable.

The club lounge was being renovated so I was given a voucher for the full breakfast buffet in the restaurant.  The food was not worth the advertised price, but not a bad alternative to lounge food.  There were also some snacks, drinks, and computers off the lobby for club level guests to use at any time.  Nice set up really and much better than other what other hotels have provided when the lounge is closed.  I liked this hotel and won’t hesitate to stay there again.

The best hotel of my trip was the W South Beach.  I had a free resort night from SPG and this seemed like a great way to use it to save the $600 nightly rate.  The W SoBe categorizes itself as a resort, so they do not honor all SPG policies like early check-in and late check-out.  I did get a nice room close to the ocean and free wifi, so there were some benefits to being SPG Platinum.  The room was amazing and the common areas were great.  I also took advantage of the free Acura ride to go down to Smith and Wollensky’s.  The driver was friendly and car was really nice too.  It was the favorite part of my stay.

W South Beach View

The hotel is right on the beach and has a beach club set up for guests for a fee.  There is also a small pool more for lounging around than swimming in.  The W South Beach defiantly has more of a club feel than a resort feel, the quintessential W hotel if you read the brand marketing material.  You can also buy residence, rooms like mine start at $750,000 + $800 a month.

W South Beach Room

The W South Beach did poorly on the human aspect.  There were only two front desk people and always a line.  Also, housekeeping didn’t do a good job of cleaning the balcony.  The concierge staff just used City Search and didn’t have any insight or tips to share for good dinner spots (not the last of my concierge problems on this trip).  The staff had a general arrogance to them that was rather off-putting.  I've experienced similar attitude problems with W's, but never this bad and widespread.  There are better hotels in the area in the same price bracket, but not a bad use of a free promotion night.

South American Adventure - DEN-IAD-ATL-MIA

1. Booking
2. DEN-IAD-ATL-MIA
3. Miami
4. MIA-SCL
5. SCL-IPC
6. Easter Island
7. IPC-SCL
8. Santiago
9. SCL-MVD
10. Montevideo
11. MVD-SCL-MIA-IAD-DEN

I needed to get to Miami to start my award trip because the British Airways pricing was only cheap if you were flying on a single airline (this has since changed).  I purchased a round trip on United via IAD both ways.  The pricing worked out best if I left a few days earlier and I needed some SPG stays to make Platinum again, so I added a 2 night Miami vacation to my trip.

I wanted to arrive at least a day ahead of schedule anyway in case something unexpected happened and I missed my LAN flight.  Since these flights were different tickets and different alliances, if United made me miss my LAN flight, LAN or United wouldn’t have to do anything to help me out.  A similar rule applies to cruise ships, show up the night before just to be safe.  As it turned out, something did happen.

My DEN-IAD flight was uneventful.  My upgrade cleared and I had the basic United first class experience.  The breakfast was the standard mediocre fare, unlike Continental’s great offering, and I settled in for my flight.  We landed a few minutes early and I was off to the Lufthansa lounge by B gates train stop.

Lufthnsa Senator Lounge IAD

Star Alliance Gold members can access any Lufthansa lounge (or Singapore in SFO) with a same day ticket on a Star Alliance flight.  My boarding pass was all I needed to for access.  I only had about 20 minutes before I had to leave for my flight to Miami, but was able to grab a snack and relax a little.

Lufthnsa Senator Lounge IAD

I got to my Miami flight close to the end of boarding.  I saw on the monitor that they were looking for volunteers, so I added my name to the list and waited in the gate area to see if I would be needed.  After the last few people boarded, I was told to board and took my seat on the CRJ-700.  Four more people came on, but there was only one open seat.  The gate agent pulled me and another two off, the ground crew grabbed my bag out of the hold and I would soon be $400 in United vouchers richer.  I found some routing options as the agent was processing the other removed passengers and trying to find out why her count was so far off.  She called me up, handed me my vouchers and tickets for Delta to go to Miami that night.  I asked if there were other options, but she said no.  I went back to the Lufthansa lounge for a few more hours.  Decent German food and alcohol took the sting out of having to go through Atlanta.

Economy on Delta's MD-88

My flight to Atlanta was on a MD-88 and rather uneventful.  The flight was mostly empty and I had my own row.  We landed on time and I was only a mile away from my flight to Miami.  I got to the gate at the start of boarding and it was a zoo.  The flight was full and I was in the second to last row.  Luckily I had space for my bag and a window seat.  Unluckily, the guy next to me was huge and the guy behind me was yacking away on his phone.  We landed a few minutes late; I was just about the last person off and found the Sheraton Miami Airport shuttle to take me to my hotel for the night.

US Airways Company Store Sale

The US Airways company store is having a sale with 30% off everything and free shipping on orders over $50.  Use the promo code NEWYEAR at checkout.  You can get some good deals on PacMin models for less than $150.  The also have some cool trinkets and shirts.

Company Store Sale Email

South American Adventure - Booking

1. Booking
2. DEN-IAD-ATL-MIA
3. Miami
4. MIA-SCL
5. SCL-IPC
6. Easter Island
7. IPC-SCL
8. Santiago
9. SCL-MVD
10. Montevideo
11. MVD-SCL-MIA-IAD-DEN

I only have 10 days off a year and they don’t roll over, so I have to be careful with their use. I wind up sitting on them and using them as needed.  Then October comes and I have 8 left, so I start planning a year end trip to finish them off.  I have always had a fascination with South America, but never had an excuse to go there.  Then I collected about 160,000 British Airways miles through a credit card bonus and buying coins at face value with free shipping.  British Airways charges exorbitant fuel surcharges on their own reward flights, but not on partners.

I ran a search one day and found a round trip to Santiago and found it was 80,000 miles and $60 in business class.  A round trip to London in business was 100,000 miles and $840.  My mind was made; I was going to South America.  British Airways allowed (this policy and pricing has changed since I booked) unlimited stopovers in a region, as long as you stayed on the same airline.  I wanted to go to Easter Island and then as many other places as I could manage. 

I made a spreadsheet to track availability by day for the segments I wanted and started searching each leg online.  I did one way searches for each takeoff to get the most granular detail I could.  From there I could just assemble the different legs into a trip, call the agent, and book.  I found no availability into Buenos Aires in December, nothing at all, but Montevideo was a wide open alternative.  I wanted to fly the longer flights in business and found a options for MIA-SCL and back, very limited JKF flights, and nothing out of LAX or SFO.  I was able to put together a trip, from MIA-SCL-IPC-2 nights-SCL-2 nights-MVD- 1 night-SCL-MIA.  I reran my search to confirm the flights were all still available and then called to book.

Booking was totally drama free.  After about 10 minutes on hold, not bad for a general member really, I got a friendly agent based in New York.  I gave her the flights, segment by segment and she found each one as expected.  She put it all together, priced it (80,000 miles and $120, as expected), and booked it.  A confirmation email landed in my inbox, I gave it a look, thanked her for her help, and that was it.

The key to booking this was doing the leg work before calling.  It took me several hours to plan it out and find the best routing.  Open ended bookings like this can be a very complex challenge because you are not constrained by locations and dates.  If I relied on the phone, it would have taken much longer and I would have been far less likely to find such a nice trip and timing.  I’m available to help with award bookings if you would like to use my award consulting service, just shoot me an email.

Least Aspirational Award

The fun of reward programs is that they make experiences available to you that would otherwise be unattainable.  Flying first overseas, staying in top hotels, and having exclusive experiences are all reasons to collect points; making dreams come true is why I play the game.  

I received an email from Qatar Airways this morning with their newest award option, using miles to pay for excess bag fees.  That’s the least aspirational award I’ve seen advertised.  Emails should help you dream of new trip ideas; Lufthansa and KLM do a great job of that with their ‘destination of the week’ emails.  I want to be inspired, not reminded of airline fees.  Sorry Qatar, you are missing the mark on this email.

Qatar reminding me of fees, not the best messaging