Starwood and Caesars Las Vegas

The Westin Las Vegas used to be the only SPG option by the strip. Now all the Caesars properties in Las Vegas count for SPG points and benefits. Registration is required to link SPG and Caesars accounts.

Less Traditional View of Las Vegas

Hyatt Bonus Season

Up to 75,000 bonus points from Hyatt! Wow, they are serious about stealing customers from SPG. If I had any business travel coming up, I'd be tempted to switch.

Great Idea from Hyatt

Bonus Lufthansa Miles

Note: I am NOT compensated for this post.

Think you can spend $5,000 in 90 days? Then the Lufthansa Miles & More credit card is a good grab. Lufthansa has better first class availability for their members than Star Alliance partners, so it's a valuable currancy to collect.

Lufthansa A340-300 at FRA

Brussels Airport Reopens Today

I Love Brussels

Fun Lufthansa Picture

Runner up for airline April Fools jokes.

Lufthansa 747-8i

I Love April 1st Announcements

CALGARY, April 1, 2016 /CNW/ - In its never-ending quest to deliver the most caring and personalized service to its guests, WestJet announced today the replacement of all standard-issue food and beverage carts with the Robotic Automated Light Food Handler (RALFH). RALFH provides incredible guest service utilizing a powerful memory, a facial-recognition camera and an audio conveyance system that allows it to interact with guests to deliver food and beverage orders in an efficient, personalized and technologically awe-inspiring manner.

"With RALFH, the only thing we've changed is everything. As not only a Canadian-airline first, but a global-aviation first, RALFH is a demonstration of WestJet's innovative thinking and dedication to guest experience," said Richard Bartrem, WestJet Vice-President, Marketing Communications. "By using RALFH to order and distribute food and beverages, we have eliminated the need for our flight attendants to push a heavy cart up and down the aisle. We can't wait for RALFH to start providing an entirely new and fun way to wine and dine our guests."

The installation of RALFH means that WestJet's flight attendants now have the ability to provide even more of the caring guest experience that makes WestJet the proud Canadian airline it is today.

Said Bartrem, "The idea behind RALFH started with WestJet's beloved flight attendants, who always provide remarkable experiences. We have simply evolved and reinvented the flight attendant, resulting in the most beautiful and powerful hi-tech food dispenser in the world. Anyone who wants to order a coke, a sandwich or even just a bottle of water is going to love RALFH."

RALFH also makes it easy for guests to get up and down the aisles of the plane, which was noted in consumer testing as awesome.

To celebrate the launch of RALFH, WestJet is having a No Foolin' Just Savin' Sale: Seriously great savings on flights and vacation packages to select destinations in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe.  One-way fares starting from $99 CAD* total price on select routes within Canada, or save up to $1,300 on select vacation packages. Take advantage of these great savings by booking before April 5, 2016 (11:59 p.m. MDT) for travel from April 1 to July 13 and September 7 to October 31, 2016. Lowest fares can be found on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Blackout dates from May 19 to 24, June 29 to July 15 and October 6 to 11, 2016. Advance purchase of 14 days required for travel within Canada and seven days for travel to the U.S. Other restrictions apply. Visit westjet.com/sale for complete details.

Double Miles on QANTAS

This is awful nice of QANTAS:
Simply register and then make your bookings between 29 March and 5 April 2016, for travel between 29 March 2016 and 17 March 2017. So with almost a year to fly, you can book all of your flights now for twice the rewards later.
Too bad Northern Hemisphere airlines won't copy this promotion.

I don't seem to have a QANTAS picture handy

I Won A FCT Ducky

Lufthansa's First Class Terminal runs a weekly twitter contest and awards the winner a rubber ducky. Here's my new ducky:

Bear Acquired Separately

Happy Travels This Weekend

I'm still grounded at work. I'm considering mileage run opportunities to keep pace.

Airbus in Denver

Denver Airport Back In Business

Denver International is open again.  Snow shut it down yesterday. When was the last time Oslo was closed for snow?

Not A Recent Picture of Denver

Um, Thanks Twitter

I must follow a strange collection of companies to see this ad. Also I couldn't buy anything, strange feeling since all the advertising I see is for things I can buy.

Starwood+Marriott Called Off

A Chinese insurance company made a much better offer for Starwood and Marriott walked away.  Good news for me because if I wanted to be a Marriott loyalist, I would already be one.

A Celebratory Image

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Have a great St. Patrick's Day!

Ireland's Largest Airline and Aer Lingus

Happy Photo Day

It can always be photo day. Pi day is sadly once a year.

United 737 APU

Rimowa and Lufthansa Electronic Tag

This is so cool! Lufthansa and Rimowa, two of my top 10 German brands, have teamed up to make built in luggage tags.  Unfortunately the bag costs over $1,000.

I Love Lufthansa

Just Pay The Pet Fee

Just pay the check a pet fee, emotional support animals are now ridiculous.

Just Pay The Few Bucks

Free Movie

My United Visa offered me free tickets to a movie I don't want to see. Nice offer, but lets keep trying on the movies.

Photo Time

Happy weekend!

Denver to Hawaii - Not Mine

Be Flexible When Redeeming Miles

It’s a great idea to have a destination in mind when collecting miles. Some destinations are much easier reached in some programs and certain award programs give extra space to their members. Another way to stay flexible is to remember your other currencies, including money.  A round trip to Thailand may be the goal, but tickets could be very inexpensive (less than $800/rt from Denver).  It could possibly be worthwhile to send money in some instances and save miles for another adventure.

Not As Far As You'd Think

The month long search on ITA Matrix is a great search tool.

Map + Movie

The remote in business class on United's 787 Dreamliners has an option to show the flight map on the controller. This is a great development because one would have to stop a movie to see where you were and how long until landing.

Keep Spending American Miles

March 21 is the last day of American's current award chart. Prices will jump, especially on premium cabin overseas travel. The longer you wait, the fewer seats will be available.

US Airways' Management is Making Their Mark

Starbucks Rewards Points Inflation

Buying a Starbucks will be less rewarding in April because the Starbucks Rewards program is changing the currency accumulation and redemption math. If your average order is less than $5, then you lose out.

Starbucks Served On Alaska Airlines Not Impacted

Happy Friday

It's a great day to fly!

I Had A Long Delay at ORD and Took Photos for You

Grounded Photo

Still grounded this month.

No Aircraft in my February

United Airlines 787-900 Business Class Seat

I flew United Airlines' new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner from Denver to Houston to start a mileage run last month. I had seat 4A, but row 4 is missing a window, so my window seat was extra claustrophobic.  The business class seats are traditional Continental style, all angled, 2x2x2, and front facing.  There is no first class on United's 787's.  On my 2 hour flight, I was able to notice the seat needed more padding, very Continental again, so it would be difficult on a long flight to Asia.

Seat Upright

Reclined Seat

Flat Bed Position

10 Wide in Coach on 777's

The 777 aircraft hasn't grown any wider since it's launch in 1995, but an extra seat in each row has been wedged in. United Airlines was the first 777 operator and had 9 wide seating in coach. Airlines have since increased seating density and now I'm wary of booking a 777 if it isn't not 9 across. Rumor has it that United wants to go 10 wide with their 777-300's on order. This will make me miss the 747 even more; the cabin is 25 in wider than the 777 and has 10 wide seating.

SWISS Wants Less Room in Coach

SWISS is showing off their new 777-300ER in emails, but I was disappointed to see they were 10 wide in coach. Interestingly, there was no premium economy seating.

Funny Flights

Super Bowl 50 was actually played in San Jose, not San Francisco like the B-roll coming back from commercials suggested. The two cities aren't far apart, but the Broncos chose to fly out of SJC rather than SFO. This lead to some interesting flights from SFO (United's hub and a widebody base) to SJC (United narrow body outpost) to support charter flights after the game.

From FlightAware.com

Yay Denver!!!

We Won!

Go Broncos!

United is the official airline of the Denver Broncos, but isn't festive like US Airways.

Go Denver

Boooooooo!!!!

My Alaska Airlines Photos Are Obsolete

Alaska rebranded and now my collection of Alaska Airlines photos is obsolete.

Now the Classic Look

Fun Landing Photo

There's a lot of zoom and crop on a point and shoot through a dirty airport window. I still think it's cool.

Over a Mile Away

Iceland Stopover Buddy

Enjoy a free stopover in Iceland with a buddy! Icelandair will set you up with an airline employee to be your buddy for the day. Really fun idea that I want to take advantage of sometime. Snowmobiling with the CEO would be super cool; fishing seems fun too.

Free Stopover in KEF - Icelandic Friend Included

Frontier Logo Issues

Frontier might need a new contractor to paint their fun animal logos. This one is new and already starting to degrade.

Bad Value Paint Job

Fun Friday Photo

Enjoy!

Lufthansa.com or lh.com for short

Southwest Boarding Spot A2

In theory I was guaranteed an exit row window seat, but I could be the 10th or 20th person on board.

Good, Not Great

IHG Priceless Surprises Pomotion

Almost FREE POINTS from IHG! The IHG Priceless Surprises promotion permits 94 mail in entries and each entry earns a minimum of 500 points. Filling out 94 3x5 cards and envalopes by hand is time consuming, but not the worst way to kill time on a flight. Good luck and get them in the mail soon, entries must be postmarked by February 15.

An Entry Can Win >500 Points

NYC to MXP for $899 RT for 2

Emirates is running a fun promotion for $899 for two roundtrip tickets from New York (JFK) to Milan (MXP). This is a great deal to Europe, connections are easy from MXP, over the slow season. No, you don't have to connection in Dubai either.

A380-800 in Houston

Bad Stats From United

United emailed my stats from 2015. I am not impressed.

Bad E+ Ratio and Worse Upgrade Ratio

South African Airways Business Class Promotion

Grab some free TravelPro luggage when booking SAA business class from the USA. A $280 value, so not worth going out of your way, but good deal if work was buying you a ticket soon anyway.

SAA A340 at IAD

Use Better Photos

Ever see a news story with an overly dated photo? It happens all the time, like the one below. Spirit Airlines is an all Airbus airline and this was several logos ago. Alaska is all 737 so seeing an MD-80 in Alaska colors is also frustrating. It's not hard to obtain newer images. I could sell you some even.

Very Old Image from Airfare Watchdog Email

Only One Livery Old Image from Me

I Hate People

If you are so emotionally fragile that you need a comfort animal companion (like a turkey), you are too emotionally fragile to fly. You are a safety hazard to everyone else on the plane because if you are barely hanging on in normal operations, you could fall apart in an emergency and block, delay, or otherwise hinder the egress of other passengers. Stay home, drive, or get yourself together enough to fly without an emotional support animal.

A Lower Bar Every Day

Part of me hopes this guy was trying to make a mockery of the emotional support animal system rather than needing one or wanting to save $150 on checking a turkey round trip. I doubt it, but am still an optimist being bludgeoned by reality.

New Spirit CEO

Spirit Airlines switched CEO's last week. They haven't been running a good operation or growing outside the south and east much, but that still puts them in the top tier or US airlines.  They brought in the former CEO of AirTran (nee Value Jet) who lead them through their sale to Southwest. This got bloggers talking about Spirit and Frontier merging. I think a merger isn't the goal because AirTran ran a solid operation and Spirit needs help there most.

Don't Get To Use AirTran Pictures Much These Days

Credit Card Questions

What card should I pick up? I'm torn between the Fairmont, Sapphire, and Alaska Airlines cards. You can only pick one up ever 3 or 4 months, so I need to use this strategically. The Alaska card has no minimum spend requirement while the other cards are $3,000 and $4,000.

I Would Use Alaska Miles For BA or AF Travel

Fun Photo

Slow start to the year at work, so no travel in the coming weeks.

One Can Dream

Fairmont Card From Chase

Note: I am NOT compensated for this post.

With Fairmont being absorbed by Accor Hotels, the Fairmont card from Chase is only viable for a short while longer, but I am tempted to get one. I have until Jan 31, 2016 to decide.

Pros:

• 2 free nights at any Fairmont location after spending $3,000 in 3 months.
• No annual fee in the first year, and presumably only year, of card membership.
• Fairmont status boost to the middle level.
• No foreign transaction fees.

Cons:

• Though not officially impossible, don't plan to enjoy a free night at The Plaza or The Savoy.
• Chase's Fairmont points program is separate from Fairmont's President Club program. The Chase points must be redeemed through Chase. The award chart is miserable too. Expect a $25 gift card.  Free nights start at $25,000 in spending.

Twists:

• If your +1 gets the card too, then you have 4 nights and that could make for a nice long weekend in Barbados, Europe, or Canada.
• The merger hasn't been approved by regulators, but this is much less risky than the SPG-Marriott union.

I Don't Have Any Hotel Pictures