The unadvertised promotional United Global First fare to Tokyo I flew on last week had limited domestic origins, Boston being one of them. And since I’m getting “old†and can no longer handle nonstop flying over several days, I flew into Boston the day before my BOS-SFO-NRT segments and booked into the Hilton attached to…
My travels/observations
Category Archives for My travels/observations.
United Airlines Global First Lounge Shower Room Amenities
I visited United’s Global First Class lounges in Tokyo and San Francisco on my mileage run last week and I took advantage of the shower rooms offered in each in hopes of adding to my amenity kit collection. Truth be told, I had freshly showered at my hotel in Tokyo before arriving at the airport,…
Save Time Using Hipmunk for Multi-Segment Mileage Run Bookings
I’m a creature of habit and when I find a tried and true method to book multi-segment mileage runs, I stick with it. Too much so that when it doesn’t work, I fluster around with it far longer than I need to. Having recently moved from Los Angeles and accepted my fate that I’ll no…
The Reality Check That Is United Airlines Global First Class
I’ll post my full flight review in the coming days, but I feel compelled to dedicate a post on the less than international first class service I received and observed in United Global First last week. It’s no secret that United is remarkably inconsistent when it comes to in-flight service and I think it’s most…
I’m Off on a Weeklong Mileage Run… In Style!
I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’m off on a mileage run of sorts that began Saturday. I’ll be crisscrossing the country numerous times and traversing the Pacific Ocean on a pair of flights. And I say “mileage run of sorts” since it doesn’t fall into the ultra lowball cents-per-mile category, as well as my…
United MileagePlus, TSA Secure Flight Names Must Now Match
This morning I arrived off a red eye, went to the United Club and had a mini panic attack when logging into United.com and seeing this: I’m in the beginning of a mileage run (of sorts… more on that in a future post) that includes international travel and that was a message I didn’t want…
Is Southwest’s Standby Policy a Major Blow to Elites?
I flew home from Las Vegas on Tuesday and needed to get back a bit earlier than my ticketed flight. Having absolutely no idea what Southwest’s standby policy was, I looked it up online before heading to the airport. As I was on a Wanna Get Away fare, standby required a buy-up to the Anytime…
A Southwest Airlines Trip Report? Yep, They Impressed Me
I wouldn’t normally write a blog post about a simple domestic airline flight. But as I haven’t flown Southwest in about six or seven years, it was basically a new experience and it ended up being an impressive one. I flew from Reno to Las Vegas today and chose Southwest because of an ideal flight…
United’s Premier Accelerator Rates Have Dropped… But Still Pricey
I never really paid attention to United’s Award and Premier Accelerator program until just recently. If you’re not familiar with it, the program allows you to purchase redeemable MileagePlus miles with the option to add Premier Accelerator giving you an equivalent amount of Premier Qualifying Miles (PQMs). The offer appears on each of your ticketed…
Looking Back at 2012 and What’s in Store for 2013
On Monday I posted a quick snapshot of my 2012 flying showing a map of my travels. I’ve been LAX (pun sort-of intended) in updating my FlightMemory over the years, but I plugged my 2012 data yesterday to reveal the following: In total, I flew 126,452 miles during the year. That’s less than 2011 and…