The Burj Al Arab, the “world’s only 7-Star hotel” is redefining the boundaries of the absurdly luxurious by issuing every guest their own 24-carat gold iPad.

In fairness, the hotel really didn’t have enough gold as it is…

(Tip of the hat to Mike)

Hyatt House made an announcement today that’s interesting because it doesn’t reward those loyal to Hyatt as a whole or those loyal to a particular hotel, but rather those loyal to the Hyatt House brand. The recognition is called “Very Important Resident,” and is for those staying a total of 30 or more nights at Hyatt House properties. The benefits include the following:

• Personalized service: From learning guests’ personal preferences to building a relationship with them during their stay, each property is committed to making guests feel like they’re right at home.
• Pick-Your-Suite:  Guests will have the opportunity to pick their own suite from available rooms in their room type at the time of their arrival.
• VIR Key Card:  Each key card will reflect guests’ VIR status so that hotel staff can quickly recognize a VIR guest and provide them with above and beyond personalized service.
• VIR Tour: A personalized hotel tour from hotel management staff.
• “Favorites” Folio:  A place to make note of guests’ likes, dislikes and special requests so HYATT house can personalize their stay in every way, every time.
• Grocery Shopping Service: By providing a grocery list to the House Host, the staff will stock guests’ refrigerators and kitchens with their favorite food items before their arrival or for when they come home.
• Grub Stub: Redeem for a $10 food and beverage credit from the H BAR or the Guest Market.
• Scrub Stub: This voucher can be redeemed for one washer and dryer cycle.
• VIP Welcome Amenity: Guests can select an amenity of their choice to be waiting for them when they arrive.

Admittedly there’s quite a bit of fluff in there, like “personalized service” (don’t they offer that to everyone?), a “VIP Key Card” (can’t wait to see entitled guests start slapping down their room keys), and a “VIP Tour” (might be useful if you run out of Ambien). But there’s also quite a bit of substance to the benefits, like the grocery shopping service, $10 food and beverage voucher, voucher for a washer and dryer cycle, and a welcome amenity of your choice (sounds a whole lot like Kimpton).

Kudos to Hyatt House for the innovation and while I doubt I’ll qualify, I think it’s a really smart move on their part.

Now if only they’d start a similar program for Park Hyatts…

So here’s a mostly theoretical question (and I realize the question is making several assumptions, but play along with me for a minute, please).

Would you rather –

A) Fly Lufthansa’s old first class and be guaranteed to have the cabin all to yourself

or

B) Fly Lufthansa’s new first class with six out of eight seats occupied

What would you do? I ask because my opinion on this is different than everyone else I’ve asked this, so I’m curious to see if I’m totally off base.

Let me know in the comments section, please!

Bangkok is one of my favorite cities in the world as far as luxury hotels go. I can’t think of any other city with as many reasonably priced five star hotels as Bangkok. So while I would have loved to sample another great luxury hotel in Bangkok, the purpose of this stay was a bit different. We were in Bangkok for just a night, and when it comes to not-so-classy nightlife the location of the Le Meridien is tough to beat, as it’s close to Patpong Night Market.

I’ll keep this review pretty short, as I’ve stayed at the Le Meridien before, and wrote an extensive review of my stay here, so check that out for full details of the hotel. Instead I’ll just focus on what was different this stay.

We had booked the Le Meridien the day of our arrival and it cost a bit over $100USD for the night, a rate at which it didn’t make sense to use points. The website wasn’t showing any suites available, so we had no expectations of a suite upgrade.

Check-in was efficient and we were informed that we had been upgraded. I wasn’t expecting any sort of an upgrade, so I was impressed. We were assigned room 2218, which was a “circular” room on the 22nd floor.

The room was just under 400 square feet and featured a king size circular bed, a couch with seating for three, a desk, and a flat screen TV.

Circular room

Circular room

Circular bed

Desk

Couch

The bathroom was quite nice with a soaking tub and walk-in shower.

Soaking tub

Shower

Toilet

Sink

All the toiletries were Le Meridien branded.

Le Meridien toiletries

On the whole the room was fairly nice. That being said, as I wrote about here, circular beds drive me bonkers. What’s shocking is that the Le Meridien charges a nearly 70% premium for identical rooms, the only difference being that you have the privilege of sleeping on a round bed in one.

Truly puzzling to me, and in the future I’d request not to be upgraded.

I’ll keep this short and share just a few other random thoughts about this hotel. First of all, it has one of the most impressive breakfast buffets I’ve seen anywhere in the world, and fortunately that hasn’t changed since my last stay. The spread is huge, and the quality of the food is quite good as well. It hands down beats the spread at the St. Regis Bangkok (my favorite hotel in Bangkok) in terms of both quality and quantity. The only hotel I’ve stayed at that may have a better breakfast spread is the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Abu Dhabi.

Next, the Le Meridien has the most reasonably priced hotel massages that I’ve ever seen. Hour-long massages at this hotel go for about $30USD. I know you can do much better than that on the streets, but as far as hotels go, that’s the cheapest I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately they sell out in advance, and I wasn’t able to get an appointment booking the night before, unfortunately.

Lastly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many “for rent” people at a hotel as in the elevators at the Le Meridien. My gosh, makes me pretty grossed out to be sleeping in the beds (after all, what you don’t know can’t hurt you).

Anyway the Le Meridien isn’t the most luxurious hotel in Bangkok, though it’s a great value and they generally take very good care of Starwood Platinum members. I still prefer the St. Regis Bangkok, though it’s substantially more expensive. For a one night stopover I still love the Le Meridien, and would return in a heartbeat.

As a refresher, you can most practically redeem American AAdvantage and ANA Mileage Club miles for travel on Etihad. American has a zone based partner award chart and doesn’t levy fuel surcharges for travel on Etihad. ANA, meanwhile, has a distance based partner award chart, and does levy fuel surcharges for travel on Etihad. It’s worth noting that Etihad has embedded fuel surcharges, meaning it’s not always so easy to tell what the fuel surcharges are, since they don’t appear on the “surface” when doing a fare search. The last time I booked a roundtrip business class award ticket through ANA between New York and Abu Dhabi, the taxes and fuel surcharges totaled about $900.

Anyway, the best place to search Etihad award space is on Etihad Airways’ website. You first need to join their Etihad Guest program if you haven’t yet, which is free and can be done here.

Once you’re logged into your account click on “Your Miles” in the left tab and then “How to Redeem.”

From there, on the left of the page click on “Click here to book flight” under the “How to redeem” section.

From there just enter your origin, destination, dates, and desired class of service, and then click “Select Flights.”

When you get to the results page, you’ll want to look for “GuestSeat” availability. If there’s not GuestSeat availability then you won’t be able to book that flight. As you can see below, there’s no first class GuestSeat availability from Washington to Abu Dhabi on June 9.

Meanwhile on June 16 there’s one first class award seat from Abu Dhabi to New York.

You can easily use the calendar function along the top of the page to search multiple days quickly, and then use the arrows to scroll forwards or backwards a week.

Always keep in mind that the mileage costs listed are irrelevant if you’re redeeming through another program. You do need the GuestSeat availability, though the price you’ll be charged is per the respective award chart of the airline you’re redeeming with.

So the redesigned website is actually an improvement over the old website, as it’s now much easier to search for saver award space. And that’s good, because in many cases Etihad is a great option for award travel.

When I make posts like this I try to study the award availability trends so I can draw some conclusions. For example, Lufthansa doesn’t release first class award space to partner airlines more than 15 days out, and I think that’s a useful data point.

But unfortunately I’m struggling with drawing conclusions about what Emirates is doing, other than saying that first class award availability has gotten a lot worse. In the past it wasn’t too difficult to get two first class award seats on “prime” A380 flights. First class award seats on other aircraft was a near guarantee — for example, when Emirates launched service to Seattle, they had two first class award seats on almost every flight.

Anyway, that’s not the case anymore. There aren’t many conclusive statements I can make about Emirates first class award availability, though there are a few things I generally find to be true:

• Emirates is releasing a lot less first class award space across the board than before
• Emirates is almost never releasing more than one A380 first class award space more than 30 days out
• Emirates seems to sometimes be releasing an extra award seat about four weeks out
• Emirates seems to sometimes be releasing two award seats about two weeks out

For example, two weeks out there are exactly two first class seats between Seattle and Dubai and also between Dubai and Seattle.

However, looking at award space for all of next year as far as the schedule is released, there’s not a single first class award seat from Dubai to Seattle the entire year, while there are less than a dozen dates with a single first class award seat between Seattle and Dubai.

But unfortunately the situation is even worse than that when redeeming Alaska miles, according to this FlyerTalk post. Basically Alaska can’t piece together an itinerary if a one-way involves more than one segment, but rather has to use married segments.

Let me explain in the form of an example — say you want to fly from Seattle to Dubai to Tokyo on Emirates. Say two weeks out Emirates opens up first class award space on Seattle to Dubai, but has nothing from Dubai to Tokyo, so you just lock in your award as far as Dubai. Then say a few days later first class award space opens up on Dubai to Tokyo. You can’t just add that segment in first class to the itinerary, but rather first class award space has to be available on both segments in order to make that change. This makes booking a multi-segment Emirates award extremely difficult, especially for two people.

So anyway, given that Emirates first class is for the most part no longer bookable on ex-CMB fares (at least under the “EK” code), RIP Emirates first class for cheap (for the most part). They’re certainly going the way of Lufthansa in terms of only releasing space close to departure, though unlike Lufthansa they’re screwing over their own members and their partner airlines’ members.

Now here’s to hoping Alaska makes one-way awards on Emirates possible soon, which will at least make this a little bit easier.

Infamous Emirates A380 shower suite

All the details can be found on the Star Mega Do website and the corresponding Milepoint thread.

This charter will run from October 22-25, and will be on an Air Canada A321, with travel from Toronto to San Francisco via Tucson, with events all along the way. Tickets start at $1,199 for coach, $1,799 for Tommy Class (coach with a blocked middle seat), $1,999 for Tommy Class in the exit row (also with a blocked middle seat), and $2,799 for business class. The event even comes with 2,500 EQMs for coach, 7,500 EQMs for Tommy Class, and 15,000 EQMs for business class. The cost includes the flights, bus transportation, dinner receptions, and more.

Anyway, the event usually sells out within seconds, so if you’re interested be sure you’re at this page by noon central.

Good luck!

So basically if you max out this promotion you get 31,000 Avios for $685, making them ~2.2 cents per Avios.

Is that a rate at which I’d proactively buy Avios? Heck no. British Airways partners with American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest, so their points aren’t too difficult to come by. There’s even a 35% transfer bonus from Membership Rewards through June 7.

But assuming you have none of those points currencies, there are still circumstances under which it could make sense to purchase points. Say your family of six wants to fly from Los Angeles to Monterey tomorrow (doesn’t everyone’s family?). For only 4,500 Avios per person you could get seats on American Eagle (a total of 27,000 Avios).

Meanwhile revenue tickets would cost $225 per person.

So yeah, there are circumstances where this can make sense, but they’re few and far between. And with proper planning you should have enough points currencies that convert into Avios so you’re never in a bind.

While a coach flight within Thailand is hardly an aspirational travel experience worth writing about, I have to say that Bangkok Airways is one of the most unique airlines I’ve flown. They market themselves as “Asia’s boutique airline,” as they offer some pretty elaborate meal services on short flights and also have lounges for all passengers. And for that matter Koh Samui Airport is an equally unique airport, so hopefully you guys find this interesting.

As I said in the introduction, our coach tickets cost a bit over $100USD per person, which was reasonable. Business class is only a mild premium, though for our date unfortunately the only flight with availability was one of their single cabin A319s, not featuring a business class cabin.

The first thing to note is that just for joining Bangkok Airways’ frequent flyer program, FlyerBonus, you get an extra 10kg baggage allowance. So before flying with them be sure you join if you intend to check a bag. Their normal baggage allowance is 20kg (~44 pounds), so just for being a member you get a 30kg (~66 pounds) baggage allowance. If you’re connecting off an international premium cabin itinerary with heavy bags, that will save you a lot of money.

We were able to check out of the Conrad at 4PM, and made it to the airport by 4:45PM for our 6:50PM flight. The airport is entirely “open air,” so originally I was dreading the time we’d have to spend outside, given that it was close 100 degrees. We were dropped off right in front of the Bangkok Airways check-in counter.

Check-in

The check-in queues were crazy. I mean, literally the longest airport queues I’ve ever seen anywhere. It’s not really surprising, given just how many flights Bangkok Airways has out of Koh Samui. Heck, between 6PM and 7PM they had three flights to Bangkok alone, not factoring in their other destinations.

Check-in queues

Check-in queues

And this is where the next tip comes into play — just for doing online check-in you get access to their business class check-in queue. The main queue must have been over an hour long, while there were only two parties ahead of us in the business class line. So be sure to do online check-in.

Web check-in queues

Web check-in queues

So we had done online check-in not realizing that it would actually save us probably an hour of time. We were checked in within five minutes, and now had almost two hours to kill before our flight. We started walking towards the departure area (the airport doesn’t have gates so I can’t really use that term), which is on the other side of the airport.

Walkway to departure area

Walkway to departure area

Walkway to departure area

I’ve gotta say the grounds of the airport are beautiful, possibly the greenest I’ve seen anywhere.

Walking to departure area

Funny enough the walkway between check-in and the departure area is a bit like an outlet mall in Orlando, with tons of seemingly misplaced shops. Not something you’d usually associate with a Thai airport.

Walkway to departure area

Since we had nearly two hours before our flight and fancied air conditioning, we stopped at the first place we saw, a Swensen’s ice cream shop.

Ice cream

I find Thai service to be friendly across the board. Yes, some people are more polished and sincere than others, though I don’t think I’ve ever run into rude service… except here. The funny thing is the place was staffed by maybe 18-25 year old Thai girls, typically the friendliest demographic, in my experience. However, they couldn’t crack a smile, and seemed pissed off every time someone walked in the door.

On the plus side, the ice cream was good.

Ice cream sundae

At that point we had about 90 minutes left before our flight, so we kept walking towards the departure area. Go figure there was a foot massage place.

A foot massage in air conditioning or waiting in the heat? I think you know which we chose. The massage was by no means great, though I was impressed by the masseuse’s multi-tasking skills — she managed to be on her cell phone the entire time while still using both hands to rub my feet. But since the prices were reasonable and there was air conditioning, I’d do it in again in a heartbeat.

Massage place

Massage place

At this point we had less than an hour till departure, and for a moment even panicked. We completely forgot we hadn’t cleared security, and given the check-in queues, figured there was another hour-long queue to clear security. So we more or less sprinted to the security checkpoint, only to find that there was no one in line, and we cleared in less than five minutes

Walkway to security

Once past security there were a few more outdoor shops and eateries, though we headed to our departure area.

Walkway past security

The actual gate area was beautiful, and felt sort of Tahitian.

Departure area

Departure area

Departure area

Right next to the gate was the “Courtesy Counter,” which offers free snacks and drinks. Like I said, Bangkok Airways has a “lounge” even for coach passengers, which is impressive.

Courtesy Counter signage

While I didn’t eat anything, the spread was fairly good — there were finger sandwiches, popcorn, pizza, etc. Kind of what you’d expect for a middle school birthday party at a bowling alley.

Food spread

Popcorn and drinks

There was also free wifi. You just had to give the agent your boarding pass and they’d issue you a wifi code.

At around 6:30PM boarding began. It was mildly chaotic since they were trying to board three Bangkok Airways flights to Bangkok nearly simultaneously, so naturally that led to quite a bit of confusion.

Flight signage

Bangkok Airways 1172
Koh Samui (USM) – Bangkok (BKK)
Friday, March 29
Depart: 6:50PM
Arrive: 7:55PM
Duration: 1hr5min
Aircraft: Airbus A319
Seat: 6E (Economy Class)

Since there are no gates, there were a few Disney-world-style-parking-lot-trams waiting to take us to the plane. Unlike at Disney, though, they definitely used the “there’s always room for one more” approach to loading them.

Driveway to planes

Trams to planes

The sun was setting as we were driven to the plane, which made for some beautiful views.

Sunset

We drove past a bunch of Bangkok Airways planes, as our plane was parked at the very end of the tarmac.

Bangkok Airways A319

Bangkok Airways ATR 72

Our A319

Our A319

Our A319

While Bangkok Airways has a fairly modern fleet for the most part, our A319 had a really tired interior. I never made the connection that the aircraft without business class are generally the older ones, so the interior was definitely a bit underwhelming for what’s a “premium” airline.

Aircraft interior

Aircraft interior

We were in seats 6D & 6E, and I took the middle seat. Boarding was extremely efficient, and within about 15 minutes everyone was seated. As soon as boarding was complete one of the crew members came around with refreshment towels.

Towels

I have to be honest, the part of the Bangkok Airways experience I was most looking forward to was their safety video. I mean, take a look at this gem (I don’t know whether I prefer the epic dance routine or the pilot voice over):

Click here to view the embedded video.

If it’s not the greatest thing ever, I don’t know what it is. And while I may have already seen it 162 times on repeat on YouTube, I was most looking forward to seeing the reactions of fellow passengers. What I failed to realize is that the older A319s don’t have video monitors, so there was a manual safety demo.

As we began our taxi the captain informed us of our flight time of 50 minutes, which would put us into Bangkok on-time. The purser, Rosita, also welcomed us aboard, though I couldn’t really understand anything she said. As we taxied out the cabin lights were dimmed, and I was impressed that the crew walked around the cabin to turn on the individual reading lights for anyone that looked like they were reading.

Our taxi took only a couple of minutes given how small the airport is, and we rocketed off pretty quickly.

Less than five minutes after takeoff the crew closed the curtains to the galley to prepare for the meal service.

Cabin view after takeoff

They quickly came around and plopped down something on everyone’s tray, which for a 50 minute flight is a complete overkill.

Meal service

15 minutes before landing the seatbelt sign was turned on and we began our descent into Bangkok.

We had a smooth touch down and quick taxi to the gate, and made it there a couple of minutes ahead of schedule.

The walk to baggage claim took at least 15 minutes, and once there it was another 30 minutes before checked bags began rolling out.

Walk to baggage claim

Baggage claim

From there we got in a taxi to the Le Meridien (or is it just Le Meridien?), which took close to an hour due to traffic. Fortunately the cabbie had some very entertaining affiliate marketing materials to share with us, including this one (I cropped out the top of the pamphlet for a reason):

Ah, the joys of Bangkok!

On the whole Bangkok Airways was a great way to fly. For a coach flight within Asia can it really get better than them? I doubt it. Their old planes are by no means luxurious, but it’s tough to beat what they offer on the ground. Oh, and Koh Samui Airport is pretty damn nifty as well!

Last year I got the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card (affiliate link), which comes with Hilton HHonors Gold status for as long as you have the card. That’s a huge benefit for a $95 annual fee, given that Gold status gets you complimentary internet and breakfast/lounge access. As far as I’m concerned those are the single most valuable hotel benefits, and justify the annual fee after just one or two stays.

Conrad Singapore Executive Lounge

But the card also offers Diamond status after spending $40,000 on the card in a year. While having the card for Gold status is a no brainer, for the better part of a year I’ve been pondering whether it makes sense to put $40,000 of spend on the card for Diamond status. As far as I’m concerned the two most valuable benefits of Diamond status are as follows:

• Gold members only get access to the club lounge if they get upgraded to a club room, while Diamond members are guaranteed lounge access (though it’s worth noting that if you don’t get upgraded to the club level as a Gold member you get restaurant breakfast, which many would consider superior).
• The terms & conditions of the program give Diamond members suite upgrades at the hotel’s discretion. This is different than Starwood where Platinum members get guaranteed suite upgrades based on availability at arrival, but instead with Hilton it’s entirely at the hotel’s discretion. I don’t think there are many Hilton Diamond members getting suite upgrades anywhere close to a majority of the time, though.

In retrospect I should have probably just been happy with Gold status, though I had started working towards the $40,000 of spend before the HHonors devaluation was announced, and at that point figured I might as well go all the way, and now I’m a Diamond member. If it proves worthwhile, great. If it doesn’t, at least I can report back and suggest others don’t go for Diamond status.

I’ve actually had very good luck as an HHonors Gold member. I’ve never been denied lounge access. That being said, I can appreciate the peace of mind of knowing it’s guaranteed. But the suite upgrade benefit is what confuses me, and what I’d love to hear from existing Diamond members about. I also have top tier status with Hyatt and Starwood, and their room upgrade policies are straightforward. Hyatt upgrades you to the best available non-suite, though also gives you four confirmed suite upgrades annually that can be used to lock in a suite at the time of booking. Meanwhile Starwood upgrades you to the best available standard suite at check-in, meaning if a suite is available you’re entitled to it (not saying it always goes that smoothly, but that’s the policy). If you get 50 elite night credits with them, they also give you 10 suite night awards, which can confirm a suite upgrade five days out.

Then you have Hilton, which has this confusing benefit (bolding mine):

Complimentary room upgrades for Gold and Diamond HHonors members may include the next-best available room from the room type booked. Upgrades may also be rooms with desirable views, corner rooms, rooms on high floors, rooms with special amenities, or rooms on Executive Floors, as identified by each property. Room upgrades, for Diamond members only, may also include suites.

The suite upgrade benefit is actually new as of last year. So if my interpretation is correct you receive suite upgrades at the hotel’s discretion. It doesn’t matter whether there are 100 suites available, what matters is the mood of the front desk agent. So, Diamond members, how do you approach suite upgrades at Hilton hotels. Do you:

a) Not care and let them assign you whatever they want?
b) Ask nicely at check-in whether they might have any suite upgrades available?
c) Be a bit more suggestive and say “I noticed online that you’re still selling suites for tonight, do you have any suite upgrades available?”
d) Pull out your Diamond card and pet giraffe, and refuse to move until they give you the presidential suite and waive the pet cleanup fee?

And how often do you actually get suite upgrades?

Staying at my first Hilton abroad as a Diamond member next week, so I want to be sure I’m using the right approach.