My seatmate literally saved my day on an 11hr flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco last week. While my carelessness almost cost me eight hours hours of productivity and great aggravation, one kind gesture spared me that misery. I use a MagSafe to MagSafe2...
Review: Grand Hyatt Shanghai
While I do prefer the intimacy of the Park Hyatt, the Grand Hyatt proved an excellent hotel for a long layover in Shanghai. We arrived into Shanghai around 5:30pm and did not leave for 21 hours. An airport hotel...
Overconfident? United Airlines Mocks Frontier Airlines
United Airlines’ President Scott Kirby is a smug man. I don’t even use that term in negative way. Such bravado has served him well at American and now United. But did he step over the line during a recent dressing down...
Avoid Unnecessary Frustration: Essential Call Center Lingo
I spend hours on the phone each week speaking to different airlines and loyalty programs from around the world. The single most important time-saver: the phonetic alphabet. I was on the phone last night with Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific) booking an...
Review: China Eastern 777-300ER Business Class Los Angeles to Shanghai
Let me start by saying that now I know what it is like to have been on a smoking flight. That, a fairly comfortable seat, horrible food, and totally unprofessional service are my takeaways from my first China Eastern flight,...
New Airport Security Measures: Business as Usual
Last month I wrote about the planned introduction of new security protocols on all USA-bound flights. The new guidelines were not specific, but included “heightened screening of personal electronic devices”. How does that look in practice? If my flight from...
United Flight Diverts When Passenger Rushes Cockpit
A United flight was forced to turn around after a distressed passenger made a rush for the flight deck. United 898 was scheduled to leave Houston at 9:43p on Saturday evening for a short flight to New Orleans, but...
Live and Let’s Fly Weekend Digest: July 23, 2017
Hello from Los Angeles. So much for my extended vacation in Germany… I had to fly home yesterday afternoon for a series of meetings over the next few days on a matter totally unrelated to the blog or Award Expert....
When Automatic Upgrades Split Up Families
Flying with status is great, and upgrades make it even better. Usually it’s good news when upgrades happen in advance – I love seeing the notification on my phone and in my inbox. But sometimes it can complicate matters...
Travel Caching: Checked Baggage Hacking
A friend recently referred me to a Tim Ferriss post about travel caching, something I had never heard of before. Mr. Ferriss used the Jason Borne movies as his reference point but the method might just work, depending on...
Review: Hilton Hanoi Opera
My wife and daughter have spent the summer in Asia and I have spent every other weekend visiting them. On my final trip back to Asia to bring them home, we re-visited Vietnam, this time trying Hanoi for the...
Introduction: A Trip Around the World with Lucky
I’m doing my best to catch up on old trip reports and there is a huge one I’ve never published: my trip around the world with Lucky (One Mile at a Time) last August. There will be no surprises...
How Much Cash Do You Bring on Vacation?
Earlier this week I wrote about the potential danger of traveling to Thailand without sufficient cash. The discussion in the comments section took me by surprise: how much cash is reasonable when traveling abroad? Some mocked the $300-600 cash...
My Final Credit Card Churn for Two Years
While the days of credit card churns every three months are long gone, I’ve still managed to gain hundreds of thousands of points via new credit card sign-ups over the last couple years. But it seems my latest churn...
Review: Hilton Stockholm Slussen (it was disappointing)
It’s rare I post a negative review and perhaps you’ll find my comments nitpicky, but I was left disappointed by my stay at the Hilton Stockholm Slussen. I realize that prices are high in Scandinavia, but perhaps not as high as you...
10 Ways Taxpayers Subsidize U.S. Airlines
With an offensively misleading campaign against Gulf Carriers by suspect interest groups, it is time for a counterattack. Not because I love Gulf Carriers and certainly not because I hate U.S. carriers — but because the truth must be...
Another Near-Miss: Emirates A380 and Air Seychelles A330
On the heels of a near-miss at San Francisco International Airport by an Air Canada A320 that could have been the “worst disaster in aviation history”, an Emirates A380 came dangerously close to an Air Seychelles A330 just north of Mauritius. The...
747-200 Hostel vs. Radisson Blu Stockholm Airport
It was a tough choice. Parked directly across the street from our hotel was a Boeing 747-200 with rooms available at a similar price. But I was happy I ultimately chose the Radisson Stockholm Airport. The Choice Both properties were...
Charming Concept: SAS Café Lounge
SAS offers a charming lounge concept at five smaller airports: lounge cafés. SAS bases operations out of three Scandinavian hubs: Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, but serves 40 Scandinavian destinations. Some of these cities are too small to support a full lounge but to small or competitive...
Caution: Bring Plenty of Cash to Thailand or Face Detention & Deportation
A rather alarming story for someone like me who enjoys going to Thailand but hates carrying cash: some western tourists are being refused entry or even detained for not bringing sufficient hard currency along. Thai Law requires tourists to arrive...
