Life of a frequent flyer

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Journey to Top Elite Status on American and United Airlines UPDATE March 2012

March 3 was the date for which Continental and United Airlines merged into a single airline and also a single reservation system. It lead to several headaches and issues with my United MileagePlus account... only time will tell. I am hoping that my upgrades continue on United next month for my 2 trips to Hawaii. I also will be redeeming my miles on a week-long trip to China next month using my AA miles using AA to get to the international gateways and then Cathay Pacific for the long-haul portions and Dragonair for the legs to/from China.

After traveling this last month that had me travel every week. It includes 2 DFW-SFO turns on American. I did miss a quick SFO-JFK turn due to weather issues a few weeks ago, but I got to keep the value of the ticket towards a new reservation on American. I also had a DFW-HNL trip plus 2 SFO-JFK (p.s service) turns on United... here's my progress to American Airlines Executive Platinum Status and United Premier 1K status for 2013 benefits so far through March 31st.

	United Airlines	American Airlines
January	Premier Qualifying Miles – 7,726 Premier Qualifying Segments – 4 Redeemable Miles – 15,452	Elite Qualifying Miles – 54,942 Elite Qualifying Segments – 11 Redeemable Miles – 46,158
February	Premier Qualifying Miles – 12,924 Premier Qualifying Segments – 8 Redeemable Miles – 27,146	Elite Qualifying Miles – 20,692 Elite Qualifying Segments – 8 Redeemable Miles – 58,952
March	Premier Qualifying Miles – 21,961 Premier Qualifying Segments – 12 Redeemable Miles – 43,922	Elite Qualifying Miles – 11,712 Elite Qualifying Segments – 4 Redeemable Miles – 17,568
Totals to Date	Premier Qualifying Miles – 42,611 Premier Qualifying Segments – 24 Redeemable Miles – 86,520	Elite Qualifying Miles – 86,346 Elite Qualifying Segments – 23 Redeemable Miles – 122,678
April	DFW-ITO DFW-HNL	None
Remainder Needed	Premier Qualifying Miles – 57,389 Premier Qualifying Segments – 96	Elite Qualifying Miles – 13,654 Elite Qualifying Segments – 77

Thursday, March 22, 2012

April Quick trip to China- the return and changing the outbound

I found tickets for my return via the midnight New York-JFK flight from Hong Kong (with a stop in Vancouver-YVR). Because I am connecting from a city in China using Dragonair, Cathay's regional Airline, the arrival into Hong Kong limited my return trip options on Cathay back to the US. I can take either the LAX or SFO midnight or daytime flights or the midnight JFK flight with a 90 minute stop in YVR. I booked the JFK flight for now to secure my seats and have a ticket home. I hope to change to the LAX or SFO day flights back to the US as that would mean less travel time and an extra night in China for me to enjoy. Here are my return flights:

I also accidentally stumbled upon the fact that Cathay Pacific (CX) revenue management releases their award inventory about once a week with a few changes during the week. I now know when they start to release seats each week. I found a Business seat on one of the LAX flights and called the Executive Platinum desk to change to that flight. I had a great conversation with Candice (based in Tucson) and got the changes made. I also got $2 refunded back to me since I was not transiting Canada and the LAX flight will most likely feature the new Cirrus Business seats. I hope I can get a First Class award seat before the trip. Here's my new outbound flights:

Got my extra pages in my passport

I sent my 2.5 year old passport off to the National Passport Processing Center with my old passport, the completed form, and $82 check. The cost is the same if adding 24 or 48 pages... I went with the 48 pages since it should last me for the rest of the 7.5 years of validity on my passport. I think it looks a little thick and the pages are a bit jumbled with stamped pages/ clean pages / stamped pages / clean pages... at least I have it back now.

Here's the timeline of events:
February 29- Mailed off at post office
March 4- Arrived to the Philadelphia Post Office
March 7- Check cleared
March 20- Passport mailed off (according to a CSR I called on 3/21/12)
March 22- Passport received!

For additional info: visit http://travel.state.gov/passport/correcting/add/add_850.html

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Planning to a Quick Trip to China

I needed to make a quick 7 day trip to China in April and have a choice of using my AA, BA, UA, US, or DL miles. After exploring my choices on using my Delta ~~SkyPesos~~ SkyMiles... the flight times and connections were pretty limited. US airways does not allow changes on award travel for free and I have to pay a booking fee. British Airways has a pretty expensive chart for long haul travel and also flying in Business or First Class in very expensive.

That left me with AA and UA miles which both allows one way travel. I needed to get to Guangzhou and both American's Partners of Cathay Pacific (CX) and Japan Airlines (JAL) fly there. The only bad thing is that JAL has only 1 daily flight and it is an early one. All of AA and JAL flights arrive into Tokyo too late to make the connect and thus require an overnight in Tokyo. I am planning on using Cathay Pacific as they has pretty good award availability from their North American gateways and they have 2 daily flights to Guangzhou. They include:

(LAX) Los Angeles- 3 Daily flights
(SFO) San Francisco- 2 Daily Flights
(ORD) Chicago- 1 Daily Flight
(JFK) New York JFK- 3 Daily Non-Stop Flights and 1 via Vancouver
(YYZ) Toronto- 2 Daily Flights
(YVR) Vancouver- 2 Daily Flights

Here's my outbound:

The problem is that transiting through Toronto requires me to clear Canadian Immigration/Customs on both the inbound and outbound flights. Cathay Pacific uses the ghetto KLM lounge there and I am not looking forward to transit Toronto on this trip. I have limited choices as I want to maximize my time in the China and leave during the night to a Cathay Gateway and take the midnight departure to HKG. That leaves me with LAX (2 flights), SFO, YVR, and YYZ to take advantage of that. I am looking for LAX or SFO to avoid Canada. LAX has both the AA Flagship Lounge and OneWorld Lounge for me to use while SFO has a nice AA Admiral's Club and CX Lounge so they make an excellent choice. LAX has the new Cirrus Business Class while SFO has the old Business Class Herringbone Seats but on a Boeing 747. I hope to get on one of these routes and a First Class award seat opens up.