Cruising in Asia: Intro and Planning

Intro and Planning
Getting to Tokyo - Southwest, Sheraton LAX, and JAL First Class LAX to Narita
Shinjuku and Beyond - Park Hyatt Tokyo, Shinkansen, and Kitty Chan?!
I'm On a Boat! - Sun Princess Yokohama to Hong Kong
Hong Kong - Grand Hyatt, 10 McDonalds, and More Hello Kitty!
Getting Home - Cathay Pacific First Class Hong Kong to San Francisco
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Around February of 2013, we had just received the dates for my wife's summer break schedule. With my work being relatively flexible with vacation time and her having nearly 5 weeks between teaching sessions, we had a fairly large window. We just had to figure out where to go.
We already had a number of places on our travel checklist, so we started with the primary focus of cruising. Considering there are only so many cruises sailing in any one month, it didn't take us too long to narrow it down to a few options. When we started searching for matching award tickets to get to and from the cruise it quickly narrowed down much further. In the end our trip was based around a 7 night cruise from Tokyo (Yokohama) - to Hong Kong. More on that booking process in an earlier post.

With the anchor of our trip in place it was time for flights. Our goal initially was to locate business class tickets for the two flights. We had on hand 150,000 AA miles (from 2x CitiCard 75k offers). 100,000 British Airways miles (transferred from Marriott as a gift), and 50,000 Amex MR points (Mercedes Bendz Platinum 50k offer). After a bit of looking at award charts. I realized it would cost us 100,000 BA miles for two one way Business Class tickets on JAL from SFO to Tokyo (HND) and another 110,000 for Cathay Pacific Business Class from Hong Kong back to SFO. Unfortunately (or not..) I could not get the dates to line up quite right. So I expanded my search a little further and found that we could instead transfer 50K from Amex to BA and spend 150,000 miles on two one way First Class tickets on JAL, but we would have to fly from LAX to Tokyo (NRT). I also found that the difference between Cathay business and first would only be 25,000 more miles, I could not resist. And so, for the first time ever, we would get to fly international first class, not once, but twice on two highly acclaimed airlines and products.

With our flights booked, we now had a few gaps to fill in. We had to get to Los Angeles for our flight to Tokyo, and we needed hotels for LA, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. At this point, we are less than 3 months from the trip, and I have only maybe enough points for 1 night in any hotel program. Looking at cash rates for our dates, I was aghast at the $300+ per night for standard rooms and knew I would need another approach here.

After quite a bit of research and some procrastination, I applied for 2 new cards. The Chase Sapphire Preferred (40,000 points) and the Barclay's Arrival Mastercard ($440 Cash Back on Travel). I had both cards within two weeks and thanks to some reimbursable work expenses had both of the spending requirements done within another week. My plan was to use 28,000 Chase points to transfer to Hyatt (leaving me with ~37,000 in my account), to book 1 night at the Intercontinental Yokohama for ~$110 (very cheap, but poor reviews) and 2 nights in a club room at the Hyatt Regency TST in Hong Kong (36,000 Hyatt points).

We still needed a room in LA for 1 night before the Tokyo flight, and I was very happy to find that my pitiful 3000 SPG points would be enough to book a room at the Four Points LAX. That is, it was enough until that same night the hotel bumped its rate to 7000 points at nearly the exact moment I tried to book it (more on that here). Thanks to some pleasant customer service agents, the extra points were deposited in my account and I was booked!

Now with less than 2 months to go, everything seemed to be in order, but I was not 100% satisfied. We only had 1 night in Tokyo before getting on a ship and sailing away, and I was still paying cash for the hotel night. This is where I made things complicated, and drove my wife a bit crazy!

I had been reading about the Hyatt Diamond challenge and the Hyatt Card from Chase. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stay 12 nights in 60 days to keep the status, but I knew if I got instant Diamond, I could get 2 nights in a suite at any Hyatt hotel from the card. Having Platinum status with IHG (from the chase card and from IC Ambassador membership the year before), they let me start my Diamond Challenge immediately. Within hours, my status was live and I applied for the chase card. 7 days later, I had the card in the mail, bought a few things (maybe a gift card or two) and met the $1000 spend requirement in a few days. Less than a week later, the suite nights showed up in my account and I used them to book 2 nights in a suite at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, and switched our Tokyo stay to 1 night at the Park Hyatt for 22k points.

Whew its over... right? To make it more complicated, I had been checking availability tirelessly on JAL for an earlier flight. Less than 9 days to departure, finally, two seats opened up 2 days earlier. I quickly canceled the original flights (paying ~$50 in fees on ba.com) and rebooked the new flights. Anticipating this move, I had booked with Southwest for our SFO>LAX flight so there was no added cost there. The stay at the Four Points had to be changed, but I wasn't able to online so I just canceled it. The 7000 points posted immediately back to my account. I went to book again and found that the Sheraton and Westin LAX were also 7000 points. Having heard better reviews, I switched to the Sheraton on our new date. But now we had 2 more nights to fill in Tokyo!

I quickly transferred the remaining Chase UR points to Hyatt and changed the Grand Hyatt suite nights to regular nights at 22,000 points per night (I was short 700 points and bought 1000 for $24 from Hyatt). I kept the 1 night at the Park Hyatt, and added on two nights in a Park Suite King with the Chase Certificates.

Not able to leave good enough alone, I took advantage of the $440 cash back from the Barclay card and booked two Japan Rail East Passes. This covered our Narita Express train ride to Shinjuku as well as Shinkansen tickets to Niigata and back where we would visit my host family from many years prior. For good measure, I also made use of AA routing rules to add on two additional flights for no extra charge. SFO>LAX and LAX>MIA in 3 cabin first class. We may or may not get to use these, but now we get to start planning again!

In the end, our trip would look like this:

SFO>LAX Southwest ($138)
Sheraton Gateway LAX (7000 SPG)
LAX>NRT JAL First Class (150,000 BA + $640 Taxes)
Park Hyatt Tokyo (Park King 22,000GP + Park Suite 2x Suite Award)
7 Nights Sun Princess 
Grand Hyatt Hong Kong (Executive Harbor View 2x 22,000GP)
HKG>SFO Cathay Pacific First Class (135,000 AA + $126 Taxes)
SFO>LAX>MIA American Airlines Flagship First (FREE)

Finally... I will give Southwest another chance.

It has been nearly 15 years since my last flight on southwest. I can still remember the anxiety, traveling with my family, hoping we would manage to get seats together knowing we checked in at the airport. By the time we made it on board  the only rows left with more than 1 seat were in the very back of the plane. Luckily it was only a 2 hour flight, but I can still remember being overly uncomfortable and hoping never to have that experience again. 

I generally pack light, or fly airlines that I have a co-branded credit card that covers the first bag. I certainly don't mind paying $35 for main cabin select on Virgin America flights either. However, on this occasion  a perfect storm of circumstances made Southwest the best option by long enough that I could not refuse. 

For months I have been planning a trip to Asia, flying First class on Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific. In order to start the journey, we need to get from SFO to LAX, a flight that takes just over an hour and has numerous carriers flying many times a day. In the end though, Southwest beat out the competitors for the following reasons.  

1. Flexibility: Up until the last minute I was waiting for an earlier flight to open up on JAL so that we could have a few extra days on the ground in Japan. United, Virgin, American, and Delta all had hefty change fees that would have cost more to change than the ~$69 the tickets would cost on Southwest. Knowing that we might have to change our dates, southwest offered the simplest option of being able to bank the value of the original flights and apply it towards a different fare. 

2. Baggage: Our flights on JAL and Cathay both offer cover 3 checked bags, and our trip is 2+ weeks long. Its likely that we will have at least two bags per person that we need to get down to LAX before we continue on. Even with a free bag via credit card or main cabin select upgrade, we would still have to put down at least $25 per person for our additional bags. Knowing we can freely check 2 bags per person on Southwest, this made the choice even easier. 

3. Schedule: We still have to work all day before we pack up and head to the airport. The last Virgin and American flights leave at around 8pm, cutting it a little close, and the United Redeye was already twice the price. We found that Southwest had a perfect 10pm departure that would get us down and into our airport hotel before midnight. 

In the end, the choice was easy. For an extra $25 I paid for our early-bird checkin, which should guarantee us in the first boarding group and a decent seat. I hope that this flight will help change my mind about flying southwest.   

Cruise Planning - Tokyo to Hong Kong

When it comes to planning an international trip, I almost always start with the flights. I usually search using calendar features when available and make a spreadsheet of all the available incoming and outgoing reward flights (yes, I use spreadsheets for everything. would not be able to survive without google docs). Once I have my available date range, I start planning what to do once we get there.

In this particular case, we had a number of limitations. We wanted a cruise, in July or August, that included Japan, and was 7 nights or longer. To my surprise this quickly narrowed our options down to just a few possible options and once matched with the flight availability, there was really only one option left.

7 Nights on the Sun Princess, leaving from Tokyo and arriving in Hong Kong.

When your dates are not flexible, finding a deal on a cruise can be a pain. Prices do rise and fall similar to airfare, but if you wait too long, you run the risk of your desired cabin type selling out. Luckily, if you are booking far in advance, most cruise lines will either offer some form of a price drop guarantee. Some lines offer onboard credit for the difference right up to the day of departure, some will book you into a higher category for the same price, and others still will reduce your final payment amount if you are more than 90 days out. Each company is very different in their rules on this, but one they tend to stick to is this: If you book with a travel agent or 3rd party, you must go through them to request any price drop or cabin changes". If you did not book direct with the cruise line, don't spend time on hold before talking to the company you booked through. 

Generally I never book direct through a cruise line. Why? They rarely offer the best overall deal. They will always match the best advertised price, however, they may not offer the best benefits, bonuses, or perks. It is important to shop around for more than just the best price. If you are a Costco member, I do recommend checking out Costco Travel's deals, they almost always come with onboard credit. On a recent NCL booking, they also added in free soda packages ($30/pp value) even though the promotion had expired.

I also personally make use of American Express Platinum Cruise Benefits. The $450/year Platinum card is not worth getting just for these benefits, but along with the $200 airline credit, I find that we are able to more than break even every year by using these benefits. When booking through Platinum Travel Service (or a travel agent that knows how to call PTS) and paying with your Platinum Card (or any AMEX if you also have a platinum card), you get either onboard credit or category upgrades, along with additional perks like a bottle of wine/champaign, and specialty restaurant fees waived. If you do carry this card, be sure to ask any travel agent you work with if they know how to apply these benefits by calling PTS after booking.

When booking this cruise, I found that there were very few bonus offers available and that my best bet would be to book through American Express travel and get 2x points, a 2 Category Upgrade (higher floor, better location), A bottle of sparkling wine, and dinner at a specialty restaurant. It sounded fine, but I was just not satisfied. I kept digging further looking for some way to get a better deal. Somehow I came across a site called CruiseCompete.com. The site was pretty minimal, and seemed even a little suspicious as to if it was real. All I needed to enter was my email and desired sailing and room type. I figured there was little to lose. 

Within a few hours, offers from individual travel agents started to come in. The first few were no better than what I could have found myself, but then a few agents started offering fares $100 or more per person lower than the best rate I could find. We finally selected an agent based in Florida that not only saved us ~$200 per person, but they were also familiar with AMEX PTS and was able to get us all of the same benefits (minus the 2x membership rewards points). After selecting my travel agent I "closed" the request and only get minimal email from cruisecompete, which could easily be unsubscribed from. 

I have been happy to see that over the last few months, the publicly advertised price for our cruise has not once come close to the deal we got, and in fact many of the categories have sold out considering this is a 1 time itinerary that is also bookable as a 14 night cruise ending in Singapore. I definitely recommend trying out this service if you are looking into booking a cruise.     

  

It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Starwood Preferred Guest - Four Points LAX

Compared to airlines, hotel chains are often much more accommodating when something goes wrong. They also have many more options to help correct a situation or offer good will gestures for unavoidable events. It does help to be a member of their loyalty program (elite or not) and keep in mind that bookings made through 3rd party sites like Priceline/Hotwire will not help your cause. 

On Monday night I was looking for an inexpensive hotel to stay at near LAX before our upcoming international flight that we cannot afford to miss. With most decent airport hotels in the mid $100 per night range, I started exploring options for redeeming points. With airport hotels in Los Angeles being seemingly high in demand, many hotels required more points than I was interested in spending. After checking Hyatt, Priority Club, and Hilton, I remembered I had a very small collection of Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) points from a few years ago. Having just 3200 points, I would only have enough for a category 2 hotel. To my surprise, the Four Points LAX hotel was available and only 3000 points per night. Knowing I did not want to pass up this offer, I tried to book (from my iPad in bed at 11:30 at night), only to reach an error page before getting to the end of the booking. I figured it was just an iPad browser issue and gave up for the night, figuring I would book the next day. 

The next day, I was checking my favorite travel blogs for news and deals and I see the headline, "Starwood raising hotel category for Four Points LAX without any announcement or advance notice." My heart sank, realizing that my plans had just fallen apart. I thought perhaps this was just a mistake, but it was soon confirmed that the hotel made the change overnight. 

In the terms and conditions of the program, the hotels are allowed to change their rates at any time without advance notice. Having attempted to book the hotel at the advertised rate and having the booking fail, I felt this was worth an email to SPG. I did not mention that I attempted to book and failed, I just sent an email asking if it was at all possible to book at the old rate. Within a few hours I had a response. 

The agent informed me that they had spoken to the hotel and confirmed that the rate had in fact gone up, and they would not be able to book the room at the 3000 point value. However, as a gesture of good will, they would credit me with enough points to make the new booking at the 7000 point cost. After about 30 minutes chatting with a customer service representative, they were able to make me a tentative booking while I wait for the points to post and my plans were saved.

I have definitely had experiences with hotels that resulted in less desirable outcomes, but I think its important that you keep in mind, it does not hurt to ask (unless you are a "Diamond Guest" who needs a suite for your Giraffe). If you really feel you have been wronged and don't feel that you are getting anywhere with customer service, I would recommend reaching out through social media channels (Twitter/Facebook). They often have a stronger incentive to offer a solution.

In the end, it is up to you as to what you feel is worth asking/complaining about.      

 

Is Alaska Airlines' Mileage Plan a good fit for you?

In an earlier post I covered airline alliances and partnerships that allow you to earn and redeem miles between airlines. I also mentioned that there were a few programs that do not fall into the 3 major alliances, but have partnerships with other major airlines. Alaska Airlines' loyalty program, Mileage Plan, is one of these very unique programs that partners with a handful of airlines, even a few in rival alliances.


Earning Miles
You can of course earn miles by flying on Alaska, but you can also credit flights on any of their partner airlines. Some of their partners include AirFrance, Delta, KLM, and Korean Air from the Skyteam Alliance, as well as American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, LAN, and Qantas from the OneWorld Alliance. For those of you lucky enough to be flying in paid premium cabins (Business/First), you will want to consider crediting your flights to the carrier you are flying on, or a member of its alliance as there are quirky rules about bonus miles awarded based on the class of service you fly in.

Apart from miles flown, there are a number of ways to accumulate miles with Alaska. Many of the major hotel groups offer miles in return for stays (though they often replace the hotel points you would have earned). You can also earn miles through all of the major car rental agencies. For those of you really dedicated to your mileage earning, there are also a number of ways to earn points for dining, shopping, or banking with certain financial institutions. 

Redeeming Miles 
This is where things start to get tricky. Mileage Plan is not the most difficult program to redeem with by far, but figuring out how much an award costs and checking availability can become challenging. You can at least check for cost and availability of flights on Alaska, American, British Airways, and Delta on alaskaair.com.

Flights within the Continental US (48+Alaska) and Canada

For the most part, these flights will cost 25,000 miles round trip in economy. Alaska, American, and British Airways will allow you to book one way tickets at half the cost, but Delta will require you to either book a round trip, or book one way on Delta and one way on Alaska, American, or British Airways. All of these flights can be searched for and booked via the Alaskair.com site, so I will not go too into depth on where you can fly. 

Flights between North America and Hawaii
Not a good deal for west coast based flyers, but not terrible from the East or Canada. 
Alaska

40,000
American Airlines
45,000
Delta
40,000

Flights between North America and Europe
As alaska does not fly outside of North America, these flights will have to be on their partners. You can check out the full chart here, but here are a few of the example costs. I will focus on round trip economy class in this section and dedicate a separate section to aspirational premium awards. 

Air France / KLM

65,000

American Airlines 

60,000 (May 16th - Oct. 14) / 40,000 (Oct. 15 - May 15) British Airways

65,000 (+High Fees!)
Delta
60,000 (only 90,000 in Business!)

Flights between North America and Asia
This is where you might throw your hands in the air and give up! Each partner airline charges differently and they also divide Asia into different regions. Again focusing on round trip economy tickets.

American Airlines 

Japan - 65,000 (May 1st-Sep 30th) / 50,000 (Oct 1st - Apr 30th)

China - 70,000

Cathay Pacific

Japan/China/Korea - 60,000

Delta

Japan/China/Korea - 60,000

Korean Air

Japan/Korea/China/Taiwan - 70,000
 
Premium Cabin Awards (The best kind!)

These awards will provide you with the absolute best value per mile. I will not cover all of these, or even the most complicated, but a few of the more common possible trips to get you thinking. I am skipping British Airways flights as they will incur up to $1000 in Fuel Surcharges on premium cabin awards.

North America to Europe

Air France/KLM Business Class - 100,000 (Possible Stopover in Paris or Amsterdam)

American Airlines Business Class - 100,000 (125,000 First Class)

Delta Airlines Business Elite - 90,000

North America to Asia

American Airlines Business Class to Japan - 100,000 (125,000 First Class)

American Airlines Business Class to China - 110,000 (135,000 First Class)

Cathay Pacific to South East Asia Business Class - 100,000 (140,000 First Class)

Delta Business Elite to Japan/China - 120,000

Korean Air Business Class to Korea/ Japan / Taiwan / China 105,000 (Possible stopover in Korea)

Korean Air Business Class to South East Asia - 110,000 (Possible stopover in Korea)

North America to Africa / Middle East / India

Air France/KLM Business Class - 120,000 (Possible Stopover in Paris or Amsterdam)

Cathay Pacific Business Class - 125,000 (Possible Stopover in Hong Kong)

Cathay Pacific First Class to South Africa - 140,000 (Amazing Deal! ~$25,000 worth of flights)

Delta Business Elite - 120,000 (Possible stopover in Amsterdam en route to Mumbai)

Emirates Business Class to India / Middle East - 145,000 (180,000 First Class)

North America to Australia / New Zealand / South Pacific

Air France Business Class LAX to Tahiti - 120,000 (Can include Alaska Airlines US Flight)

Air Pacific Business Class LAX to Australia/New Zealand Via Fiji - 110,000 (Can Include Alaska Airlines US Flight)

Cathay Pacific Business Class to Australia / New Zealand Via Hong Kong - 120,000 (160,000 First Class)

Delta Business Elite to Sydney - 105,000

Qantas Business Class - 110,000 (First Class 140,000, Possible Stopover in Australia en route to New Zealand)

Who is this program is best for?

If you fly somewhat frequently within the continental US, but never seem to accrue more than 25,000 miles flown on an individual airline each year, Mileage plan may be a good fit for you. It is also much more effective if you are based on the west coast as this gives you the option of spreading your flights across 3 domestic airlines (Alaska, American, and Delta), while still accumulating miles in only one program. If Hawaii is also a favorite destination, Alaska frequently offers sub $400 round trip from the west coast that earn you nearly 5000 miles per ticket and offer a decent in flight experience (and possible $100 upgrades to First Class each way).