Uncategorized – Page 31

The Nazi Hilton?

My grandparents used to have a friend named Hilton, and I remember one time being really confused as they talked about him, finally asking, “Is that the Nazi Hilton?” Hilton, Hitler, same thing to a six-year-old Jewish kid I guess. Anyway, I bring this up as a segue into a post about Hilton hotels, which are NOT affiliated with the Nazi movement.

Because I’m not a huge fan of Hilton’s loyalty program, I don’t make an effort to stay there very often. I have a friend who travels constantly for work, and he puts all his spending on a Citibank Hilton card. He bragged to me that he had amassed 800,000 Hilton points, and I scoffed “Enjoy three nights at a Waldorf Astoria.” SICK BURN!!! Hahahaha.

When it comes to hotels, I try to stay at Hyatts if possible, since their loyalty program works best for me. Decent at-hotel earning, Chase transfer partner, and fairly valuable points. Check, check, check. The only exception is if there’s an Intercontinental, since I’m always treated really well as an Ambassador. For work travel, I’ll usually stay at an IHG, since they’re cheap, and the expectation when I book travel is that I’ll choose the cheapest hotel where the rooms don’t open onto the parking lot (which usually ends up being a Holiday Inn of some sort). Plus, the IHG loyalty program ends up being pretty useful for non-aspirational redemptions. I mean, Holiday Inns are everywhere, so, for instance, if I want to take a weekend hiking trip but don’t want to spring for a fleabag motel in Red Bluff, I can just drop 20,000 IHG points and sleep in relative comfort.

(I’m getting really off-track here, but the math on IHG redemptions is actually better than people give it credit for. Sure, I’d never transfer Ultimate Rewards points to IHG, but the points accrue so quickly that their low value isn’t that huge of a drawback. For instance: if I pay with the IHG co-brand card, I’ll earn 20 points per dollar at most hotels. Assuming I use the Hyatt co-brand card at a Hyatt, I’ll earn 8.15 points per dollar. A top-tier redemption at an Intercontinental is 60,000 points, while Hyatt is 30,000. That means that IHG is exactly 2x the cost of Hyatt for an aspirational redemption, although you can earn IHG points more than twice as quickly.)

This is all to say that I don’t pay attention to Hilton or Marriott, since I just don’t travel enough to spread the love among all the chains. On my most recent trip, however, I stayed at the Hilton Copenhagen Airport, since it’s physically connected to the airport, and we were flying out early the next day. I got a decent deal on a cash + points room (20,000 points + $100 for a room that cost around $275 per night), so I booked it after transferring over Citi points (which were on a 1:2 bonus at the time). I wasn’t expecting much, but the stay was actually pretty great.

The room was nice in a sterile, modern way – but really comfortable overall. And, the best part is that I got a nice upgrade to an executive club room due to having Gold status through my Amex Platty (a status level I basically forgot I even had). This was a nice surprise, since I’m used to never getting upgrades from mid-tier status thanks to my 0.00 batting average at Hyatt.

file_000-2 — OH MY GOOD I TOOK A PHOTO! Look at it, since this is all you’re gonna get.

It gets better, though. I noticed that the breakfast buffet on the bottom floor was OUTRAGEOUS – like three full football fields of breakfast food. It just kept going and going. I’ve never seen anything like it. Needless to say, it dwarfed the spread in the executive lounge, so I asked at the desk if I could have two vouchers as part of my Gold benefits, and they gave them to me. Ask and ye shall receive, right?

This has me rethinking my prior disregard of Hilton, since free breakfast is worth more to me than the points I’d earn at an IHG or Hyatt – especially considering that I earn 90% of my hotel points from credit card spending anyway. And I haven’t run the numbers on it, but I suspect that my point above about IHG’s vs. Hyatt’s at-hotel earning applies to Hilton as well.

We’ll see. Reading some old posts, I’ve said some shit that sounds completely ridiculous to me now, so I may end up continuing to shun Hiltons that aren’t connected to airports. (And also, it may be true that the CPH Hilton is especially good, and I won’t have the same experience at US ones.) What say you? Seriously, post a fucking comment already.

SAS Business Class Mini-post #2 – Best Seat

When I started this blog, I didn’t really plan to write reviews, since there are already tons of reviews of almost every hotel/lounge/premium cabin. I realized that I enjoy writing them, though, since (as the title of this blog suggests), I enjoy hearing myself type. The one thing that hasn’t changed, however, is that I never bother to take pictures. I’m not very good at it, and I don’t see the utility of going to great pains to photograph something that has already been exhaustively documented on One Mile at a Time. You loyal readers come here for my scintillating words, not for the pictures, right?

And anyway, because I was the very last person to board my SAS business class flight, I didn’t really have much of a chance to get photos of the cabin anyway. In fact, the only photo I took the entire flight (besides shots out of the window) was of the packet of nuts featured in my last post.

I do have a full review of the flight in progress, but I wanted to highlight my thoughts on the best seat in the house in a separate post, because I disagree with the conventional wisdom here. Every review I have read says that the even-numbered window seats are the best, since the seat is flush against the window, with the console in between the seat and the aisle. (The odd-numbered window seats are the opposite, with the seat against the aisle and the console against the wall.) In general, these are good seats, but 1H and 9H are the best seats, hands down. (9H only applies if you’re on an A340, by the way).

Why do I feel this way? Because 1H and 9H have almost twice as much room as the other seats, and I’d much rather have all the extra space than be set off from the aisle. Here’s a screen shot from the Google Earth view of the business class cabin. The perspective is exaggerated, but you get a sense of how much further away the “front” of the seat is. The IFE screen is about a foot further away from your face, and only your shins/feet go into the bulkhead wall in bed mode. I got to compare both side-by-side, since Justine was sitting in 10H, and while I appreciated being right up against the window, half of my body was basically in a coffin when I lay down.

sas-biz

Overall, 9H is my favorite seat, since it’s in the two-row mini-cabin on the A340, which makes for a very peaceful flight. Plus, you get two windows, whereas 1H (pictured above) only has one window. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the H seats are preferable to the A seats, because the left middle seat (B) is right next to the aisle, whereas the right middle seat (D) is set off by the console. That means that A and B are right next to each other, separated only by the aisle, whereas D and H are not. As a result, the H seats feel more private, even though the seats are on the aisle.

Seriously, if you’re flying SAS business class, call them up and ask to change your seat to 1H, or 9H if you’re on an A340.

What’s your favorite seat in SAS business class? If you don’t say 1H or 9H, don’t bother saying anything, since you’re dead to me.

Since you read this far, maybe you want to consider supporting this blog? I’m committed to keeping it ad-free, so reader support makes a huge difference!

SAS Business Class is a fucking piece of shit that doesn’t even give you nuts in a RAMEKIN!

sasramekin — What the fuck is this bullshit, SAS? A plastic bag of nuts? NO RAMEKIN NO DEAL.

I’m just kidding. I liked SAS business class a lot (expect a review full of text and no pictures shortly), and more importantly, I had never even heard of a “ramekin” until I started reading other blogs’ reviews of premium cabins.

What do you think? Do you expect nuts to be served in a ramekin? Do you expect anything else to be served in a ramekin? Do you walk onto a plane expecting to receive ramekin after ramekin until there’s no room left on your tray table because of all the ramekins? RAMEKIN!!!!

Why aren’t more people drooling over the Virgin America Visa card?

Disclaimer: I may receive a commission for links on this blog. Notice that I said that I may. It’s technically not possible to prove a negative, so even though I don’t have any commission agreements with any banks, and even though I have not to date received any commissions for any links on this blog, I suppose it’s still remotely possible that I signed up as an affiliate marketer with a bank shortly before hitting my head and forgetting the entire thing. Just wanted to put that out there.

Now, to the matter at hand. Why aren’t more people drooling over the Virgin America Visa card? Not that the card is especially drool-worthy in the same way that an Amex Platty or a Chase Sapphy Rezzy is, but it has one important factor in its favor, which is that it earns very valuable fixed-value points in Virgin’s Elevate program. You can’t use Elevate points for aspirational redemptions, but you do routinely get around 2.2 cents per point when redeeming them for award flights. (Not to mention the possibility of partner redemptions, although fuel surcharges usually scare me away from trying to use my Elevate miles this way.)

vxvisa — It’s fucking vertical! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???

One of the big things that points & miles bloggers talk about is what to do about unbonused spend; the prevailing wisdom is to use one of three cards – the SPG Amex, which kinda sorta earns 1.25 airline miles per dollar*, the Amex Everyday Preferred, which earns 1.5 points per dollar if you make 30 transactions in a month, and the Chase Freedom Unlimited, which earns 1.5 points on all purchases, though you need a premium Chase card to be able to transfer the points to frequent flyer programs. Or, you can go the cash back route and earn around 2%, depending on the exact card you’re using. The point here is that a 2% return on spend is the benchmark, since that’s what you can get with a no-fee cash back card; in other words, any points you earn on unbonused spend are actually being purchased for 2 cents apiece.

*I don’t like the blanket statement that SPG earns 1.25 airline miles on all purchases, since that requires transferring points in increments of 20,000. If you redeem Starpoints for a hotel room or wind up with an odd number of points to transfer, you’re back to just 1 point per dollar. That may be what you want, since Starpoints are hard to earn, so you have to spend on the SPG Amex somewhere in order to accrue them. I just don’t think it’s totally accurate to bake their transfer bonus into the value, since it doesn’t always apply.

My personal strategy is to go the Amex route with the Everyday Preferred card, earning 1.5 points on all purchases. The Chase Sapphire Reserve also presents a unique opportunity, since points are worth 1.5 cents toward travel, meaning the 1.5 points earned per dollar on the Freedom Unlimited can be leveraged for 2.25 cents apiece when transferred to the Sapphire Reserve. However, I do think it should be mentioned more often that putting unbonused spend on a Virgin America Visa gets a similar return (although restricted to redemptions on Virgin, of course). This occurred to me recently, since I’ve been flying Virgin a lot and reconsidering my neglect of their Elevate program, in which my only miles have been accrued through flying.

There are a couple reasons off the top that these cards aren’t more widely discussed: first, the sign-up bonuses are pretty weak (10,000 points for the basic card and 15,000 for the premium), and second, they’re issued by Comenity bank, which is known for not having very good customer service. However, I have another theory, and it goes back to a point I’ve made before wherein I pointed out how ascribing absolute values to points is, not to put too fine a point on it, pointless.

See, most valuations for flexible points sit somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 cents per point. In an aspirational redemption, the values skyrocket, but since most people wouldn’t pay cash for those flights anyway, the prevailing wisdom is that those values aren’t real. Instead, the true value of your points is what you would pay in cash for a flight divided by the number of sexual partners you’ve had, multiplied by the number of times you’ve rolled your eyes while reading this blog. Or not, I’m just making shit up at this point. Regarding Virgin America points, though, I think a lot of people are turned off that the points are only ever going to be worth 2.2 cents apiece. I know I am. Within the strictures of places like the churning subreddit, it’s all about the hard math, maximizing your return at all times. That paradigm leaves out the emotional component of collecting points and miles, though – the hope that points will someday be worth way more than a couple cents apiece, and that they will unlock experiences you otherwise could never afford.

I’ll sign up to receive emails from Virgin America in exchange for 500 free points, but I’d rather use my everyday spending to pad my balances of Chase or Amex points, even though I may end up getting less than 2.2 cents per point when I do ultimately redeem them. That way, I know that at least some of the time, I’m setting myself up for home-run redemptions flying in premium cabins over oceans rather than puttering around the US in Virgin’s main cabin extra or whatever. That’s the kind of thinking that keeps me away from cash back cards and fixed value points in general, even though it may not always be the most lucrative spending strategy according to some boring fucking spreadsheet that some OCD nerd put together in his parents’ basement. (Editor’s note: I have OCD, I make tons of spreadsheets, and while I don’t live in my parents’ basement, I’m still a huge nerd.)

I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way either – otherwise, more people would talk about Virgin’s sweet-ass 2.2 cent return on spend the way they talk about the Citi Double Cash card or the new world-beating Sapphire Reserve/Freedom Unlimited combo. For all the hard data (haha ugh I just combined “hard pull” and “data point,” which are my two least favorite expressions), this game is more emotionally driven than I think people realize.

What do you think, nonexistent blog commenters? Are you a robot whose only goal is to maximize return on spend, or do you feel human emotions… even LOVE???

My first six hours in the Faroe Islands

After treading possibly the most beaten path in the travel hacking community – the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome – I’m now somewhere completely different: hunkered down during a rainstorm in a tiny cottage in a settlement of around 50 people somewhere in the Faroe Islands. Since this is a points/miles blog, I won’t bore you with the specifics of my trip except to say HOLY FUCK THIS PLACE IS SO GODDAMNED BEAUTIFUL.

Coming out of the airport, we were greeted by two sheep (I’m not kidding). They were just walking around the parking lot, as sheep do. I got in the rental car and drove an hour to Funningur without seeing a single traffic light, and the scenery was jaw-dropping the entire way.

But I’m getting ahead of myself – I wanted to talk about the flight, since it was kind of interesting. The Faroes are served by Atlantic Airways, which is independent but basically operates as an arm of SAS. (For instance, we checked in at an SAS check-in desk, and our boarding passes and luggage tags both said SAS on them.) Atlantic flies to a few places from Vagar airport, although Copenhagen is the destination they serve with the most frequency. I like any opportunity to fly an unusual airline, although honestly, there wasn’t anything about this flight that was particularly noteworthy. The A319 we flew on was in an all-economy configuration with a fairly tight 30″ seat pitch, although the plane was only about half full, which relieved some of the crampedness. In any case, the flight is just over two hours, so it doesn’t matter all that much that the plane isn’t super comfortable.

Our chariot awaits at Copenhagen airport.

The plane was boarded in a single group, but much to my shock, everyone still filed onto the jetbridge in an orderly fashion. From the plane, I got to see that wonderful SAS livery all up and down the terminal, plus I even got a quick peek of a 737 (I think) decked out in retro livery.

The flight itself was uneventful. As the flag carrier for a really small country, I was kind of expecting the captain and flight attendants to seem excited about showing off their homeland to new people, although it more seemed like the flight was there to take Faroese folks home from a vacation in mainland Europe. They do have a cool in-flight magazine, though.

Oh, and I almost forgot! I’m doing the first giveaway on this blog – and your chances of winning are REALLY good, since the traffic influx from Hyatt-gate has mostly worn off, meaning only 8-10 people end up reading my posts. So yeah, just leave a comment on this post telling me the most obscure airline you’ve ever flown, and I will send one lucky winner (chosen at random) an authentic, never-used Atlantic Airways BARF BAG!!!!!! Seriously, I will. I took it off the plane especially for this purpose.

And speaking of barf bags, I was kind of nervous about this flight when I saw how prominently Atlantic displayed them in each seat pocket. I had heard that flying to the Faroes can be a bumpy ride, and I don’t do that well in bad turbulence. (It’s not because I think I’m going to die, it’s that the sensation of falling is and has always been profoundly uncomfortable to me, and I hate it.) I know what severe turbulence is like, having flown back from New Zealand on a flight that lurched all over the sky (or so it felt) for four hours and prompted a few of the flight attendants to say it was the worst flight they had ever experienced. Let’s just say I’m not really looking forward to ever repeating it, so deciding to fly to the Faroes was not something I took lightly. However, I think the threat was overblown, since the flight itself was pretty smooth almost the entire way. After we broke through the cloud layer and were getting ready to land, I mentioned to Justine that I was almost disappointed, since I had been psyching myself up for this flight for months.

Well, that must have jinxed it, because right as I said it, we flew into the valley in which the airport is located, and as soon as there were mountains on both sides of us, the plane just about fell out of the sky (or so it felt – I know that turbulence can’t actually knock a plane out of the sky). It only went on for a minute or so, but it was some of the most extreme bumpiness I’ve ever felt. Making it seem even crazier, we couldn’t have been more than a couple thousand feet off the ground at this point. It took me by such surprise that I didn’t even have time to get scared – Justine and I just looked at each other and started laughing. And then it was over and we landed by SLAMMING down on the runway (due to the wind and the short runway, I assume the pilots need to land that hard on purpose).

Taxiing toward the Vagar airport terminal. Not the usual runway scenery now is it?

The terminal is just one large building, so deplaning happens via moveable stairs, at which point you walk into the capitalist embrace of a duty free store before proceeding to collect your bags. I tried to get a decent photo of the plane, but it didn’t come out great due to the light. As soon as everyone was off, they turned the aircraft around and filled it up with Copenhagen-bound passengers; fifteen minutes later it was back in the air. I’ve been to very small airports (New Plymouth New Zealand comes to mind, served via a Beechcraft that shuttles passengers to Auckland), but never one this small with an aircraft this large. It towered over the rest of the airport in a regal way, and I can see why it was such a point of pride when Atlantic acquired it a few years ago.

Bottom line: it doesn’t matter if Atlantic is good or bad, since they’re your only option if you want to visit the Faroe Islands. And don’t forget about the giveaway! BARF BAG!!

Vendoming at the Park Hyatt Paris – A Review (since there are barely any reviews of this hotel online)

I think the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris is the most reviewed hotel in the entire world. Would you like to read another review of it, written in my inimitable style and peppered with my profanity-laden observations? Fuck yes you do! Delve into it after the jump.

david-lee-roth-jump

Again, I didn’t take a bunch of photos, because you already know what this hotel looks like. You know there’s marble throughout the lobby, abundant gold trim, dark brown wood paneling, and nightmarish beef jerky monster sculptures everywhere you look. You either love it, hate it, or don’t really care either way. I don’t love it, but I do appreciate that it’s unique and certainly unlike any other hotel I’ve ever stayed at. Part of the fun of being on vacation is the environment, so I’d prefer bold but ultimately ugly decor over monotonous sterility, such as this Hilton hotel room in which I’m writing this post.

Like most, I used the sign-up bonus from my Hyatt credit card to book these rooms. I got them in right under the wire, since my free room certificates expire at the end of September. I then used 120,000 Hyatt points (many transferred over from Chase) to book the other four nights. I realize that the two other Hyatts in central Paris represent a better value, but I wanted to stay at this hotel at least once just to see what all the fuss was about. Was it worth it? I don’t know; I mean, I’ve since signed up for an Ink+ and a Sapphire Reserve, so I have a shitload of Chase points and don’t really miss the ones I used to book this hotel. From a cost per point perspective, I got a good return, but the larger issue (which is something I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog) is that I’d never pay for a room here in cash, so if I ever wanted to stay here, this was my only option. If you’re really rich, sure go ahead and book this hotel (while you’re at it, book a higher room category)… if you’re like me and can’t imagine spending $800 per night on a hotel room under any circumstances, sign up for the Chase Hyatt card and do what I did.

What about the hotel itself? It was really nice. It wasn’t my favorite place I’ve ever stayed, but I appreciated all the fancy touches. The soap and shampoo smell really good, and housekeeping refills them every day, even if you haven’t used up the ones from the day before. This means that after six days, I have around 10 bars of soap and a bunch of shampoo and conditioner, so that raises the overall value proposition. I like that the floor of the shower is heated, and that the mirrors don’t fog up. I like that there’s an espresso machine as well as fancy tea. I like that most of the room’s functions are controllable from the bed, and the blackout curtains are the best I’ve ever seen. The room we stayed in was on the small side – even smaller than the stock photos of a queen bed room that Hyatt has online. I was kind of annoyed, because Hyatt Platinum status is supposed to get me an upgrade, although I have never once received one. I stay at Hyatts a lot, and every time I book a standard room, that’s where I end up. That being said, our room at the Park Hyatt was laid out very intelligently, and we didn’t feel cramped at any point. The liberal use of mirrors, sliding wall panels to close off the bathroom, and high ceilings make the room feel much bigger than it is. I’m really glad I didn’t take Hyatt up on their offer to upgrade to a king executive room for 90 Euros per night. Sure, suites are great, but how much time do you really spend occupying every square foot of a suite? And do you do it because you really want to spread out, or simply because you can?

Service-wise, I thought the Park Hyatt was fine. They offered us a choice of rooms when we checked in (all of which were the same size), and they mostly left us alone during our stay. The few times they did need to get in touch, they did so via discreet cards left in the key slot, rather than calling, knocking, etc. It was clear that we could ask for whatever we wanted, even though we didn’t really need to.

One thing to note about this hotel is that even if you book it on points, you still may end up spending more than you planned, since everything here is crazily expensive. A Coke from the minibar is 13 euros. A plate of pasta and tomato sauce from room service is 32 euros. You get free Evian every day, but Evian is fucking disgusting, so you’re going to have to buy other water that doesn’t taste like a family of rats used it as a swimming pool. However, they do offer one nice perk to Hyatt Platinum members, that being 50% off breakfast (which normally costs 44 euros for the full buffet, or 50 euros if you want eggs). Of course, Diamond members get the breakfast for free, but they’re assholes who get everything they want anyway. But yeah, the breakfast here is AMAZING, and (in my opinion) totally worth 22 euros. We didn’t have it every day, but we did treat ourselves a couple times, and it was awesome. We certainly wouldn’t have paid full price, though, because you can’t throw a rock in Paris without hitting a delicious, fluffy croissant, so why blow 100 euros for two people to eat at a buffet? 44 euros, though – no problem.

What about the downsides (aside from the absurdly priced minibar)? The main downside for me is the location. I’ve spent a lot of time in Paris, and I hate the Place Vendome/Opéra area. It’s busy, full of snobs, and not fun at all. I learned that I don’t like the ritzy side of Paris, because it’s all flash and no substance – you can have the same experience shopping at Bulgari, Cartier, and Piaget in Las Vegas; the only difference is that the buildings in Paris are fancier. The last time I was in Paris, I stayed in an AirBNB over by the Canal St. Martin, and it was great. This trip, we still ended up spending most of our time over there or in some combination of the Marais and Bastille areas, and it made me wish there were some nice hotels over there instead of them all being located within that shitty triangle of luxury between Vendome, Madeleine, and Opéra. For that reason alone, I wouldn’t stay here again.

Overall, though, we had a great stay. We both felt like the hotel provided everything we wanterd to make our stay in Paris as pleasant as possible, plus a number of nice extras. The location sucks, but that’s in the eye of the beholder. If you want to stay in the poshest neighborhood in Paris, you’ll love it. If, however, you like exploring narrow curvy streets with unusual boutiques, neat cafes, and surprisingly good restaurants, you’ll be disappointed like I was. Still, Uber is pretty reasonable even on surge pricing, you have a smorgasbord of Métro stations to choose from, and you could also just stop being so lazy and walk somewhere for a change. It’s not like you’re isolated on a private island or something, you’re barricaded behind $100,000 watches. STAY AT THE PARK HYATT VENDOME. OR DON’T. IT’S NICE BUT IT WON’T CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Delta One? More Like Delta Six or Seven

My flight from Seattle to Amsterdam in Delta One was exciting, because it was my first long-haul business class flight, and I had been looking forward to it for the past ten months (yes, I book travel way in advance). I got a taste of what long-haul premium flying would be like this past November when I flew in BusinessFirst on one of United’s “premium service” 757s from SFO to Newark. However, at just under six hours (and during the day), it was a truncated version of the long-haul premium experience I was psyching myself up for. My Amsterdam flight was on one of Delta’s A330s featuring their reverse herringbone configuration, which looks much nicer than the normal herringbone they have on the 777 or the staggered forward-facing seats on their 767. Most of the mixed reviews I’ve read of Delta focus on the 767 config, so I was hoping for an above-average experience with the A330’s superior product.

This what The Points Guy looks like in Delta One on an A330. This pictures is from thepointsguy.com and is copyrighted and probably not legal for me to use. I don’t take my own photos, though, and I like the way The Points Guy is looking at me like, “Why u using my pix bro???”

The seat: this was my first flight in a reverse herringbone seat, and I liked it. I thought it might be weird to sit diagonally, but it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, it made it easier to look out the window, which is always my favorite part of flying. That being said, the seat did feel pretty narrow, and there wasn’t much storage space. There’s plenty of space to set things down, but it’s all on flat surfaces, so you have to be careful of your belongings sliding around and falling onto the floor. My only basis for comparison is that United 757 seat (which is used by tons of other airlines as well, including Delta on their 757s), and just in terms of comfort, I actually prefer it. Not only did I feel like I had more shoulder room, but the seat itself is thick and plush, kind of like sitting on a mattress, whereas Delta’s seat is fairly hard (I have the same issue with Virgin America’s first class seats). Of course, for a night flight, I’m willing to give up some comfort in order to have all-aisle access, since it totally sucked having to contort myself to step over my sleeping seatmate on that United flight. I did end up sleeping for a few hours, which is unusual, since I can almost never sleep on planes. After I took off my shoes, there was plenty of room in the foot cubby for my size-12 feet. As a result, I can’t fault the seat too much, since it did the job of giving me a nice surface to sleep on.

The food: Ooops, I guess I should say “food.” Given how Delta breathlessly touts their catering, and given that I was flying out of an up-and-coming Delta hub, I’m pretty surprised at how shitty the food was. One caveat is that I ordered a vegan meal, although my wife had the beef and thought it was terrible as well. I didn’t take detailed photos or anything, but I’ll give you an example of what was so bad about it: my appetizer had steamed vegetables served cold (zucchini, squash, asparagus, etc), and the main course had the SAME VEGETABLES served hot. Very imaginative, and also kind of gross to think about how many times those vegetables had been frozen and reheated. My wife’s takeaway was that it was still bad airline food, there was just a lot more of it. Blech. Breakfast was gross too – I don’t even remember what it was, but I remember not liking it.

(One quick aside: I realize I’m not the best reviewer, since I take anxiety medicine on long haul flights, which sometimes makes it hard to remember small details like what gross mush I was served for breakfast.)

The service: Pretty good, I have to say. I’m not much for service in the first place – in general, I prefer to be left alone, rather than to have someone asking me how they can wait on me every fifteen minutes. One positive example: right when the flight attendant served my appetizer, the plane hit some moderate turbulence, enough so that it would have been difficult to eat without spilling. I asked if I could give her back my food and have it served after the ride smoothed out, and she happily agreed. This is a little thing, but I appreciated that she was willing to disrupt the meal service routine to accommodate my request. I still find Alaska Airlines has the best service overall, but Delta was up there on this flight.

Other aspects of the “soft product:” Well, the softest part of the soft product was the bedding, which was nice. Because Delta has individual air vents, I was able to blast myself with AC and warm up under the blanket, while the pillow was pretty big and supportive as well. The amenity kit was dumb, but all amenity kits are dumb. Oh, and the Tumi logo peeled off the case before we even left the gate. Delta makes a big deal about their partnership with Kiehl’s, but that really only manifests itself in the form of grapefruit hand cream and some lip balm that’s weirdly packaged in a tiny toothpaste tube. I don’t get it. Do people in premium cabins look forward to slathering their hands and lips with goo the entire flight? As for the case it came in, I’ll keep it for a couple months while I brainstorm all the good possible uses for it, and then I’ll throw it away when I don’t actually do any of them.

Overall: I was hoping to be blown away, and I wasn’t. It got me over the Atlantic in a flat bed rather than an uncomfortable slim-line seat, so in that sense it was definitely worth it. And I didn’t have a seatmate like I would have if I had flown KLM, Air France, United, British Airways, and so on. Decent service, disgusting food, plush bedding, hard seats, okay IFE, blah blah blah. Is this review over yet?

Bottom line (which is different from overall): If award space on Delta is available at a low level and the flight fits your schedule, book it. If not, don’t go out of your way.

In conclusion (which is different from bottom line): Despite Delta’s marketing of their Delta One product, the service is decidedly middle-of-the-road, but since so many transatlantic products are subpar, they look good by comparison.

Lounge Life – Delta Sky Club Edition

Why hello there! I’m cheery today because I’m coming to you live from the Delta Sky Club in SFO. It’s kind of an interesting lounge, since Delta barely serves SFO, so it’s odd that they’d spend the money to make a lounge so nice. But they did, and I’m certainly not complaining. Outside of Amex’s lounges, this is the nicest US lounge I’ve been to, if you’re judging only by interior design. (Also, I just learned today that it’s Sky Club as two words, and not SkyClub, as I’ve been writing. I suppose this is to be expected from an airline whose full name is Delta Aerial Linears.)

Also, this blog has had a bunch of new readers lately, so it’s a good time to remind everyone of my scientific 80-point scale to assess lounge quality. I haven’t seen this scale spread across the point/miles blog industry yet, but I expect it to catch on any minute. I’ve determined that these eight categories are the most important markers of a lounge’s overall quality, and I feel that they can be used worldwide with no modifications.

Okay? Okay. Here we go…

Delta Sky Club (SFO)

(I just took this photo with my iPad. Go find Lucky’s review on One Mile at a Time if you want more photos.)

Furnishings: Oooh, they’re giving Amex Centurion lounges a run for their money. Very sleek and modern, but not to the point of having angular furniture that’s uncomfortable to sit on. While the dividers create the illusion of a larger space, I should note that they would be nightmarish for a trypophobic person. 9/10
Cookies: I was going to give it a higher score, but my wife provided a second opinion, which was lower than mine. The good: lots of choice. Lemon bars, brownies, and two types of cookie. The bad: the cookies are middling, and not nearly chewy enough. But the lemon bars are outstanding. 9/10
Snacks: Points for effort and creativity. While most US lounges just have shitty snack mix and banana-chip-heavy dried fruit mix, Delta at least tries to create a diverse spread. I’ve noticed their effort in the Salt Lake City lounge as well, although there are more total dishes on offer here. Unfortunately, they’re all terrible, so I’m managing to subsist on lemon bars and some hummus. OH YEAH AND DON’T WORRY, THERE’S SOUP. There’s also a good dine-for-pay menu, but I don’t count food that isn’t free in these scores. 4/10
Alcohol: A good amount of free alcohol, although I’m taking off points for Delta’s audacity to encourage people to spend SkyMiles on champagne. 7/10
Views: Great views! The only downside is that you face away from the international terminals, so you don’t get to see any of the heavies. In fact, most of your view is of Virgin America planes, but you also get a nice view of planes taking off and landing. Plus, the slightly skewed perspective makes planes on parallel runways look like they’re going to crash into each other, which is fun. 8/10
Bathrooms: I just got back from them, thanks for asking. Stalls have lots of privacy, which is something that’s oddly lacking in other lounges. They also have these fancy red sinks and brand name toiletries, so you come out smelling fresh as a rose (a rose who just used a fancy sink to wash its hands). 9/10
Outlets: Ubiquitous. 10/10
Other amenities: This lounge is great. The only issue is that it’s kind of small – bigger than the Centurion Studio in Seattle, but smaller than the Centurion Lounge here at SFO. It’s fairly crowded in the early afternoon on a Wednesday, so I could imagine it being packed during peak times. What else? They have a display of Taschen art books to peruse, they have a coffee machine that makes hot chocolate, and they even have a jar of mini marshmallows that you can use as a garnish. It’s the little touches, you know? This is a lounge worth getting to the airport early for. 10/10
Final score: 66/80

Now, as an extra added treat, I’m going to let my wife Justine add her two cents in a brand new feature called Justine’s Corner. So Justine, take it away!

This place is laaaaame. That is all.

The Delta Head-Start

One Mile at a Time just posted about Delta raising prices for business class awards to Europe. Sucks, but as many people noted, Delta now charges the same as United for partner awards (70,000 miles, up from 62,500). One thing to note up front: FlyingBlue’s equivalent of saver awards for USA-Europe in business class are still 62,500, although they have fuel surcharges in each direction. Delta doesn’t levy fuel surcharges on the outbound leg, meaning you’re now paying 7500 miles to save ~$250, which is a decent cost per mile. If you collect Membership Rewards points, you have the luxury of deciding which is more important to you, since Delta and FlyingBlue are both transfer partners. It sucks that Delta no longer represents such a good value, but it’s not an outrageous increase.

Delta catches a lot of flak for changing things up without providing any notice, “in an effort to provide more value for our members” or somesuch marketing nonsense. That is very annoying… but it isn’t a reason to discount Delta entirely. I’d never want to hoard a bunch of points with them, but they can be a good strategic option if you can book far enough in advance to benefit from the Delta Head-Start.

What is the Delta Head-Start? It’s the fact that Delta loads partner award inventory up to a year in advance, whereas FlyingBlue doesn’t let its members book more than 10 months in advance. That means that you can get the jump on Air France’s loyalists as long as you don’t mind booking 11 months in advance. I recently started planning a work trip around a trade show in Europe next summer, so I already knew my dates far in advance. I had no trouble snagging a seat on Air France’s SFO-CDG flight (which, unfortunately, is on an A380 with the old angle-flat business seats), and a recent search shows that this wasn’t an anomaly.

Here’s SFO-CDG availability for July 2017 – you can see the new price of 70,000 per seat, but these have no fuel surcharges, and FlyingBlue members can’t book these seats. Because I don’t have a professional award booking service, I haven’t done searches for tons of destinations, but from what I can find, as long as you don’t mind connecting in Paris, you can get awards to many places in Europe to price at these levels. Have at it!

delta-avail

Would you let a bird shit on you for 75,000 points?

Like many, I got in on the JetBlue points match promotion they offered a few months ago wherein they gave out millions of free points by matching Virgin America frequent flyers’ point balances. This was one of those “if it’s too good to be true, it’s because JetBlue’s marketing department didn’t think this through” situations, because there was literally no downside. Except getting shit on by a bird.

The crazy thing is that I had JUST transferred over and redeemed 50,000 Virgin America points the day before JetBlue announced the promo. I assumed I was out of luck, since I didn’t have enough Starpoints left to do another big transfer, but I emailed JetBlue anyway, practically begging them to show mercy. I included my Virgin Elevate account transaction history so they could see that literally the day before, I had around 58,000 points in my account. To my great shock and surprise, I got a response back a few hours later that they had matched me to the old balance, so I was in for 75,000 JetBlue points as soon as I took a round-trip flight. I expect that if I hadn’t emailed within minutes of the promotion’s launch, I wouldn’t have been so lucky. I don’t think JetBlue realized how easy it was for people to load up on Virgin points by transferring from SPG, but kudos, props, and big-ups to them for not changing or “clarifying” the terms of the promotion mid-course.

I last flew JetBlue 10 years ago to go to a job interview, and when I didn’t get the job, I decided to blame JetBlue rather than my own lackluster resume. I always remembered them being pretty nice, though, so I was excited to give them another go around. I booked SFO to Long Beach, which is a great airport – primarily because they don’t have gates, so you get to walk on the tarmac outside the plane. I firmly believe that flying would be magnitudes more fun if you always got to see the outside of the plane before boarding, rather than walking down a sterile jetbridge.

One consequence of the airport’s open design, however, is that birds can fly in and out, and they like to congregate on the light fixtures above the food court. I was cheerfully eating my hummus and pretzel combo pack when I noticed a blob of bird shit on the table next to me. I stood up to move to a different table after realizing what was afoot, although it was too late, since I apparently sat in a pile of it without first noticing it on my chair. A friendly JetBlue flight attendant pointed it out and even offered me some wet wipes he had in his suitcase, which makes me appreciate the service JetBlue offers – even outside the airplane!

I know it’s good luck if a bird shits on your head (although I suspect that people just started saying that because of how much it sucks when a bird shits on your head), but what about when you sit in it and get bird shit all over the seat of your pants? Well, I can provide you with a “data point” that it certainly isn’t bad luck, since I had an entire row to myself on the way back and my 75,000 points posted about a week later.

Looking at the actual goal of the promotion – to wean me off Virgin America’s slick, black leather teat – I did come away with a lot of warm fuzzies about JetBlue. The big con would be the route network, since they just don’t fly very many places direct from SFO. If they offer a direct flight and I know I’m flying economy, I’ll definitely pick JetBlue. The leg room is better, and I like the DirectTV they offer better than Virgin’s IFE, since most of the channels on Virgin don’t work. Flying premium becomes more of a toss-up. Price being equal, I prefer Virgin’s Main Cabin Extra to JetBlue’s extra legroom seating, since Virgin gives you unlimited free movies and snacks. However, because Virgin considers Extra to be a separate fare class, it’s often more expensive than the Even More Space upgrade. I suppose it would depend on the cost difference and schedule. As for first class, even though I’ve never flown JetBlue’s Mint, I’m sure it’s better than Virgin’s first class, which I love. Pricing for transcons looks similar, so I can almost guarantee that I’ll fly Mint instead of Virgin First the next time I’m planning a trip and can spring to sit up front. Otherwise, obviously I’d fly Virgin if I wanted to fly in first, since JetBlue doesn’t offer first class on most flights.

What do you think? Did you fly JetBlue to get 75,000 points? Has a bird ever shit on you? Do you know of any other points/miles blogs that have used the phrase “slick, black leather teat?”