Sad day for award redemption

Sad to say, the days of awesome mileage redemptions on Aeroplan are over. Today, they just raised most redemptions by at least 25%, my favorite redemption 120k in First to as far as Singapore went from 120k to 175k, almost a 46% hike. This was the redemption I used for my mini Round The World trip to Seoul and Singapore I took back in January. Sadly no more.

There is however still some decent value to be had with the 90k redemption to most of Europe in business. Such awards also allow 2 stopovers along the way. I guess I will burn the rest of my Aeroplan miles on a mini vacation to Europe this winter.

$555 ai roundtrip to Hong Kong in October. Booked!

I finally took advantage of a mileage run deal on Flyertalk!!!

Over the past couple of months, I have been checking the mileage run forum on flyertalk almost daily but until this week nothing has enticed me enough to go ahead and book.

Well, you can say I was surprised to see the thread heading. "AC $498 r/t LAS-HKG" Hell I was even willing to travel to Vegas to take advantage of this deal. Many dates were available in September and October. And, I knew I had Columbus day off(I know, we have random holidays off...) so a quick 3 day trip to Hong Kong was in the works. Since, the flights are going to be on Air Canada, it will be a perfect opportunity to credit some miles to my Aeroplan account. Since, the thread said that the fare was only available through cheapoair.com, I had to double check the credibility of the site. It looked legit, I guess...

And out of the whim, I decided to try LAX as my departure city instead of Las Vegas, and to my delight, LAX-HKG was only $60 more expensive. The dates I wanted were also available.(Leaving Friday afternoon, coming back Monday night)

It might sound crazy to most of you(ahem, Adeline) that I will be spending $500 bucks and 30hrs on airplanes for 2 short days in Hong Kong, but what is there really to do in Hong Kong other than shop and eat? Plus, I have a long 9hr layover in Vancouver which will give me an opportunity to visit Vancouver and try out the famous Japadog. Yummm.

Hopefully, my gf can join me in Hong Kong. Trying to entice her with the opportunity to stay at the Conrad Hong Kong. I should have enough Hhonor points by then. And, hopefully, with my Diamond status, I can get a room upgrade and access the club everyone has been raving about.

In the mean time, I will rewatch the No Reservation episode on Hong Kong to see what restaurants Tony Bourdain recommends.

Change is in the air

I had a change of heart today...I went into the year with the full intentions of achieving United 1K status. I would have had to fly 100k butt in seat miles and planned my schedule accordingly. With 3 planned trips to Asia, ~12 trips to SF, 5 trips to Chicago, I would still be ~30k miles short. Which means, I would have to rely on a Double EQM promotion or 6 coast to coast mileage runs. Seeing that we did not get a Double EQM promotion this Spring, I was not looking forward to all those mileage runs.

Thats why today I decided to split my mileage between Air Canada's Aeroplan and United's Mileage Plus. To qualify for Star Alliance Gold, I would need 50k miles on United or 35k miles on Air Canada. Since United Premier Executive does not gain access to the United's Red Carpet Club, and Aeroplan's Elite level does, I am going to split my miles between the 2 Frequent Flyer Programs. So 50k on United to qualify for Premier Exec and 35k on Aeroplan to qualify for their Elite Level.

Another thing I placed into consideration was the ability to transfer my miles from Starwood to Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio.(I only get a 2:1 ration for United)Since 1st class redemption to Asia on Air Canada is 120k miles and United is 135k, I should have no problem getting enough miles to redeem a 1st class ticket next year on ANA, Singapore, Thai or Asiana.

Although I will not get Economy plus access or higher baggage allowance crediting miles to Aeroplan, I plan on crediting miles to Aeroplan only on my flights to Asia, since I will most likely be flying a partner airline anyway.

Another big announcement is that I've decided to switch back to Hilton as my preferred hotel chain. I will try my best to attain Gold VIP status on Hilton which requires 16 stays. With Gold VIP, I get 4pm late checkout, 25% pts bonus, club access and space available room upgrade. Also the good thing about Hilton's program is the ability to simultaneously redeem for both Hilton points and airline miles. This way I could credit the miles to to Aeroplan and be 500 miles closer to my First Class redemption.