San Francisco Superstar

I don't know what Burmese food is, but it sure was yummy

I've always heard great things about Burmese Superstar in Alameda, I mean, comon this place has over 2000 reviews on Yelp, but going solo to a popular restaurant is never my thing. So when a client suggested we go there for dinner, I jumped at the opportunity.

As expected, the food made this place a Superstar. Even though I still don't know what Burmese Food is exactly, maybe a mix between Chinese, Thai and Indian, it sure packed the best flavoring of all 3 ethnic foods.

We started with the Tea Leaf Salad. This goes down as the best salad I've ever had. I didn't catch all the ingredients but I definitely tasted sesame oil, peanuts, peppers, mushed tea leaf, sesame seeds, and an orgasmic mixture of sauces. And, it paired well with Chimay...my favorite beer.

Most Flavorful Salad EVA

For the main course I got the chili eggplant with shrimp. The flavor was very familiar and it tasted like 鱼香茄子 served at many Szechuan Restaurants but, the eggplant and shrimp were cooked to perfection. My apologies for the lack of pictures, the restaurant was too dark to get a quality image on my Iphone.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I got upgraded to United First from SNA to SFO but I was too tired to enjoy the experience.

Hertz also upgraded me again to a full size SUV, I love being a Gold Club Member...Although driving around SF in a Ford Explorer is not ideal.

Very Proud of my park job, hehe...

Also I had a wonderful stay at the Embassy Suites Burlingame. My room overlooked the bay and had a great view of planes landing and taking off on 10L/28R and 10R/28L at SFO. I will definitely stay thier again on my next business trip to SF. The hotel provides complimentary made to order omelet for breakfast and a happy hour with free booze. Cant beat that.

A Delta Flight on Final Approach taken from my Hotel Room

Orlando Vacation booked!

After some midnight fare surfing, I came across a great deal on Farecompare. $145 all inclusive r/t to Orlando from LAX. Dates were available in May and June, making it a perfect vacation opportunity for the gf and I. Well by the time I got to US Airways website to book, the June dates were already gone. I knew I had to act fast as these fares were going like hotcakes. So, I tried the 3rd weekend of May, also gone. I was left with the 2nd weekend of May and quickly went ahead to booked it. The flight times were not ideal(leaving LA Saturday morning, coming back Tuesday Morning), but what the hey, cant complain about the $145 price tag.

And, since I was in hot pursuit of the Hilton Diamond status, we can get 3 stays out of the trip. Also, I went ahead and rented a car with Hertz, affording us the flexibility to visit the Disney Hollywood Studios and also Kennedy Space Center.

Trip report to come after the trip!

$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.

Hilton Diamond Status after 7 stays

So I've decided to switch my hotel allegiance. I have nothing but rave reviews for the Starwood program and I will continue using the Starwood Amex. However, Hilton's offer of Diamond Status after 7 stays between 4/1/10-6/30/10 is too hard to pass. I got this offer with my welcome packet for Hilton Silver last month. After a month of wavering, I've decided to go with Hilton.

Hilton Diamond is Hilton's top tier program which is equal to Starwood Platinum. As a Diamond, I will get club access, free internet, free room upgrade, 50% points bonus among other things. After taking a look at my travel plans from now until end of June, I should have no problem qualifying for Diamond. I hope...

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.