All the Right Points

February 1, 2015

2015 Travel Coming Together

The beginning of the year is always interesting as the "clock" resets to zero in so many ways. I love looking at the calendar with virtually nothing booked and slowly filling it in with a trip here and there. Weekend trips, long-haul trips, birthday trips, anniversaries, etc...

2015 is now shaping up to be the best travel year yet and I'm really excited about everything we have booked. Here's a quick overview:

In April, Emily and I are headed to Vancouver for my birthday. We haven't been in 7 years but our last visit was awesome so we're both excited to return. The easiest way to get there would be to fly direct from Denver. But that's not that fun. So we're flying to New York to take Cathay Pacific's service across the continent...in first class. We loved our recent Cathay first trip so much that we just had to get another flight in this year.

Cathay Pacific First Class

In May, we're headed to Europe. This will be our first trip with a long-haul flight direct from Denver. As of now, we'll be visiting Amsterdam, Vienna, and Paris and returning in Singapore Suites! We also have some great stays booked (all with points) at the Park Hyatt's in Paris and Vienna.

In June, I'm taking my brother on a whirlwind tour of Asia. We'll start off by flying Cathay First from LAX to Hong Kong on our way to Bangkok where we'll spend a couple of days. Then back to Hong Kong for a few days (in Thai Airways first class) before flying home on Asiana's A380 First Class Suite. This will be he first time in Asia so it will be great to show him around.

We'll spend most of the summer in Denver celebrating a couple of key birthdays and anniversaries. In October, we're headed to Hawaii for a few days at the newly opened Andaz Maui.

All in all, it's shaping up to be a great year. All of these trips have been fully "paid for" with points and miles. I hope you'll come along for the ride and maybe pick up a thing or two.

Review: Cathay Pacific 777 Business Class Taipei to Hong Kong

Introduction
Planning & Booking
Singapore Airlines 777-300ER First Class San Francisco to Hong Kong
Grand Hyatt Hong Kong
The Bridge Cathay Pacific Business Class Lounge
Cathay Pacific A330 Business Class Hong Kong to Taipei
W Taipei
Cathay Pacific 777 Business Class Taipei to Hong Kong
The Wing Cathay Pacific First Class Lounge
Cathay Pacific 777-300 ER First Class Hong Kong to Los Angeles

Upon arrival at TPE, we made our way to the Cathay Pacific check-in counter. While the business class queue was quite busy, there was no line for first class. Since we were on separate reservations it took awhile to get everything sorted out but the representatives were great and soon we had our lounge invitation and boarding passes all the way to LAX in hand. We were a bit early arriving to the airport so they proactively put us on an earlier flight so we could enjoy The Wing at Hong Kong. Both agents told us "we would enjoy that lounge much more" and they were right.

We only had 45 minutes until boarding and queues for immigration were pretty long so we didn't make it to the lounge or really get to explore the airport at all. We spent the last of our Taiwanese Dollars on a few souvenirs and were soon boarding the 777 that would take us back to Hong Kong.

Taxi at TPE - Delta, United heavies parked on the ramp

Today's flight would be configured with Cathay's new regional business class seats. They are totally comfortable for an hour flight but look much more like domestic first class than anything resembling "lie flat."

We both thought these phone pockets were pretty cool

The flight was only 75 minutes so I didn't have a ton of time for pictures. There was a very quick meal, coffee service, and of course the belly cam.

On approach into HKG

Beyond that, the flight was uneventful and we were soon on approach to Hong Kong's International Airport. Gorgeous views on the way in though.

Over the "piano keys" at HKG

Once on the ground, we made our way over to The Bridge to do some plane spotting before the real fun would begin at The Wing.

January 28, 2015

New Blog Design

All the Right Points has a new look. Thanks to my amazing wife for helping me get the new header and logo up and running. The header contains images from a number of our favorite places including Hong Kong, Dubai, London, and Taipei.

Thanks so much for your support and hope you like the new look!

January 23, 2015

Our Bag Was Lost...Then Found

Lost bags happen. It's a part of flying but I've been lucky. I've flown over 270,000 miles in the past three years and haven't had any issues. But given the drama surrounding our flight to Hong Kong, we knew we'd be lucky to have our bag make the flight.

When we arrived in Hong Kong after an awesome flight aboard SQ001, a Singapore Airlines customer service representative was waiting for us at the end of the jet bridge. We were escorted through immigration and shown to the baggage service desk. We were told that our bag would arrive the following day on the same flight (SQ001). So we had 24 hours to go with just a carry on. We filled out a claim form with our contact information and we were handed 800HKD ($103 USD) which seemed reasonable for 24 hours.

Luckily, we always plan for this and Emily had a handful of items in my carry on. The Grand Hyatt was extremely accommodating - providing toiletries and hair utensils for Emily at no charge. We woke up the next morning and checked on the status of the bag - it had not arrived. We contacted Singapore via email and they were still working to locate the bag. Ruh-roh.

I had mentally begun taking stock of what was in the bag and losing it would really suck. We had dinner that evening with a friend so needed to get some nicer clothes. We went to mall and kept our receipts.

The aftermath

That evening, we still hadn't heard back from Singapore. So we emailed. And called. And then tweeted. Finally we got a response (actually from both Singapore and United) that our bag would arrive that evening on United's direct flight from San Francisco. Hoorah! We notified the concierge and asked that they bring the bag up when received. The bag arrived around 11PM that evening - more than 40 hours since we landed in Hong Kong.

Upon arriving back in the states, we filed a claim with Singapore Airlines for the rest of our expenses. I am still waiting for the check but sounds like it should be here in the next few weeks - I will keep all of you posted.

So lost bags definitely do happen. And airlines are generally pretty good at finding them even if they are bad at keeping you in the loop on their progress. We always anticipate this situation on long haul trips and pack a carry on with a variety of items - just in case. Here's to another 270,000+ miles without another lost bag...

January 21, 2015

Review: W Taipei

W Taipei Lobby

W Taipei Exterior

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January 18, 2015

Another Year, Another Successful Platinum Card Airline Credit

The American Express Platinum Card (all three versions) is one of the most generous cards on the market when it comes to benefits. Read my full review for a recap. That said, the card is not great for everyday spend unless you're driving towards the sign-up bonus.

That's because the card ONLY offers 1x Membership Rewards points. There are not bonus categories, not spend thresholds to encourage more spend. So while you may look cool at dinner with your Platinum card, you'd be WAY better off paying with your Chase Sapphire Preferred card earning 2x points on dining and 3x if it's the first Friday of the month.

We keep a Platinum card in our house ($450 annual fee) because of these three primary benefits:

1) $200 annual airline incidental credit - this reduces the annual fee by nearly 50%

2) Centurion lounge access - we have trips to New York, San Francisco, and Las Vegas nearly every year - that is 3 lounge visits for 2 people. Easily worth $50 a visit in my book. That's $150 a year.

3) Access to American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts (FHR) rates - these can be super lucrative in terms of the benefits ($100 property credit, breakfast, late checkout, upgrades, free wifi) when you don't have status or stay at a non-chain hotel

In terms of the incidental credit, we select United each year and purchase four $50 e-gift cards. We've never had any issue getting the credits reimbursed within a couple of days. Our credits just posted for 2015 purchases (although the fourth transaction didn't go through for some reason).

This definitely softens the blow of the annual fee. We're going to fly and we're going to fly United so the gift cards are basically a cash discount on the annual fee. The process of purchasing the gift cards takes all of 10 minutes a year. If you don't leverage any of the other benefits, it's probably not worth keeping the card. But for the lounges, FHR access, and $200 annual credit, it's not that hard to get your money's worth.

Review: Cathay Pacific Business Class A330 Hong Kong to Taipei

PDB Champagne

The distance between Hong Kong and Taipei is 505 miles. That's essentially the same distance between San Diego and San Francisco. On the latter route, you'll see all single aisle aircraft. A319s, A320s, 737s, maybe a 757. Between Hong Kong and Taipei, Cathay is flying a mix of wide body aircraft that include A330s, 777s, and 747s!

Cathay Pacific A330 Business Class

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