Adventures of Lydia & Calvin

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Spending Christmas and New Year in Paradise: Introduction

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We didn't have anything initially actually planned for Christmas/New Year break. Work commitments were unpredictable and if all hell broke loose at work, I might actually have to work over Christmas and New Year. Thankfully two weeks before Christmas, work began to slow down and I was actually able to take a nice 2 week break to finish of the year.

At this point our options were severely limited. There were no cheap flights to anywhere except for a UA/AA first class to Tokyo for ~$3k price war that I did briefly consider but ultimately was above our budget and we had enough of cold weather. We were only looking at first class redemptions (business class just wasn't cutting it anymore after the Dublin trip) on Star Alliance and as expected by this time, it was almost impossible to find one seat, much less two seats that we needed. On the flipside, the good thing about booking last minute was first class Lufthansa availability which only opens up around 2 weeks prior to departure.

We were also picky on where we wanted to go. Most of the time, we would just head to where the cheap flights and miles would take us but we had enough of the cold weather in Austin and spending a week in even colder weather in Europe or North Asia just did not sound appealing. We needed some hot weather with a cold beer with sand between our toes. Heading to a beach back home in South East Asia didn't sound too exciting either and I couldn't find any reasonable options for other beach destinations like Bora Bora or Seychelles. We also skipped all the close by options to Austin like the Carribean or Mexico as by this time tickets were really expensive.

By some pure miracle, I was able to find us an option to head to one of our favorite places on Earth, the Maldives for some beach R&R:

I redeemed a straight forward Lifemiles redemption on their website for a Orlando to Osaka via Frankfurt on Lufthansa first class. We miss the First Class Terminal and we would be able to try the seat + bed combo on the 747 operated on the Osaka flight.
From Osaka, I redeemed a United MileagePlus business class redemption to Maldives via Bangkok and Singapore on Thai and Singapore Airlines.
Heading home to the US, we paid for one of those infamous "cheap" ex-Colombo first class fare on Emirates and British Airways via Dubai with a night layover to explore Paris before flying back to London and Houston where we would drive back on a one way car rental back to Austin.
My only slight disappointment on this trip was the need to redeem a 25k coach United MileagePlus ticket from Austin to Orlando per person. This was double the "normal rate" but tickets were going for $600-700 per person. Ouch!

We had actually been to Maldives twice before (first for our honeymoon and a second honeymoon on a mistake Emirates fare) and told ourselves that we would only head back to the Maldives if we could stay in a high end hotel. next time we would be back, we would stay in a high end hotel instead. Lydia was jumping up and down in excitement when I told her I managed to get Hilton Honors redemption for 6 nights at the Conrad. The 6 nights costs us 225k or 37.5k a night thanks to AXON which was a steal considering even the cheapest room were going for about $2500USD by now!

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Another great year! Bring on 2013...

It's 2013 and the world didn't go kaput after 21 Dec 2012. It's been a great year for me personally with all the travel and adventures including the move to Austin. I flew 158,571 miles this year which was about 25k miles than the year before. I managed to not only maintain my *A gold on Asiana but also achieve Premier Gold, which has lead to some domestic upgrades and much appreciated Economy Plus seats on United thanks to a status match and some mileage running.

We're ending the year with our best adventure of the year at Conrad Maldives. A proper trip report will follow but I think this picture just sums it up.

The trip to the Maldives also led to the most memorable moment of the year when we were least expecting to be snorkeling with a whale shark of the Conrad house reef. A truly humbling experience.

Some other "best of the year" awards of our 2012 adventures:

Best First Class - Emirates A380 F. How can you beat a shower in the sky!?!

Best Bed in the sky - Lufthansa 747-400 that boast both a seat and a real bed.

Best Business Class - Singapore Airlines on their 77W/A380. There's nothing much to say for their wonderful crew and the 1-2-1 seating especially in the "mini-cabin" makes it feel like a first class experience.

Best meal - ??? Couldn't make a decision here. We've had some pretty good meals this year but nothing really stood out. Maybe I'm missing the hokkien mee and nasi kandar in Penang?

We're off the a great start in 2013. We're heading back to Austin from the Maldives on Emirates and British first class. Our trip back home to Malaysia for Chinese New Year has been booked featuring Swiss, Thai and Singapore Airlines first class.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Dublin for Thanksgiving 2012: IAH - LAX on 787 and back home to Austin

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Yes, we could have just flown on an earlier 30 minute flight back to Austin and be home hours earlier but what’s the fun in that when we could try out the United 787 in business class for the same price. I’m also not complaining for the extra miles!

Boarding was almost completed by the time we got to the gate but I did manage to get a picture of this beauty.

I got giddy once I got onboard and started taking pictures and playing with the seat controls and IFE.

Since we were in the forward cabin, I noticed the cockpit door was still open and asked a flight attendant if I could go take a picture. Not only did the captain allow me to take a picture, he even told me to take a seat while he took a picture of me!

Dublin for Thanksgiving 2012: DUB - FRA - IAH

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There was a family occupying the sole First Class/Business Class/Star Gold counter at Dublin. It didn’t look like there were going to be done soon so we just proceeded to the empty online check-in counters. We had already checked-in online and with no luggage to check-in we had our boarding passes pretty quickly with instructions on how to get the lounge. The fast track security lanes opened right as we got through security which was much appreciated since the normal lines were 7-8 people deep.

We headed to the lounge hoping to get some breakfast. I had at this point been awake since 1am getting disappointed watching USC lose to Notre Dame and was relatively hungry. Oh what a disappointing season for the Trojans but I digress. We were welcomed at the contract Lufthansa lounge by signs that they were only going to be open at 6am. Ouch – would have expected check-in agent to at least informed of us that the lounge was still closed instead of trying to be helpful and providing us directions.

The short 1.5 hour flight to Frankfurt was uneventful. The Euro style business class seats were okay for the relatively short flight but would not want to be stuck on them anything longer than a couple of hours. I was hoping for some hot food and too my disappointment, there was only a cold selection for breakfast. Pretty disappointing day so far..

Our plane was parked at A Pier in Frankfurt but was not allowed to disembark directly to gate – must have been some immigration/security arrangement I didn’t understand. We were bused to the B pier before making the LONG trek back to new Z gates. We had only about an hour layover and if we didn’t have Gold status for the shorter lines and walking briskly, we might have not made the connection. Now I understand why so many people complain about transiting through Frankfurt. If only we were flying First Class with a car waiting on arrival taking us straight to the lounge.

We walked by Senator Lounge on the way to the gate but didn’t have time to check it out. There was a long line of people trying to get in and we were five minutes from boarding. By the time we got to the gate, there was already a business class long line.

This would be our first time on Lufthansa’s A380. Having flown on Singapore Airlines and Emirates A380, I would concur with most feedback that Lufthansa business class seats on the A380 is just plain horrible. Even United’s business class seats that we had couple of days ago were much more comfortable. The seats were not lie flat which usually doesn’t bother me since I actually prefer to sleep at an angle but I just couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep or lie in. The TV screens were also tiny. The only positive would be airy, spacious cabin with plenty of storage space.

The service started off on the ground with the usual pre-departure champagne and hot towels. After take-off, the flight attendants came around with another round of drinks and nuts before lunch being served about 1.5 hours after take-off.

Dublin for Thanksgiving 2012: Exploring Dublin

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With only a day and a half in Dublin, we made to visit what was important to us - booze and fish & chips. We were somewhat tired on the day we arrived and took is easy by just exploring the nearby Grafton Street and Temple Bar area. The weather was being nice to us with the sun out despite of the cold temperature. Later at night, we had prebooked a pub crawl but there were not enough people to run the tour. Would have appreciated them informing us earlier though.

After a hearty Irish buffet breakfast at the hotel, our second day started off with a tour of the Old Jameson distillery. The tour lasted about an hour where we walked through the original distillery with the enthusiastic guide explaining the process of making whiskey and making sure to highlight that Jameson whiskey's are tripe distilled giving it the extra smooth taste. I was one of the lucky guest of the tour to be able to compare Jameson whiskey against Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels. I must say that Jameson whiskey came up on top. All other guests were given a Jameson drink at the end of the tour.