I’m hoping to start a new blog in the next few months, and work on an actual book of travel memoirs, to explore, analyze, and fondly/not-so-fondly remember how much traveling has shaped my own personal development.

I’ll still keep up the trip reporting on FlyerTalk (yes, I’m in the process of shifting over past trip reports to the FlyerTalk-thread format, as opposed to solely residing on this blog). Yes, I also know that I still have to finish that Iraq trip report.

Many thanks, again, to BoardingArea for allowing me to be a houseguest of sorts over the last few years, and for being so gracious and easygoing with any request, including when I informed them a few weeks ago that I planned to stop blogging.

And, of course, thanks to all the readers/commenters/e-mailers. What can I say? It’s been real.

In addition to aftershocks, to death, injury, and missing friends and relatives, the country now has to contend with nuclear fallout, frigid temperatures, blackouts, and a dearth of food and gasoline. The pictures are ubiquitous and haunting – workers in radiation-proof suits, cracked and damaged cities, cargo containers that normally fit on the backs’ of semi trucks scattered like pieces of Lego – speaking powerfully of a continuing ruin, and desperate need.

If you have the means, please consider donating to an aid/relief organization, or charity. It’s not a demand, an order, or even a request, and I will never say one has to donate – but merely a consideration.

As travelers, Japan has been so good to many of us – a place of wonderful, rich culture, art, delectable food, searing sensory experiences of electronic-light matched with  and consistent kindness – a country where I had been walked to a hotel by kindly bystanders sensing my need for directions, and where in Shinjuku, looking at a posted city map that someone had originally marred with graffiti, someone else had come by afterward with a Sharpie, and redrawn the city map over the splotches. the For me, personally, Tokyo is my second favorite city on Earth.

I want to see the country return to a place where citizens and visitors feel safe again.

Moreover, Japan has been generous with its aid donations – to the US during Hurricane Katrina, to Haiti, and to New Zealand, during the recent Christchurch earthquake.

There exist a plethora of charities/organizations to donate that are in-line with various personal belief systems and aims. Salon.com has published a fantastic and inclusive list - that includes an eclectic array of options from The Red Cross to Lady Gaga. The always-innovative and good-hearted Tampa Bay Rays bullpen-hopeful Dirk Hayhurst will even give you a call via Skype to chat for a donation of 50 dollars or more to The Mercy Corp.

Whatever your preference, whatever your persuasion, there’s an island nation that is in need. Please consider helping if you can.

So . . . uh, in a pretty restrictive set of conditions, I guess you have to be A) a US Airways Twitter follower; and B) Not currently a Dividend Miles Member. Truthfully, I cannot imagine how many people follow US Airways on Twitter, a sign of some deeper-than-average connection with an airline, and are not already Dividend Miles members, but US Airways thinks the demographic must exist to some degree.

And, it gets worse: If you happen to be one of the above lucky members to which the criteria fit, sign up between March 9 – 31, and you’ll receive 2,000 bonus miles. Then, actually get on a US Airways airplane, fly a roundtrip, and you’ll receive the remaining 2,000 bonus miles.

Okay.

So . . . if you’re a Twitter follower of US Airways, not yet a Dividend Miles member, and are planning to take a roundtrip, rock on.

Otherwise, not of much use. That bluebird in a tie is quite adorable, though.

Sign up for Dividend Miles here, and use promo code TF11 to enroll.

So, here’s number three: For those who are partial to the hotels within the Intercontinental family (mostly, the eponymous InterContinental, the Holiday Inn, and something of which I have never, ever heard, the Staybridge Suites), TravelZoo has announced a US-wide savings across all InterContinental brands (you’re going to have to “Sign Up,” apparently, for their weekly e-mails, to see the actual web page for the deal), of up to 65% off. You must book by March 18th, and the best rates, according to TravelZoo are available during “select dates through April,” which means, it might take a bit of prodding/flexibility/and good ol’-fashioned looking to find a nice rate.

But – pasted below, from TravelZoo, are some of their examples of discounted rates, with some of the “selected dates:”

Staybridge Suites ATLANTA Buckhead
$73-$85 April 2, 8-9, 15-16, 22-24, 29-30

InterContinental DALLAS
$95-$112 weekends March 18 – April 30

Avenue Crowne Plaza CHICAGO Magnificent Mile
$98 March 20, 27; April 17-24

InterContinental HOUSTON
$102 April 8-9, 15-16, 22-23

Holiday Inn Georgetown WASHINGTON, D.C.
$109-$139 March 18-20, 25-27; April 1-3, 15-17, 22-24, 29-30

Holiday Inn Express BOSTON
$112-$123 April 1-14, 18-28

Holiday Inn NEW YORK CITY Wall Street
$120-$127 March 27; April 1, 3, 8, 10

Holiday Inn Fisherman’s Wharf SAN FRANCISCO
$132-$138 March 22-24, 27-31; nearly all April weekdays

Holiday Inn Express Century City LOS ANGELES
$139 most dates through April

Not too shabby, especially if you’re hunting for Priority Club points, and if you’re participating in their wacky “Crack the Case” promotion. It’s also very nice to see such a good price for a hotel in NYC, where staying in an area of Manhattan where you are less likely to be caught in gang-related cross fire usually requires cashing out a few retirement accounts, the Holiday Inn Wall Street presents some purdy attractive rates.

Five stays grabs 10,000 bonus points. For every two nights thereafter, Hyatt will toss 5,000 bonus points into your account. The promotion runs April 1st through June 30th, with a maximum of 25 bonus nights permitted, for a grand total of 60,000 points.

Now, as someone new to Hyatt’s system, I really had no idea what in the hell 60K points would garner. I’m used to Hilton Land, who prints their award chart in scientific notation because their redemption values look like prices in a country that has just devalued their currency after a military coup. I think one night at the Hilton Maldives cost 75 million points. Thus, I really appreciated Ric Garrido, author of Loyalty Traveler’s fine and thorough analysis on just what one might do with 60,000 Hyatt Points:

11 nights at Hyatt brand hotels earns 25,000 bonus points.  Earn 10,000 points after 5 nights and another 15,000 bonus points after an additional 6 nights.

25,000 points buys:

• 1 night at any Hyatt Gold passport category 6 hotel in the world (22,000)
• 2 nights at category 3 hotels (2 x 12,000)
• 3 nights at category 2 hotels (3 x 8,000)

Ric even is even so thoughtful as to compare Hyatt redemption values to other major hotel companies (helpful if you’ve been jaded by Hilton redemptions):

Comparing free nights earned at the low end where a Hyatt category 1 hotel (19% of all Hyatts) requires 5,000 points for a free night, the value of 25,000 bonus points after 11 nights is equivalent to:

• 50,000 Marriott points (5 nights x 10,000 points for Marriott Category 2) or
• 62,500 (Ed. Note: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -GR) Hilton points (5 nights x 12,500 points for HHonors category 2) or
• 18,000 Starwood points (2 nights x 3,000 weekend category 2 + 3 nights x 4,000 weekday cat 2).

Ric really works out the numbers for you on this one, which, did make this promo make much more sense, and he astutely shows the pretty solid value of Hyatt points, in terms of free night redemptions. Overall, he says, he gives the promotion “Four Keys Up” though, truthfully, I have no idea what that means – but, four keys is four keys, so I guess he likes it.

But – the question remains, however, would this promotion cause me to switch business over to Hyatt? With 60,000 points, after 25 stays, I could gather about three nights in Category 6 hotels. 25 stays, too, earns Hyatt Diamond Status. The majority of stays, were I to go after this promotion, would have to be through mattress runs, and the most reasonably priced Hyatt-brand hotel near San Francisco is the Hyatt Place in Fremont, which, as hip and happening as Fremont really is, it really isn’t worth the effort or time to make 25 treks to Fremont. I don’t think Hyatt allows “phantom” stays any more, in which hotels used to tacitly permit people simply “calling” to check in, never actually showing, and collecting the points. Essentially, it seems just too much of hassle, timewise, to find a Hyatt place, and probably will just stick to Platinum with Hyatt, whose only real benefit seems – gosh – a free newspaper! If the promo had been Faster Free Nights, I would’ve been sauntering over to Fremont right now.

If I need to make mattress runs for status/points, I’ll probably end up using the Hilton “Gold in Four Stays” promo. I believe my Gold status expires at the end of this month.

Oh, and don’t even bother trying to sign up for this Hyatt promo, (yet) anyway. The site does not go live until March 31.

Putting this deal in the classic “I’ll do this when I get a moment” realm of my life, (and, of course, not getting to it with any alacrity in the past few weeks), to my utmost dismay, I went to the website today to actually sign up for the promotion, discovered that the terms of the deal had dramatically changed – requiring up to a $399 investment, and a Faustian contract of signing up for three years of monitoring for some figure in the thousands. Crestfallen, I called LifeShield to find more details. A very kindly representative told me that, in fact, the original non-contract offer was still available, and the new contract-based offer was supposed to go live tomorrow (Monday), and she was not sure why the website displayed the frightening new deal.

I purchased right away. She had me at “bonus miles.”

Thus, the message of all this hoo-hah: Call, and sign up now! The deal, apparently, is only valid over the phone until 11.59pm, Eastern Time, Sunday, March 6, 2011. Reach ‘em at 877.574.8731. Ask for the non-contract United Airlines-deal.

The terms, as I clarified with the rep (just for anyone with questions):

-The Mileage Plus bonus miles are awarded 40 days after the date of purchase, not 40 days after the day of activation (so, I assume you may not even need to fully activate the system?)

-Mileage Plus miles will be credited automatically to your account (I gave them my MP number during purchase). A post in the FT thread read that someone from the company would call to obtain the Mileage Plus number, but from what I was told, all crediting was automatic.

-There are, really, n0 terms and restrictions, outside of keeping your subscription alive for 40 days. The rep said just to ensure that all miles posted to your account, and then, if you wish, cancel, at any point thereafter.

Sounds pretty good. Remember – 25,000 miles is a nice haul to add to any account, and enough for an economy-class roundtrip ticket in the United States.

Ah, yes. The 1K tier of United’s Mileage Plus program, that, for two years, I spent a significant portion of time, and excised a significant portion of my bank account, all to collect frequent flyer miles, clamor for those 100,000 miles, and spend time transport machines that I absolutely love, and that 95 percent of the world, I imagine, almost definitely reviles.

In the past four months, I decided that I’d rather devote the cabbage I spent (or, what rote business types call, completely unsexily, “cash outlay”), to other things – mostly, trying to attack that student loan debt, and though I miss it terribly, and though I still feverishly traipse through the forum pages of FlyerTalk’s mileage run deals with the utmost of longing, I’ve resolved to become more of an observer, because, financially, for me, right now, flying just doesn’t make too much sense. Again, it’s sad, but the right thing.

With med school apps, and the end of school, I hadn’t flown as much, anyway. There just wasn’t time.

There will still be flights to take. I’m dropping to Premier Executive, United’s mid-tier level next year, which still gives me the tantalizing perk of 100% percent bonus frequent flyer miles. And, I do love redeeming frequent flyer miles for crazy world-crossing trips. In March, I’m planning to redeem a wheelbarrow of miles for a trip to India, with some college pals. And, (think good thoughts, folks), hopefully, there will be more school-related flights to take in the New Year.

I’m hoping to post a slightly parodic, hilariously-cheesy look back at the 1K career (“We’ve had a lot of laughs over the last two years, folks”) later in the week. I’ve got some long wi-fi enabled bus trips coming up, and might be inspired.

But, for the rest o’ the week, I can return, if only for a bit, to some good ol’ fashioned in media res travel reportage – with reports of trying a new hotel brand, and my first post-merger flight on Continental, from EWR to SFO.

But – most of all – what a way to end the United 1K career – on a redeye. Nothing is more glamorous than emerging five hours later bleary-eyed, wild-haired, generally looking deranged and as if I spent last night under an overpass, where the world of the airport seems strange and psychologically scary, and everything is just a bit too real.

My goal is to post once a day until the end of the year . . . . I’ve been busy with work, my tutoring students, and med school related stuff, but, by golly, I plan to find some more time to blog. But . . . because, tonight, I’m bitten by my own convictions, and worked late (harvesting spleens from mice . . . mmmm!), I’ll have to post my longer ramblings tomorrow (uh, why, yes! Tomorrow’s post is indeed half written!)

In the interim, I wanted to post this superb image of snow-trammeled Gatwick Airport in London courtesy of BN Sullivan, also known as AircrewBuzz on Twitter. The folks on ol’ Brittania are much stronger than I. These past few mornings, heading to work, I’ve stood for moment, after leaving my house, mouth agape, in a way that belies any shred of intelligence I may possess, at frost on the grass – a true spectacle in San Francisco.

Much more exciting stuff (I think) to come this month, folks. I’m actually traveling again next week, and can eke out one final flight as a 1K. And the good times are always over so fast.

And, yes – this post is the first, and most likely last, piece of celebrity gossip on WAAP. Thank goodness.

Oh, and yes – it involves British Airways. That bit is much too funny, as well.

His e-mail:

So I was reading, as I typically do most mornings accompanied by my trusty basset hound, monocle, and smoking jacket, the daily chronicle of the New York Times when I noticed this classic tidbit about Prince William and his new bride: [Find the article here. -Ed].

“By contrast, Miss Middleton, who grew up in Bucklebury, Berkshire, is considered solidly middle class by British standards.

Her father is a former British Airways officer and her mother a former flight attendant; together, they run a successful mail-order business that sells paraphernalia for children’s parties.

…

Mrs. Middleton was said to have blatantly chewed gum and used unaristocratic words like “toilet” and “pardon” in front of the queen, and some of William’s friends were said to mutter, “doors to manual” when Miss Middleton came into the room, a reference to her mother’s prior career.”

Doors to manual! Now there is some snooty, stiff upper lip British humor for ya! I had to send this to you because I found an airline-related anecdote in a ridiculous story about a royal engagement, figured it might be blog-worthy. I mean, if the future Queen of England is the daughter of a flight attendant, one would think they would at least get some more respect on FlyerTalk?

ENDIT

Ha!

Well, we still don’t have an answer to that one. But – in an e-mail, this morning, United has provided a few answers about the world of Mileage Plus top-tier elite status in the post-merger world, with some benefits kicking of in just a few months, in 2011.

In the months and months of interminable speculation and questions worthy of a Greek philosophy text that have been omnipresent on FlyerTalk and, high-mileage flyers of both airlines have wondered most about how United and Continental would reconcile their own top-tier elite statuses, 1K, and Platinum, respectively, that have differing mileage levels for qualification (100,000 and 75,000 respectively). Flyers posited that the new United might create a new elite status tier, or normalize top-tier elite qualification to the 75,000 mile level, leaving many current 1K members grumbling that their extra 25,000 miles of flying was suddenly for naught.

And, again – there does not exist too much explicit information in those specific areas, but like morning mist beginning to clear on a verdant mountain terrain, United has outlined some specifics, in another major area of anxiety for flyers: upgrade procedure and priority, and specific upgrade instrument earning.

Here’s the rundown:

In 2011, fly and earn unlimited Regional Upgrades
Earn two Regional Upgrades at 75,000 EQM or 90 EQS, and two more at every 25,000 EQM/30 EQS after that – with no limit to how many you can earn throughout the year. This replaces today’s system of earning Regional Upgrades each quarter, which was capped at eight per year.

My Take: Ehhhhhhhhh . . . a trifle misleading. United already caused a bit of a kerfuffle earlier this year, upon introducing its Unlimited Domestic Upgrades, and temporarily removing confirmed regional upgrades (CR-1) as a possible upgrade instrument, which 1Ks earned with every 10,000 miles of flying, capped, as stated above at two CR-1s per quarter of the year. Now, suddenly, we’ve gone to “unlimited” with a major asterisk, and fine print akin to car advertisements, that one needs to log 75K of flying before garnering the two little precious upgrade instruments, and another 75K to grab six more, to match the eight CR-1s that United delivered for a mere 80,000 miles of flying over the year. Now, one needs to fly 150,000 miles just for the eight total upgrades – and, golly gee, with every other 25K after that, can earn two more.

But – according to the above website, it seems that anyone can earn these regional upgrades, now – not just 1Ks, for whom they had been previously reserved. Now, even a Premier member, who is working to log many miles, at least has extra incentive

Bottom line – it’s a lot of flying for regional upgrades now. It’s one of those devious/sneaky/pretty smart marketing moves – sure . . . annnnnnny elite member can earn regional upgrades, but they ain’t just handing ‘em out to elites, now – United’s going to make flyers really go for it, and fly a minimum of 75,000 miles just for the privilege. I guess it’s a true reward for loyalty. Plus, the website mentions p.s. flights, which means that p.s. isn’t going anywhere, at least, I’m guessing, for the next two years.

In 2011, changes to 1K® qualification
The number of EQS needed to qualify for 2012 1K status will be increased to 120; the number of EQM will remain at 100,000. However, you will receive your six Systemwide Upgrades as soon as you reach the 100,000 EQM or 120 EQS threshold, rather than having to wait until the beginning of the next year.

My Take: Ouch, for those who made 1K on segments, that hurts. The systemwide upgrades stay, with United giving flyers a bit more flexibility to use the upgrades earlier (and thus, get rid of them earlier, make them expire earlier, and perhaps boost some higher-fare class purchasing to use the systemwides). In the past, United has offered an early deposit option for systemwide upgrades for those who have already requalified for 1K, and want to throw their upgrades at a future trip pronto.

In 2012, a new upgrade priority
Members at 75,000 EQM or 90 EQS can look forward to upgrade priority over lower-earning members.

My Take: We advance to some point way in the future, here, where United offers its first hint of how the differing 100K/75K levels might play when the two airlines are fully operating as one. If one takes a peek at the website for more description, it becomes clear that United is referring to Premier Executive members who earned 75,000+ miles in the previous year (2011), and essentially, creating a new level of upgrade priority for mid-tier elites. Now, before 1Ks have smoke billow out their ears, United also states that 1Ks, will still retain the highest upgrade priority (pretty obvious, but when frequent flying is so attached to fragile egos, it’s good to have a reminder).

Moreover, I wonder, with the focus on this 75K level, and a new upgrade priority (which further divides Premier Executive members, who flew fewer than 75K miles with those who flew more, but fewer than 100K), means that Continental’s prior 75K level of top-tier status will soon be abolished, and United will fully focus on top-tier elite status at 100,000 miles. This 75K bonus, is, perhaps, a way of placating those who were previous Continental top-tiers, but who have not reached the United level, an attempt at less-painful integration of the prior Platinum level. Moreover, frequent flyers, too, had been worried about upgrade priority of 100K vs. 75K flyers, and in 2012, there emerges an answer. But, man, I do not look forward to the further divisiveness of Premier Executive, and those jockying for superiority because one flew 80,000 miles versus just 55,000. Just another thing about which to brag on FlyerTalk, I guess.

Overall, some significant changes – but, I do want to know about my 4,100 miles. I just hope Continental doesn’t nationalize their mileage plan, or something, and sell my miles to Chase, only to be told their useless, and “they’re Chase’s miles, now.”