I love Starbucks‘ partnership with Apple. Every week, there is something free from the Apple iTunes store at Starbucks. It started out with songs (song are still offered), but has grown to include Apps, Books and TV episodes. I have gotten tons of paid goodies for free from Starbucks. The way you get them is for looking for small cards displayed in each Starbucks. The card has a code on them that allows you to redeem it for a free App/song/book…

Now the good news – this weeks free App is Kayak Pro! This is a $0.99 app, so no biggie, but after spending $3.99 on a Latte, I’ll take $0.99 back. Also, it is a great app. Other than the ability to access Kayak’s search engine for flights, hotels and cars, it also includes TripIt like features that allow me to email my itineraries to it. The Pro version also includes free flight status updaters. I am still playing with the app, but looks good so far. So, stop bye a Starbucks, buy a Latte and pick up the app.

The other free offering of this week is also travel related – a free episode of Anthony Bourdain’s ‘No reservations’ (as seen on the Travel Channel). Enjoy…

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I found this beautiful world map showing the current United airlines international routes. It is a beautifully laid out map with very well laid out routes shown. Check it out…

I could not help but notice a few things (This map only shows international routes):

Latin American routes: Continental had a formidable presence in South and Central America. Look at all the southwards routes originating at Houston and Newark. Great addition to the United routes that were very weak in this region.

New routes: A few interesting routes coming up (shown in red). Houston – Aukland, NZ (IAH – AKL) and Newark – Cairo (EWR – CAI). Both are a first to these countries for United.

Major Hubs: When it comes to international routes, Houston, Washington DC and Newark rock. They seem to have more international flights than the other hubs – Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver. Denver only has hardly any…

What are your thoughts on the map and routes shown? Any factoids I missed that you see? Leave a comment.

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I do not fly US Airways often. United is my primary domestic carrier of choice and living with a United hub as my local airport (IAD), it ends up having the most likely flight available. That is except when I am flying to Charlotte, an airport ‘owned’ by US Airways. I flew there earlier this week. Quick day trip. And I remain unimpressed…

• Seats: US Airways must have the smallest pitch of the industry. I am not tall and my knees were touching the seat in front of me. What would Shaq do…?
• Premium seats: Really!? US Airways sells seats in the front half of the aircraft as ‘premium seats’! A $15 surcharge on my flight to sit in them. As a Star Gold, I was ‘given’ one at no charge, but when I tried to change the allocated seat to one just next to it, they wanted $15! Now, we are not talking exit row seats ($30) or Economy Plus like United. These are the same low-pitch as the ones they have in the rest of aircraft! What am I paying for?
• Coffee: What do they brew? Maxwell House? Please, it was an early morning flight. I bought a Starbucks before I boarded my return flight.
• No full soda cans: They fill up a plastic cup and hand it to you. The rest of the can is used for the next passenger.
• No entertainment: They pulled out their entertainment on all aircraft. Only their larger aircraft (A321 and A330s) have WiFi. No WiFi on my plane.

I rest my case. US Airways sucks! Please, merge with American Airlines.

(I did re-confirm that United is still giving ‘minimum’ 500 miles on sub-500 mile flights on US Airways).

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The hotel is beautiful and its location is excellent, just off the the strip and attached to the Miracle Mile mall. The main lobby actually opens up right into the mall. The Miracle Mile mall has the old Planet Hollywood at its other end.

I stayed in a studio suite, which was a nice sized room with a fridge and combination convention and microwave oven. The highlight was the floor to ceiling window. My room was on the top (56th) floor, with a great view of the strip. For those planning to stay there, odd numbered rooms face north, towards the strip and even numbered rooms face the airport. Being an aircraft junkie, I was really torn which way to go. I chose the strip as I did not have my DSLR camera with me.

Here are some pictures I took. 

Elara, Las Vegas.

Elara lobby.

The Las Vegas strip, from the 56th floor.

Paris, Las Vegas, seen from Elara.

The strip at night, from the 56th floor.

Planet Hollywood and Paris, Las Vegas. 

For people who stay at Hilton Hotels, we recommend: Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card. Current offer: 40,000 Hilton Honors points.

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Enjoy…

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I have been traveling. I will post an article on my recent travel soon. I did write some on the flights, but the posts are still in outline form. Got some work to do. In the meanwhile, the world did not stop and things have been going on in the past few days. Here are a few tidbits.

1. Lufthansa shares its seating layout for the 747-8i:

Lufthansa is the first airline to fly the Boeing 747-8i. It will be referred to as the 74H in the 3-character mode of referring to aircraft. (A 777-200 is 772, 340-600 is 346, 737-900 is 739 and so on). I will hopefully be flying the 74H real soon. I say hopefully as in the recently released schedule from Lufthansa, the 74H will fly between Washington Dulles and Frankfurt (IAD-FRA) 6 days a week. A 744 (747-400) will fly the 7th day, I hope I am not flying the 7th day. Lufthansa also released the seating map. They have moved away from 1st class being in the upper deck to some business class seats being there. The new config will have 8 first class seats, 86 business class seats – 32 in the upper deck and 54 lower deck and a massive 262 economy seats.

2. US Airways selling Elite Perks for as little as $10 a flight:

Matching United approach to Premier Access – which you can get for being an Elite (duh!) or buy for being in possession of money, US Airways is selling what it calls ‘PreferredAccess‘. It will give Elite benefits like early boarding, access to premier security lanes (where available), access to elite check-in counters, etc. They claim that the pricing starts at $10 per flight. Anyone been offered it? How much was the offer for? Is it worth it? Leave a comment below.

3. United launches its new club card:

If you are someone who purchases membership to the United Club, then this card is for you. The United MileagePlus® Club Card includes United club membership (a $475 value for a general member and $375 value for a Premier 1k) for an annual fee of $395 (one time $95 statement credit, after your first purchase). The card also earns 1.5 miles on any dollar spent and 2 miles on dollars spent on United tickets. The card is too expensive for someone who does not intend to already purchase United Club membership and a no-brainer for someone who does. If you are someone who does not want to purchase club access, there is always the United MileagePlus® Explorer card. It is giving 40,000 miles and no annual fee the first year.

Posts about my trip to Vegas coming next.

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As I blogged a couple of weeks ago, I just redeemed 480,000 United miles for four business class tickets to India. My mileage balance has now fallen below 200,000 miles. This has left a deep desire in my mind to ramp up some miles! With the large balance I had, I had started taking it easy and had been focussed on other programs and credit cards with points like Chase Sapphire. It is back to getting UNited miles now.

Here is what I have been doing:

Applied for the new United MileagePlus® Explorer: The current offer is 40,000 United miles. Not a bad start. I was debating whether to wait for a 60k offer, but decided to bite the bullet and go.

MyPoints clicks: This is something I do not enjoy but free miles are free miles. Click here to enroll in MyPoints. 10,000 MyPoints points gives 5,000 United miles.

Fly: I guess I have to put my b*tt in a seat and fly. I have a trans-con this coming week. That should add 6,000 miles of so, including the elite bonus as a Premier Gold with United. This is actually hurting me (and other Golds) a lot. Pre-merger I would have earned a 100% mileage bonus as a Platinum Exec. Now it is only 50%.

Hotel Points: I primarily stay at Hiltons. It is one of the only hotel programs that allows earning points and miles. I switched my earning preference from points only to points + United miles.

All these mails add up pretty fast, but it took me years to hoard up over half a million miles. I guess I am in withdrawal…

Anyone have any suggestions on how I can max my Unites mileage earning? Leave a comment.

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United has been beaten up bad on its absolutely pathetic boarding process. Just the sheer number of comments I got on my last post on this topic (32 at the time of writing this) is telling. They have turned what used to be an orderly and efficient boarding process into a cattle call, where the only way you did not get boarded ‘first’ was if you did not have a United MileagePlus number.

Well, they seem to have noticed that we hate it. In an email I got today that was giving an update on how the merger is progressing and how they are finally able to reduce hold times, correct messed up mileage balances, they also mentioned that they are studying alternate boarding processes.

Text from their email:

… We are simplifying and better identifying our boarding groups and boarding sequence to improve your experience at the gate. We will introduce our improved boarding process soon.

… The bottom line is that we’ve heard you clearly. Our entire company is focused on delivering the travel experience that you expect from us. This is our number one priority, and we’ll continue to update you as we progress.

Hope they mean what they say. And I hope the new boarding process is really an improvement. What do you think? Leave a comment.

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British Airways has gone wild! They are giving us multiple opportunities to hoard up on Avios. I already have over 155,000 Avios in my household account and am loving these promotions they are running to get my Avios total way way up. Here are a few I found:

British Airways Visa Signature Card® offer for 100,000 Avios!

British Airways has brought back its 100,000 Avios credit card from Chase. I blogged about this credit card offer in my post here. This is a great offer – 100,000 Avios for $20,000 spend in the first year. Even if you don’t hit the spend goals, it is 50,000 Avios after the first purchase and 25,000 Avios after the first $10,000 spent in the firs year (25,000 Avios after the 2nd $10,000 spend). Check it out – British Airways Visa Signature Card®. My wife got this card last year. I got it this year. Glad to see it come back.

25% bonus on transferring Hotel points to Avios

British Airways just announced a promotion where it is offering a 25% bonus on transferring hotel points to Avios. List of participating hotels is available here. Not bad at all! Do note that point to Avios ratio varies by hotel. (Edit: corrected from original post)

Transfer BMI Miles to Avios

As I blogged just a couple of days ago, starting July 3rd, you will be able to transfer your BMI destination miles to Avios (or vice versa). If you have some BMI miles, add them to your Avios.

Remember, Avios also allows for household accounts which allow you to combine miles between family members. Great way to bump up your total Avios.

Happy Avios accumulation! I will end up with over 350,000 Avios by the time I am done!

Is there any other Avios promotion I may have missed? Do you plan to use any of these? Leave a comment.

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By no way does this mean that a merger is sure to happen, but the unions of bankrupt American Airlines have decided to support a potential merger with US Airways. US Airways’ CEO has been hinting on a possible merger for some time now. The unions are backing this because AA is in trouble. As it went into bankruptcy, they announced 13,000 job cuts! A merger with US Airways could be a path to safety for AA.

US Airways itself came to be in its current form thru a merger. The original US Airways was merged with America West, resulting in the current company, which is more America West than US Airways.

The US Airways – American Airlines merger could also make both airlines more competitive with the two mega-airlines that have been created in recent times thru mergers themselves – the current Delta, thru a merger between Delta and Northwest and of course, the current United, thru a merger between United and Continental.

My predictions (guesses):

• Merger will go thru
• The combined airline will be called American Airlines (the larger of the two, with a large international network)
• The combined airline will be a member of the OneWorld alliance (there is no other US based member of the alliance)

What do you think? Is a US Airways – American Airlines merger good for the two airlines? Is it good for us, the customers? Leave a comment…

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