Upcoming trip: China!

My recent schedule has really impacted my writing on the blog, but since it's Leap Day I figured I better get back into it.  And since I'm also traveling this week it's another good motivation for me to put together a post.

That's right...I'm headed to China!  Bejing to be exact.  I will depart on Thursday, arrive Friday evening, tour all day Saturday, and fly back home Sunday.  Yes you read that correctly, I will be there for two nights and one day.

You're probably asking yourself, "why would he do such a short trip?" The best answer I can give would be that I'll take what I can get.  Truthfully I had an international voucher that needed to be used before expiry and since the amount was high enough ($700) it would cover a pretty good trip deal if I could find one. And I did on American!  I'm flying for free on the Dreamliner (upgraded to Business on the outbound) and burning points for the hotel, so the trip overall is costing little to nothing.  A score in my book.

Not only that, but I now have a Chinese Visa good for 10 years of entry (which will be valuable for future trip staging and stopover possibilities).

Stay tuned for trip updates later in the coming week!

Want to buy a castle in the Czech Republic?

This is an intriguing idea, actually:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/you-can-buy-a-czech-castle-for-13-000

I'm curious what kind of cost it would be to do the recap/renovation, but it's actually not out of the realm of possibility.

http://www.vipcastle.com/en/215/

Actually...a better scenario is this:

Friends (at least 10, more would be better), anyone willing to go in with me on a joint venture?  We can calendar the visits and rent it out during the times we're not there to recoup cost.

Upcoming trip: Stanford/San Diego

I'll be on the road coming up this weekend into next week as I attend the MOR Associates IT Leadership meetings being hosted on the Stanford University campus.  Looking forward to being back in sunny SoCal as well since I'm taking the opportunity to head down for a few meetings and to connect with colleagues and friends at SDSU and USD.

And good thing I'm heading out as well...this winter storm they're predicting could be a massive headache for travel!

2016: My Travel Year Ahead

Happy New Year!

Last year I was very blessed in the amount of travel I was able to accomplish - plenty of opportunities and it allowed me to reach some pretty fun status goals.  It helped to have to drive across the country (my Mazda3 made it!) and have a few extra Hyatt nights as well.  So I thought it might be fun to scope out how my year ahead may be looking for points, travel, and other adventures:

United

Sadly, not much flying for me on United last year with the introduction of the PQD requirement.  While I've been very loyal to UA in the past, I made the decision to go with the best option for accruing last year and it was American.  I'm hopeful to get back to some type of status with UA in the future, but it's not looking good.  In the meantime I'll keep trying to get miles via dining and CC use. (update: I've had to make a few UA bookings after all! Guess we'll see how those go...)

American

My effort to focus on AA last year paid off and I was able to achieve Executive Platinum status for all of this year.  Fares are still looking very high during the upcoming summer - just to go home would cost me $500-600 and so I'm wondering how my pattern may change.  I think I'll make Platinum again if my pattern holds...Exec Plat will be tough without some international travel at year end.

Hyatt

I ended up having a few more stays at Hyatt properties than expected last year and was able to qualify for Diamond in 2016.  I'm not sure I'll have enough stays this year to keep it, so I'll keep Platinum status via the Hyatt credit card for sure. Looking forward to trying to use suite upgrades this year as I can.

Overall, it looks like I'll be down a bit in my overall travel for the upcoming year.  I'm trying to scope out more deals when I see them and hope I can still fit a few trips in when I can.

What are your travel plans this year?

The Challenge of Redeeming American AAdvantage Miles on Etihad

During the last year I was fortunate to have a number of trips that took me to international destinations, and thereby afforded me the opportunity to acquire a good number of American AAdvantage miles.  My stockpile has grown sufficiently enough to allow me to work on some aspirational travel opportunities for 2016 - some such opportunities include possible travel in the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia regions.  Unfortunately, American itself does not fly directly to most of those destinations so the only way to get there is to use other OneWorld airlines or AA partners.   One such partner is Etihad.

Etihad at present is a relatively good value proposition, but it doesn't come without its challenges:

1. You can't book Etihad flights directly on AA.com - you must call the Service Center and book with an agent

2. Because award availability doesn't show on AA.com, you have to price out your itinerary on the Etihad website and look for a specific fare class, usually labeled as "guest" space
3. Right now most Etihad options in Business or First class are unable to be seen by the United States call centers

The last point makes things especially interesting - in fact, there is a list group dedicated to booking questions about how to actually book space you may find.  And why, might you wonder, does it matter to book on them?  Well, due to the upcoming AA award chart devaluation, most of the mileage costs will be going up exponentially.  For example, an award that might cost 60,000 miles in First class will be 100,000 miles after March.  Not a good value proposition.

So in order to lock in some options now, I took to the phone to try and get some segments booked.  An adventure ensued!

My first three tries were to the US-based call number for AA - each agent was unable to see any business class availability even though the Etihad site was showing at least two seats available on most flights.  Here is an example (note the 'guest' space):

So...what to do?  Call Australia!  For some reason, the Australian Call Center for AA is able to see and book award space on Etihad right now.  In fact, they're the only one that can (that I know of).  After some hedgy Skype connectivity, I was able to get at least a few options squared away and confirmed on hold.

Persistence paid off in this case but it begs the question - why does one call center see the availability and others don't?  Time for AA IT to get with it, I think...