Catch up by reading the preview, The Banana Pancake Trail to Myanmar Starts This Monday, then the overview, Thailand, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Disney, Home, where the game time decision was made to leave Mongolia for good.
You may be asking yourself, does this guy love Air China or what? The answer is a resounding no. But if you are in Mongolia you only have a few choices out of that place: Korean, Aeroflot, Air China, and the Mongolian ripoff airlines of MIAT and Hunnu. Due to these limited choices, the points flyer is left with little choice as to how to make his exit. This time I used the undervalued and overlooked currency of 25,000 LifeMiles + $200 to escape. Peasant class wasn’t available for points so I splurged for bidness. The alternative was to pay $800 one-way for MIAT via Hong Kong in coach.
After the underwhelming flight from ULN-PEK I had zero expectations for the flight to Bangkok. Despite delays leaving Beijing, I was pleasantly surprised by the hard product (Boeing 777-200) and service on this flight.
That’s all folks!
Catch up by reading the preview, The Banana Pancake Trail to Myanmar Starts This Monday, then the overview, Thailand, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Disney, Home, where the game time decision was made to leave Mongolia for good.
If the appropriate adjective to describe Mongolia is dreary, then the correct adjective to describe Beijing is smoggy. If you somehow manage to make it past the blinding fog and sneak your way past the immigration queue at the Peking Airport then make your way to the Air China Business Class Lounge Beijing.
There you will find all the goodies that every lounge should have. What else is there to say?
Chalk this post up to one of those irritable click-bait reads where an undeserving points churner asks a question only to garner attention.
Now that I have your attention, let me discuss the real reason for this post: caveat emptor.
I originally booked two nights at the Hilton Bora Bora and two nights at the Intercontinental Bora Bora for end of January. Obviously, I did not get to go on the trip. I explained the complications for trying to cancel the Hilton reservation where 190,000 HHonors points were forfeited because the system didn’t process my cancellation.
Call after call to customer service, hang up and try and try again, yielded nothing. Finally I wrote a letter to the hotel personally and followed up today by calling HHonors guest services. Someone reasonable came on the line and emailed me a confirmation that my points would be refunded. Independently, the hotel also emailed to apologize and also processed the refund.
The whole set of circumstances had me nauseous. Could you imagine losing 2 nights in Tahiti because you assumed that the refund would eventually go through? I’ve booked many hotels on Hilton and have run into this technical glitch but eventually it corrected itself. Although this goes without saying, going forward I will be more paranoid of taking screenshots, double checking for cancellation emails, and writing down record locator numbers. The laziness from not doing so isn’t worth all the stress.
Now that the trip is delayed, I will be using the bird to get me two anniversary nights from my Citi Reserve cards. That along with another 95k HHonors already in my account + IHG gives me the option of living in French Polynesia for 7 nights.
That just seems too long but at least I have that option.
Yours truly,
The spoiled, grateful, careless points blogger
Catch up by reading the preview, The Banana Pancake Trail to Myanmar Starts This Monday, then the overview, Thailand, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Disney, Home, where the game time decision was made to leave Mongolia for good.
Perhaps the title borderlines on dramatic but I challenge you to spend a winter in Mongolia and find a more suitable one. The unexpected Exodus which is part of the So Long Mongolia, Hello SE Asia (December-January 2015) Trip Report begins, as it must, with another visit to the highly rated Ulaanbaatar Business Class Lounge (click the link, you will be disappointed).
The Air China business class flight from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing is only 2 hours so I’m not going to take up too much of your time with photos and descriptions of what every airplane looks like. Indeed, this is the case for all my Flight Reviews where only the memorable ones are submitted for your pleasure. Having said that, I feel it’s appropriate to document this flight because of its significance of which at the time I was unaware e.g., I was leaving Mongolia for good.
The plane had seats, they weren’t too comfortable, and the pizza was meh. The Jack and Pepsi was great. That is all.
On a flight from Florida back to Detroit, an Arab-American woman wearing a head scarf was harassed by a passenger who apparently yelled at her, “This is America.” The Detroit Free Press reports and the YouTube video seems to confirm that the flight attendant did not come to the rescue of the passenger. Instead she says the following to the woman’s husband, “You are at my wit’s end. You better be quiet before I kick you off of this plane!” The story has gained plenty of attention both because of the comments of the unruly passenger and because of the actions of the flight attendant.
Many in the Arab-American and Muslim community feel that they are unfairly profiled and harassed because of, as the article states,” their faith or ethnicity.” As a Chaldean person, a Catholic from Iraq, I have been dealing with this issue my entire life. As a youngster returning to the United States after traveling abroad with my parents I would go through immigration in a separate line. I would joke that since my passport says birthplace United States I would have an easier time clearing customs than my parents. I hoped there was a multitude of factors for why my parents were put through extra security e.g., they pack way too many luggage, bring back too many souvenirs (English chocolates).
Still, the stigma as an Arab-American especially after September 11th had me anxious and perhaps paranoid about going through security. The words “You’ve been randomly selected,” stopped feeling so random when it happened over and over again. It happened so frequently that I used to tell my friends that they were jealous that they were missing out on the VIP treatment.
Here was my comedic bit:
After walking through screening machine:
TSA Agent: Sir you have been randomly selected for additionally screening.
Me: Randomly selected?! (Ickey Shuffle ensues)
Agent: Sir, please take a seat.
Me: Oh how nice they want me to be comfortable.
Agent: Please take off your shoes.
Me: They really are pulling out all the stops.
Agent: Sir, we are going to run your bag again through the machine.
Me: How personal!
Agent: Sir, I need to swipe your hands.
Me: How thoughtful to make sure I wasn’t exposed to explosives.
Agent: Sir, thank you and have a great flight.
Me: Who else gets that sort of red carpet treatment?
And off to the gate I went.
The more troubling part aren’t the TSA Agents or the immigration officers but the growing sentiment where being Arab or Muslim equates to being a terrorist. The same friends who get a kick out of my TSA story nonchalantly make terrorist jokes about me that are meant to be humorous but would be in bad taste if made outside the confines of our friendship. Having said that, there is a fine line between joking and ignorance like that displayed on this Delta flight.
To the ignorant passenger I say, “Damn right this is America,” and because it is anyone can practice any religion she chooses without simpletons making comments such as this.
As far as the Delta agent’s handling of the situation, let me, a Michigan native and frequent flier of Delta, generalize by saying that the Detroit crew is routinely less than courteous so the agent’s behavior wasn’t shocking.
To all those who do feel they are racially profiled because of their race or ethnicity, I recommend signing up for TSA PreCheck and Global Entry. That will save you the hassle of security. This is generally true except for my first time using Global Entry when I was, you guessed it, randomly searched.
This is my reaction to a great post from fellow BA blogger and consumer advocate Elliott:
As a travel/points blogger on BoardingArea myself who unfortunately cannot get affiliate links on my site (meaning I’m not biased), I’d have to disagree with the premise that the bloggers are to blame for the uninformed decisions of those applying.
Yes there are those who shove the latest Chase card down everyone’s throats every chance they get but come on, what happened to being responsible with one’s finances?
This is the same problem I have with people who took out ARM mortgages and blamed the banks when they couldn’t refinance their million dollar house at an affordable rate even though their reported household annual income was 50k. Those people were trying to flip a house for a profit much like a points player is trying to churn points for a free ride. Both got caught, both are unhappy and looking for someone to blame.
To be clear, this is separate from predatory lending practices that duped consumers into taking out subprime loans that no one underwriter in his right mind would approve. This has to do with irresponsible people who get in over their heads because they see “2 Free Hyatt Nights” and go out and buy a plasma TV to meet the minimum spend. In fact, if they were paying more attention to the BA bloggers and understood MS better they wouldn’t wind up in their current predicament.
As a final example, take the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) a law intended to protect consumers from overzealous debt collectors. Some consumers manipulate their debt by trying to file suit against the debt collector simply because they don’t want to pay the debt they rightfully owe. These plaintiffs who usually file pro se run this scheme over and over until it is the debt collector who is paying the debtor.
In the words of Mike Ditka, “Come on Man!”
And having just spent all this time writing this comment, I think I’m going to post it on my blog to further the discussion.
Till then,
Keep churning my friends.
#ThePointsOfLife Legal Disclaimer: Only those who are disciplined with their finances should partake in this hobby. Otherwise, you may find yourself submerged in credit card debt, staying for free in a double room that will certainly not have a view of the ocean but may have a complimentary gym.
Thailand-Myanmar-Hong Kong-Disney-Home is how it went. But home was supposed to be back to Mongolia instead of the Magic Kingdom. A quick glance at this Trip Report’s overview confirms this to be true. While pixie dust is attributable to Disney’s Tinker Bell, there is no shortage of golden glitter powder spread throughout Mongolia where promises of fortune are sold everyday by way of Dutch auction.
What started off as a visa run ended up being a mass exodus with many fascinating stops along the way:
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Bangkok, Thailand
Chiang Rai, Thailand
Yangon, Myanmar
Ngwe Saung, Myanmar
Mandalay, Myanmar
Bagan, Myanmar
Hong Kong
Orlando, Florida
The obvious outlier is Orlando which as I mentioned was supposed to be Mongolia. In any event, here’s the picture preview of the second book of the Old Testament:
Groundhog Day 2015: Punxsutawney Phil sees shadow, predicts six more weeks of winter.
Translation: ThePointsOfLife predicts six more years of his friend Musberger working at the same office, complaining about the same things.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve plugged my book Everyone’s Advice Is Wrong . . . Including Minebut it is a safe bet to suggest that those of you reading this from the office at 11PM EST or bright and early tomorrow morning are still going through the same routine year in and year out.
Nothing besides handing off the ball to Lynch is more of a sure thing to reverse the groundhog trend and get you out of your cubicle. While ThePointsOfLife shows you how to take a trip anywhere in the world for free, reading the book will liberate you from daily monotony once and for all.
Don’t believe me? Let’s make a wager for Groundhog Day 2016, if you’re still in your cubicle then you have to buy two copies of the book.
SEO, analytics, and blah blah blah may help the patient blogger expand his readership but here at ThePointsOfLife ain’t nobody got time for that.
That’s why I’ve spent $150,000 for a one second ad ($4.5 million on a thirty-second ad is the going rate) to introduce the Academy Awards of Beers, cleverly called The International Guide to Local Brew during today’s Super Bowl. Traveling to 70 countries, I’ve done my fair share of drinking and now it’s time to pay homage to the brew masters, the drunks, and the aficionados of the hops, barley, and yeast concoction better known as beer.
Light or dark, dunkel or hefe, port or stout, lager or amber, blond or brunette, whatever your fancy, I’ve tried them all. I along with the esteemed members of the Academy are set to announce the winners.
So today whether you are enjoying Budweiser, the official beer of the NFL, or a micro brew, keep an eye out for my commercial featuring the world’s fastest slide show of my beer consumption throughout the world.
For those who can’t wait, here’s a sneak peek of the montage without the fireworks.