Bali to Saigon and in between

Prior to United's announcement of the increase miles required for award travel. I quickly thought a destination to use our miles before the increase, a destination I've always wanted to go is Bali, Indonesia. After many hours on the phone, I finally got an itinerary for our summer travel for the 3 of us. Our strip routing is as follow:

San Francisco (SFO) - Los Angeles (LAX) - United First Class
Los Angeles (LAX)- Bangkok (BKK) - Thai Airways Business Class
Bangkok (BKK) - Denpansar, Bali (DPS) - Thai Airways Business Class
(Destination for 4 days)
Denpansar, Bali (DPS) - Bangkok (BKK) - Thai Airways Business Class
(Stop for 1 night)
Bangkok (BKK) - Singapore (SIN) - Singapore Air Business Class
Singapore (SIN) - Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) - Singapore Air Business Class
(Stop for 7 days)
Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) - Seoul, Korea (ICN) - Asianna Airlines Business Class
Seoul, Korea (ICN) - Los Angeles (LAX)- Asianna Airlines First Class
Los Angeles (LAX) - San Francisco (SFO) - United First Class

Yes, it's lot of flying around, to me it's not only the destination but also the journey itself. Since we are flying in premium cabin, we will get lots of sleep and it won't be tiresome when we get to our destination. To be continued....

Iguazu Falls, Argentina April 2008

With much anticipation, we finally made it to South America. Our trip started in Las Vegas where we stayed a night to visit our friends who we haven't seen in a few years. We got a really awesome Business Class fare on Mexicana Airlines that was too good to pass up ($1350/person). However, having flown many other carriers in Business class, I would rank Mexicana near or at the bottom. Anyway, lets get on with the trip.

After approximately 10 hours flight, we landed in Buenos Aires. We took an Aerolinas Argentina flight to Iguazu Falls. I have to confess, I've never heard of this world famous wonder until I started to research for the trip. If you think Niagara Falls was grand, Iguazu is about 10 times bigger and grander. Iguazu Falls is in the northern part of Argentina bordering Brazil. After our short flight north we landed in Iguazu and took a taxi to our hotel, Sheraton Iguazu. The nice part about the Sheraton is it's right inside the Iguazu Falls national park. It's the only hotel within walking distance to the Falls. We booked regular room on points and got upgraded to a nice suite along with a bottle of wine and snacks. Our suite has a balcony with the view of the falls.

I'll let the pictures describe what a breath taking place it is. No wonder they are calling Iguazu Falls the new 7 wonders of the world.

Sapa, Vietnam June 2004

Even though I was born and raised in Vietnam, but I've never been to Sapa until our visit to Vietnam in 2004. Sapa is a mountain township in northwest Vietnam near the Chinese border. Fansipan mountain is located in this area, dubbed "the roof of Indochina", (3143m or ~10000ft). We took the overnight train from Hanoi departing at midnight and arriving in Lao Cai train station at aroun 6AM. After a short bus ride through the mountain pass, we arrived at our Hotel Victoria. The hotel is on the mountain side overlooking the valley. Sapa has gotten very popular with Western tourists, though the French came to this region during the colonial era as evidence by a roman catholic church in the middle of Sapa's main square. While dinning at the hotel we had conversations with tourists from New Zealand and Israel. The hotel was good standard for the this remote region. It included breakfast for less than $30/night. Though, it's probably much higher now.

The next morning we got up early for our guided trek through the valley. The trek was about 5 hours and our hired guide spoke English, he's a young man from the central province, which was a surprise for us because we expected someone indigenous to the area. However, he was a nice young man and knew enough about the area to keep us entertained.

The H'mong, Dao, Tay, Giay are 4 distinct minority groups in this area. They have their own colorful clothing. I remember seeing, black, hot pink and aqua green for each of the groups. They lived the same way for hundreds of years, other than tourism, their way of life remains the same today.

Sapa is one of those places that I would definitely return again. It's a place to get away from it all, though, I hope the influx of tourism hasn't ruined it.

Old woman throwing tantrum at HKG

Note: Satire is used for the translation and it's not real.

She's basically saying the plane is still there why did you closed the door, why don't you let me board. Airlines employee was trying to calm her down and told her that they will put her on another flight. If this was in the U.S. she would be in jail already. - LOL. Here's the original version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbVw7entkxg

Lastminutetravel.com hint #1

Got your dollar bills ready?
On LastMinuteTravel.com, the world goes on sale starting January 26 - for 15 minutes every day, Monday thru Friday.

Visit www.lastminutetravel.com and explore the hotel page.
It will be blue skies and smooth sailing once you book your next hotel stay for $1 per night.

You'll see Cancun offer with a date 1/17AMEST printed on the boat

Citi Thank You Points

Citi recently announced that the fixed points for flights will no longer be available starting March 1st, 2009. This is a huge blow to the TYN program. Unfortunately, I have never paid much attention to the Thank You Points program until the party was almost over in the summer of 2007 as posted here on Flyertalk. However, after the devaluation, it continued to be an attractive option for miles and points connoisseurs. Because Thank you points were relatively easy to obtain and you can still get 3 cents per point using fixed points strategies for the domestic business class redemptions. The game was still good until now. After March 1st, I'll be using the Citi Platinium Amex card less and returning to one of my favorites, Starwood American Express Card.

SFO or LAX to Sydney Australia for about $700

This is the lowest I've seen fares to Australia for awhile. Wow! $710 from SFO - SYD! I priced out an itinerary from Mar 9 to Mar 16. It's on United Airlines and looks like this fare is good from Mar 9 through June 15, 2009.

The World for a dollar

"Starting in January, you will have 15 minutes, Monday - Friday for 2 weeks to buy any hotel for $1 per night. You won't know which 15 minutes you will be able to put those dollar bills to use, so sign up for our email hints to get ahead of the game."

Click here for details.

I wish I am in high school

Cathay Pacific is proud to launch 'I Can Fly', a program that
offers high school students the opportunity to step behind the
scenes of commercial aviation and explore various careers in
this exciting industry. We provide a 9-week Academy that meets
once a week to help them explore various careers in aviation.

Through a series of field trips, lectures and hands-on
exercises, participants will learn everything about aviation
from engineering to inflight catering, and even meet real
pilots and flight attendants.

The program is provided free of charge to high school students
in the San Francisco Bay Area. Applications are being accepted now.

Visit:
http://www.cathayusa.com/icanfly for more details.

Please feel free to forward this email to a high school
student you may know.

- Cathay Pacific Airways

United Award Travel Increase

United Airlines has recently announced the increase of miles required for award travel starting January 1, 2009. I have banked over 600,000 miles in my account, Anna has almost 400,000 miles and Alysia has over 200,000 miles. That's 1.2 Million miles, enough for 12 tickets in First Class on Star Alliance with the old plan. This new devaluation makes a big dent to our mileage accounts. We used to be able to redeem 60K miles for economy, 90K miles for Business and 120 miles for First class to Asia. Now, we'll have to shell out 65K, 125K and 145K respectively. Thumb down to United.