Award Availability, Alila Hotels Joining Hyatt, Coolest Tree Tunnels, Moxy Stay

We bring you a so called study about award availability, luxury Alila Hotels joining Hyatt, travel to see the coolest tree tunnels, my Moxy stay, Citi dropping a bunch of benefits from its cards, Airbnb continues to go upscale, how to use Alaska miles to fly Aer Lingus, Air France and Accor are hooking up, amazing pictures once again, startupville WTF moments, the biggest bankruptcies, an update on my return trip back to the US and much more freeeeeee!

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As you are reading this, I am somewhere in Vienna getting ready to fly Austrian Airlines Business Class to Chicago!

And now a word from our sponsor. Say whaaat? Come down por favor. A loyal reader sent in a $20 Paypal donation and then happened to read something about my amazing sponsorship deals and thought it would be good to pass this charity related event: Games Done Quick. You should check it out, looks like fun. And it benefits one of my favorite charities, Doctors Without Borders. No Wounded Warriors type charity around here like at some other dying blogs 😉

The Wall Street Journal did an article on Frequent Flyer Availability and calling it the more sexy “The Best Frequent-Flier Awards Programs of 2019”. As many commenters indicated, the methodology they used was ridiculous. For our entitled hobbyists clique, the business/first class awards were completely missed and the horizon in that front is dynamically BAD! While the authors cheered the lower prices in economy class, yeah sure. In a few other findings, American Airlines award availability is no longer atrociously non-existent and Delta continues to get worse.

I am not sure what is going with Citi canning all their supplemental card benefits: Citi Replaces All Of Their Card Benefits With A Terrible New Way To Use Points. I think the reasoning behind the move was completely Delta-esque…as in complete BS hoping customers don’t notice. And they had the nerve to offer a “new” way to use points that is completely moronic to use, as in just 0.8 cents per point, WTF! Then again, this hobby is fully aiming to take advantage of the masses while we more educated miles/points enthusiasts exist to do the opposite 🙂

World of Hyatt just continues to improve, Dan has a good list of all the positive moves they have made lately: Alila Hotels And Resorts Are A Bargain With Hyatt Points: Stay In A Villa With A Private Pool For Just 30K Points! The Alila hotels look amazing indeed. Only 16 properties so not a big deal. The point is that they keep adding properties in a steady pace. And in this blog post you can find out how many points they cost: Hyatt is Expanding Again with 16 Luxury Alila Properties – Award Costs and More.

I am really afraid we will see Chase devaluing the ratio for transfers of Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt. So, before this happens, it may be your LAST CHANCE to get thousands of points with all the cards Dan tried to sell in the link above with my links okay? 🙂 #smooth When I get back I think it is time for son to get a Hyatt card so I can add another 50k points into my account hehe.  Funny thing is I am typing this right now from the Hyatt in Thessaloniki, Greece!

If you have plenty of Alaska Airlines miles, you can now burn them to fly on Aer Lingus

Airbnb keeps expanding. I stayed in a few of them in my hometown Larisa, Greece and I have mixed feelings about it. Actually, all my Airbnb stays have been in Greece. The price is right but, maybe I am spoiled, the comforts and consistency I receive in hotels is hard to beat. Anyways, I lost my train of thought: New Airbnb Luxe Lets You Rent Islands and Castles. I always wanted to have my own island or castle you guys. Maybe when the big money behind the TPG Inc. operation will buy me out and I buy one so I can invite you all regulars to stay for freeee! #givingback Ok, that was funny, I laugh with myself sometimes, you should try it too! And then I read this and I almost threw up inside my mouth:

While some Luxe rentals may go for $1,000 per night, others can be as much as $150,000 nightly.

Looks like the Bitcoin bubble is back on. But the hotel brand bubble has never left the building! Hyatt and BTG Homeinns Unveil New Hotel Brand. This brand aims for the Chinese market but still. We don’t need more stinking hotel brands, come on now, enough!

Well, this is a positive I guess if you ever stay in an Accor hotel or fly Air France: Collect Flying Blue miles or use Accor hotels? Here’s a new way to earn and spend.  I have tried two times now to connect my two accounts only to proceed and at the last screen to get an error message. So you have been warned.

If you love traveling (and you do since you are reading this) and trees, I have the link for you: The 7 coolest tree tunnels around the world. Yeah, these are very cool!

Cool twitter thread: WTF moments in Startupville.

These must be some of the best photos I ever posted, I am blown away, WOW! Incredible Cityscapes of Dubai and Singapore in the Midst of Lightning Storms.

The designer of the Soviet MiG airplane was Armenian and some of the pics in his museum are fantastic: Visiting The Mikoyan Brothers Museum.

I knew Lehman Brothers was #1 in the list of The 20 Biggest Bankruptcies in U.S. History.

We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.

Andy continues the posts with actual information you can count, I mean, burn on! Deals and Unicorns in the New Citi 25% Bonus to Flying Blue — Part 2: USA to Europe and South America. These conclusions stood out:

• Flights between North America and Europe/Israel/North Africa are the strongest feature of Flying Blue, but finding ones with no/low fuel surcharges is a challenge.
• Flights to Israel can be a terrific value even with surcharges, especially considering the 25% bonus, both in Economy and Business Class.
• Cheap Delta redemptions with no fuel surcharges are mostly gone.

I am pretty much done with gift card MSing crap, I ain’t got the time! It looks like same old deal killing and devaluing mode is still going in that front too: Negative Changes Coming To Happy Gift Cards Excluding 3rd Party Gift Card Purchases.

Just a little update on my return trip back to the US. The Thessaloniki Hyatt is wonderful, if only everything in Greece worked as perfect! The Aegean lounge at the Thessaloniki airport is great too. I had a pretty uneventful flight in Business class aboard Austrian Airlines from Thessaloniki to Vienna. There was no Business Class boarding separately and then we all got into the shuttle bus with no airconditioning for a 30 second ride to the airplane, last sauna in Greece lol. The food they served was fantastic I must admit. Other than that, not much. Walked a long way to the Moxy Vienna airport hotel hoping to avoid to be #Bonvoyed. Oh boy, is this a super funky hotel or what? I should have taken lots of pics to do a hotel review. But you know I don’t do those as I don’t have the patience and time! Just very funky feeling you guys. Hey, 16k Bonvoy points right at the airport, I can not complain!

Last update from Vienna: I slept really good at the Moxy. Smooth checkout. I am a lowly Gold and I did not even bother to ask for free breakfast. Headed out to the Austrian Airlines Business Class lounge in Terminal 3 Gates F. Nothing spectacular here. Better coffee machines with most selections that I have seen! Scrambled eggs are nasty. I have a really bad habit eating too much on airplanes and lounges. Time to get back to shape when I get back you guys 🙂

I do not link to posts that contain links to the Titan blogs. There was a great one I was going to share today but had a link to a TPG post, so nope!

Some interesting comments about a contest going on in the blogosphere. I am not bothering to click on those posts by the way.

I feel so good coming back to my normal life in the US knowing my mother is in good hands and we no longer have to deal with the family home you guys. These almost six weeks were the toughest physically and emotionally I must admit. And then it hits you that we will all be in my mother’s shoes one day and not be able to function on our own and realize it…and it is NOT easy to come to terms with it. PLAN for that phase of life now, denial is not a solution!

And I leave you with this…Dog stayed at a Moxy last night 🙂

TBB
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