It’s been a while (since April 2014 in Maui!) but the time has come for another trip. This time TBB is hacking a trip to Hong Kong in First Class & luxury hotels for about 227,750 miles/points and it’s FREE!
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Here is what I managed to do with my miles/points:
- 70,000 United Miles & $39.70 in taxes/fees for Detroit to Frankfurt on Lufthansa in Business Class AND Frankfurt to Bangkok on Thai Airways A380 in First Class AND Bangkok to Hong Kong on Thai Airways in First Class [UPDATE: Lufthansa canceled my flight due to the pilot strike! I managed to get rebooked on Air France Detroit to Paris in Business Class and then still flew on the A380 in Thai Airways First Class and on to Hong Kong as previously arranged. I earned 5,943 Delta Skymiles on the AF flight, thanks Lufthansa!]
- 42,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points for 2 nights in a Club room at the Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui
- 45,000 IHG Rewards points for 1 night at the Intercontinental Hong Kong
- 1 more night at the Intercontinental Hong Kong using an IHG Rewards Visa card anniversary night
- 60,750 AA miles (less 10% rebate due to AA card) & $63 in taxes/fees for Hong Kong to New York City JFK on Cathay Pacific in First Class and then New York City LaGuardia to Detroit on American in First Class
- 10,000 Starwood SPG points for one night in the New York City JFK Sheraton (late night arrival)
Layovers are 6 hours in Frankfurt and 8 hours in Bangkok. They are that long on purpose to maximize time in the lounges. I can’t wait for my massage in the Thai Airways First Class Lounge finally in the Bangkok BKK airport!
All taxes & fees were reimbursed using Barclaycard Arrival points by the way so, in a heavily biased way, this trip is FREE! I will conveniently neglect the time and costs involved in earning all these points but let’s just assume all of them were earned with credit card signing bonuses shall we? 🙂 Which is true for the most part!
I was hoping to finally experience the Lufthansa First Class and started checking the ANA website to see when an F seat is available so I can call United to switch me to it from my Business Class seat. Only to find out from a reader that the Detroit to Frankfurt flight does not operate in F, only Business! I may be able to snag an F seat but I will only have the Business Class meals. Ok, I am not complaining you guys, I just wanted to see what the fuss is all about! I am not going to write an angry rant about it like some other bloggers, I am grateful for the opportunity to do this.
In addition, another 1,000 Shangri La Golden Circle points were used to get me a $100 voucher for a restaurant in one of their hotels. I chose the Shangri La Island property.
At the end of the day, all these miles and points we collect we do it for…this! To get away and explore the world around us. I am always so excited to be…taking off and just roaming the streets in a new city. It is incredibly invigorating and liberating. I always come back so…refreshed and ready to…replenish my miles/points balances lol.
I have done pretty good research on what to see/eat/do in Hong Kong. Good friend’s sister lives here and works for Vogue magazine and will look into getting me in one of the model photo shoots, definitely one of the items in my bucket list 🙂 I may get to meet a few colleagues and a guy from my hometown who moved to HK two years ago.
Blog posts with ongoing reviews of blog content will be disrupted. Responding to comments will also be affected too so sorry about that in advance. So you super pumping blogger…pump all you want while I am over dosing on Dim Sum and other delicacies! Blog Buzz may morph and appear in the TBB comments like it did the day before!
I have no idea when a full trip report will be posted here, probably never at this rate lol. For all TBB action as it happens on the trip I recommend you follow me on Twitter!
I have posts scheduled through Sunday Monday of next week and will do my best to get one posted every day until my return! No one will accuse me of mailing them in (okay, one is a total filler job…just one!). And I have a surprise one of these days: A trip report from Star Mega DO 2 back in 2010 with pictures never seen before! It contains some bloggers in compromising positions #mysterioushint.
Best thing that was posted in the blogs all day Tuesday December 2nd was this by Travel Is Free on Master Chart of What Sites Search Airline Award Availability I bookmarked it!
And I leave with you…Chris Farley!
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TBB
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Uno
Go to Tim Ho Wan in HK.
Have fun
Have a good trip, good luck with the LH labor situation. Also, dying to hear about your NYC-DTW flight on AA in F. I am guessing that could warrant a 13 part trip report on its own! 😉
If you can pry an extra Rimowa kit from TG on your flight to BKK let me know! I’ll pay more than what you made all year from Amazon! Enjoy the spa, the oil massage is so relaxing you won’t want to leave!
Have a great trip!!
When the cat’s away, the mice will MARKET CREDIT CARDS, BABY! WOOO!
Thanks everyone, running behind, taking off in 20 minutes to DTW…
I will take a pic of my flat bed in AA F on LGA-DTW…the only seat pick you will see LOL.
Have posts scheduled through Monday now.
Excuse the pump filler post tomorrow 🙂
We want selfies in the bathrooms!
I thought about it….I almost tried to find a way to do one and justify it…but I could not so there goes another trip without a bathroom selfie. Maybe I get inspired in my Cathay Pacific F flight coming back lol.
enjoy scrambled eggs at the ADC!
https://chinchaijiak.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/australia-dairy-company-and-its-legendary-scrambled-egg/
Sounds awesome!
Enjoy! This is what this hobby is all about. You gotta burn more of your miles and points, make it a resolution for 2015, get your total balance below ~2.5 million.
Have a glass of Krug on your return home, send me the bill… 😉
Cheers,
PedroNY
Update on my trip!
Well, I need to redo my blog post because the Lufthansa pilots decided to extend their strike which was supposed to end last night at midnight. I thought I was in the clear and did not even bother checking online the flight status. I get here early at 10.30 as my friend was flying to Thailand and his wife drove us. So, I get here and go to the Lufthansa lounge only to be told the flight has been canceled!
This is why you dress nice when you fly Business or First class. You should have seen my face dropped as all this meticulous planning for this trip was now blowing up in my face! Good words about LH and unkind words about the pilots (not angry not rude!) for making the staff on duty’s work harder. A super nice efficient agent was told by a supervisor to try to get me to Paris tonight. I patiently waited biting my tongue and praying. The agent took some time on the phone to put it all together telling me not to worry. I was not going to start celebrating yet until I had something in my hands. After a while she told me it was done: She rebooked me on Air France #377 (codeshare with Delta) tonight leaving at 9.30 pm (original Lufthansa flight was supposed to depart at 4.45 pm!) in Business Class and then onwards to Thai Airways #931 to Bangkok in First Class on the A380 (and of course my Thai Airways Bangkok-Hong Kong was not affected). We had to walk together to the office to get me a printout of the new itinerary but no boarding pass. So I took the shuttle to the Delta Terminal and checked with a Delta agent & got my boarding pass with an aisle business class seat.
My concern is whether I make my connection in Paris CDG airport as connecting there is a zoo. It should be enough but what if there is a delay for whatever reason…Of course I gave my Delta Skymiles number to the Delta agent 🙂 My other concern is I do not have a boarding pass Paris-Bangkok, phone agents can’t help me pick a seat (“airport controlled”) and online system at Thai website does not let me either. Not sure how far is Thai Airways boarding from where Air France is landing in Paris CDG airport…
So now I am stuck at the Detroit Lufthansa lounge eating and drinking and getting some work done online…
I am going to leave my post intact and update it one day when I get a chance 🙂
Gave shuttle driver $1 for carrying my bag so trip is no longer Free 🙂
So, all in all, this could have turned into a disaster but it appears I have done well.
Sounds like a blast of a trip, no curve ball like this will derail it. Enjoy the flight via Paris!
Cheers,
PedroNY
Barely made my flight in CDG! That airport’s design is something out of a horror show! Last security clearance and hear my name announced to report to the gate immediately. Heart never beat so fast! Got there with less than 5 minutes to go before boarding so the end was good. And what an amazing flight it was, WOW!
I tasted Krug once and never again. I never drink champagne, never liked it. I am weird
I flew FRA – DTW in F earlier this year, so you might be able to get something to work! Or maybe I was just lucky.
Only one day a week Lufthansa actually offers F service to FRA I was told. The rest is only C service.
Anyways, what they did for me will work just fine. My goal was to fly F in Thai Airways on A380. Flew to FRA on Lufthansa in Business several times., This way I can snag some Skymiles and fly a new airline Air France.
Drinking cappuccinos in the detroit Lufthansa lounge. And eating. Will stay here until 6pm closing time.
Also — I’m going to Hong Kong in December and I want to be in a model in a photoshoot!!
That made me smile.
Well it looks like no photoshoots are scheduled while I am here so my dream to hold the water for them and just be a gopher in the studio will just have to wait lol.
If you were here with me I could convince my friend’s sister that you should be in the photo shoot 🙂
Hope that hostel article I saw you posted was not about you!
Love the cappuccino here!
Did you pre-order your Lobster Thermidor on TG? Yum!
Good luck in CDG, F on the A380 is nice… enjoy the “lounge” at the front of First.
The F bathroom is bigger than my cube at work.
No preordering at all. I just hope I make it on the flight. I think I will be just fine with the offerings 🙂
Oh oh are you tempting me to do a selfie in the F bathroom? oh oh
How did you get the Shangri La points? That sounds like a cool redemption!
Earlier this year Shangri La’s loyalty program had this online game. You could play once per week and earn 200 points. You can redeem 1,000 for a $100 voucher for dining credit in one of their hotels. Probably one of the easiest ways to earn $100. I am going to the Island Shangri La property to the Summer Palace restaurant for dim sum.
I know many in the hobby gamed this and opened more than one account. To the point that Shagri La blocked accounts and required verification of identity to unblock the accounts. I only opened one account because, well, that seemed wrong to me to open different accounts. I don’t judge…well, kind of.
I have a theory the expensive Delta MQM pricing was just a cover ploy by Amex to give blogs a reason to sell more Platinum and Reserve cards.
Sounds like a good theory to me!
Dude, have a great trip, but flying across the world for 4 nights? But routing via Bangkok without getting out? I would screw the airport massage, ride into the city, have a gorgeous meal for pennies along with a couple of $5-10 massages that are probably every bit as good. Oh, well…
Yeah I know but this was a quick trip to get away to experience all this stuff all these expert bloggers keep blogging about and just burn some miles because my balances are just ridiculous! I timed the BKK stop to spend hours in the Thai Airways Royal First lounge on purpose and I have exactly 34 minutes before my Free massage. I am going to leave BKK trip for another time. I think if I visit i may not want to leave…All the nice looking ladies in the lounge bow at me which makes me feel so important or something lol. They also did that at the end of the A380 flight and wanted to bow back and say “No, THANK YOU for the experience!”
Wow awesome! Sounds like an amazing trip.
I need to update the diversion due to the Lufthansa pilot strike which worked out GREAT! Thanks
I am interested in one thing. How those models look . Pics please if you’re able to 😉
Sadly, oh so sadly, it does not appear that this will become a reality. Picked wrong time to visit. My timing has never been good so nothing new. That would have made a great blog post indeed!
TBB,
This post read like all the other travel bloggers… except for one thing that was noticeably missing… links to various credit card offers. 😉
I think you are right 🙂
“I earned 5,943 Delta Skymiles on the AF ”
How can you earned Skymiles since your flight on AF is award flight and not paid/revenue flight?
Due to the Lufthansa strike they rebooked me on the Air France flight. When that happens, usually, they rebook you on a non-award fare bucket, therefore you can get lucky and get all the miles you would normally get as if this was an actual regular flight. Bingo!
That’s awesome! You were very lucky! Btw I just found your blog and I really enjoyed it so much. Very different with other blogs that full of cc affiliate links lol. Keep it up and I will be your loyal reader.
David, you are a little too late amigo. Read my latest post http://travelbloggerbuzz.com/tbb-to-devolve-like-evolve-did-the-end-of-feedly-blog-addiction/
Wait how can it cost 70k United miles from Detroit to Frankfurt to BKK to HKG? It would be 85k in economy going through Chicago, no?
That was booked on the very last day before the mega United devaluation took effect…