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Pleasantly surprised by Cathay Pacific's service for oneworld emerald customers even in economy. Middle seat was automatically blocked off, multiple FAs came by to greet me, was given a bottle of water and a blanket / pillow
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Apparently in Germany, if your DB train arrives at your destination between 1 hour and up to 2 hours late, you get 25% compensation, and if 2 hours or more, 50% compensation.
Had a crazy delay going from Berlin to Munich where our train arrived 2.5 hours late 🥲
We’ve started a new project to post Asia travel deals, Asian Luxe Travel! It will focus on premium travel in Asia, such as business class deals and luxury hotels.
If interested, please subscribe to whichever social media channel you prefer!
Asian Luxe Travel Twitter
Asian Luxe Travel Facebook
Asian Luxe Travel Threads
For example, we already posted deals from Tokyo to Europe starting from $2120 round trip in business class on China Eastern / China Southern.
I recently stayed at the Hyatt Centric Waikiki and Hyatt Regency Waikiki on another awesome trip to Oahu, my favorite island, and want to share my assessments, which may help you choose on your next trip if the pricing for both is similar, as it was for us. The purpose of our trip was primarily to requalify for Hyatt Globalist under their double elite night promotion, and we were fortunate to hang out with family and friends who were after the same goal. We stayed at Hyatt Centric for 4 nights and Hyatt Regency for 7 nights, both on the Healthcare Friends & Family rate (which does earn elite nights and points), and I applied my Amex Offers and Chase Offers to them.
Detailed review of Ventana Big Sur, pro tips for your stay, and suggestions for what to do around the area and along the beautiful Pacific coastline. Click the title to read more.
Hello everyone! I’m probably 3 years behind on reviewing things but I really wanted to get this one done asap before I forget any details since there are probably people out there who are trying to decide between W Maldives and St. Regis Maldives and I hope this post will help. Prior to my stay, I couldn’t find very many thorough reviews on the W Maldives, which made it very difficult to choose between them for my stay during the small window of opportunity in August 2018 when overwater villas at both properties were booking at 340k points for 5 nights. Due to booking a ton of travel packages, I was just shy of being able to book both to decide later. I booked W Maldives first and unfortunately the opportunity passed before I had enough points to book St. Regis also. I wish I had booked both back to back and stayed at both. 😉
Last week, Marriott announced even more category changes to their hotel list, effective March 5, 2019. Here’s the One Mile At A Time post about it with more information.
I wanted to quickly visualize the new categories on a map, so I took a few hours to throw this together. Caveat: Since I didn’t want to spend even more hours going over it, there might be a few mistakes and duplicates. Also, for some reason a lot of special characters turned out as gibberish that I couldn’t be bothered to fix. OCD doesn’t win today.
Before heading to the restaurant, I thought: “it’d be great if someone could earn Hilton points off this lunch!” As a Hilton Diamond member, I volunteered as I would get a 100% bonus on any points earned.
I asked our host about this, and he said I could add my HHonors number to the final invoice afterwards. We proceeded to have a very nice underwater lunch. Afterwards, we were brought to the hotel reception to settle our bill. I asked about adding my HHonors number to the bill, but unfortunately was told that we needed to have been staying at the resort to earn points. But wait! With a restaurant bill of $6100 for a 15 person lunch, I would earn 61,000 base points + 100% bonus, making it 122,000 points total. I quickly checked how much it would cost to book a room for the night, and surprisingly, low level award availability was still available. The Conrad Maldives Rangali is a top category Hilton hotel, which makes the lowest standard award redemption 95,000 points. For some reason recently, the overwater villas have been available for the same price as a standard beach villa (h/t OMAAT.) There were no additional service charges or taxes since the room rate was paid in points. So I asked the reception, what if I booked a room right now? They hesitantly said yes, that would work.
So I booked a points stay for a water villa on the spot and gave the confirmation number to the reception. They had us email 2 of our passports to the hotel. However, it took around 40 minutes for them to find the reservation and make a room available for us. Initially they thought I was in a beachfront villa as they couldn’t see the confirmation. Eventually, they had me email the confirmation to them to get the check in process rolling.
We took a small dhoni over to the other island where the overwater villas were. Unfortunately, the hotel was being unusually strict about guests even just visiting the room, saying that only 1 additional person could visit the room at a time beyond the 2 registered guests even though they knew we’d only be there for a few hours.
So a few of us went to check out the villa, and swim around while the rest of us hung around the island. The villa was quite nice, with a very large bedroom and bathroom, and a back deck leading straight into a shallow part of the ocean that we could swim in. As a Diamond guest, we also received a welcome gift of sparkling wine and chocolates, along with a selection of fruits that came with the room. After they left us alone though, everyone came over to hang out and have a party! 🙂
Overall, it was a nice resort visit, though customer service was somewhat slow. Plus, we got a free overwater villa with lunch and access to the rest of the resort!
Following up on the points, I waited 2 weeks for the stay to credit to my account, but it never did. After filing a missing stay request with Hilton, after 4 days, the stay credited, but only 1000 Diamond bonus points and 2000 points from the Points Unlimited bonus offer. Something wasn’t right here. I speculate that they messed up my check in, which I why it took so long. So I called up Hilton customer service, and they were able to pull up the bill and credit the stay… by adding another stay to my account with another 1000 Diamond bonus and 2000 points bonus! So a total of 6000 bonus points on top of the base points, and 1 extra stay credit for no reason.
Our itinerary was pretty tight since we planned to go from Tokyo to Fuji to Hakone all within one day. We planned to take the bus from Tokyo to Fuji Five Lakes and sightsee around the area before taking another bus down to Hakone, where we would do more sightseeing before finally checking into our hotel.
We had two carry-on rolling suitcases. The more I thought about it, the more dreadful dragging them around the whole day sounded. My original plan was to store the suitcases in lockers at Lake Kawaguchiko Station, but I didn’t know how plentiful the lockers were (although I read on Tripadvisor that people have just left their suitcases on top of the full lockers and because Japan is so safe, nobody had touched them by the end of the day) and it didn’t solve the problem of having to drag them around Hakone either.
Then I discovered the amazingness that is Yamato Transport and other transportation services that offer to transport luggage overnight for very affordable prices. Yamato is the largest door-to-door delivery company in Japan. Japanese people often use them on their own trips throughout Japan.
In a nutshell, you can send your luggage directly to your hotel, same day or overnight, for a flat fee per item based on size and distance. Click here for the details and rates. The maximum size is 160 cm length+width+height and the maximum weight is 25 kg. You can have the luggage picked up directly from your room, or you can drop off your luggage at one of their offices (for a discount!) or at a convenience store like 7-11, which are everywhere. You can even send your luggage straight to/from airports.
After our 3rd night at Andaz Tokyo, we had accumulated enough things where it became a no-brainer to use the service rather than drag our luggage around and store it in lockers on our way to Hakone. I contacted the concierge, and they filled out the paperwork for me and asked me to have my bags ready to go by 6 pm that night. I packed our essentials for the night and for our day-trip in a backpack, which would be much easier to trek around with and use lockers for, and called the concierge when I was ready. The bellhop came to the room and picked up the luggage. I charged it to our hotel bill and it was Y1700 per suitcase (less than US $15). I felt that was really quite reasonable for overnight shipping of a bulky heavy suitcase! For comparison, lockers would’ve cost Y600 per suitcase of this size.
The next day, after a long and tiring day of sightseeing around the Fuji-Hakone area, we arrived at the Hyatt Regency in Hakone and checked in. The hotel staff informed us that the luggage was already in our suite, which felt pretty awesome.
I thought that would be the only time we would need the service on our trip, but the story doesn’t end there.
My husband accidentally left his wallet and charging cable in our room at Hakone and we didn’t realize it until our train arrived back in Tokyo and he couldn’t make a transfer through the gates since his Suica card was in his wallet. The staff at Hakone had emailed me as soon as the cleaning staff discovered it, but I didn’t happen to check my email during the train ride.
I called the hotel when I discovered the items missing, and they immediately arranged for overnight delivery to our next hotel, which was a capsule hotel (First Cabin Kyobashi, great hotel, by the way) since we were leaving for the airport the next day. They provided a tracking number, and the parcel arrived by noon to the front desk. Hyatt had packed the wallet and cable in bubble wrap and placed them in a little paper shopping bag. They charged it to my card on file, and it was Y700. That’s about US $6 for overnight shipping of a wallet that contained a bunch of cash…small price to pay!
In addition to the convenience, prices, and speeds, I was also impressed by the handling. We in America are used to delivery companies like UPS and Fedex throwing our parcels around without a care in the world, often causing damage to the boxes or contents inside. I didn’t feel like that was the case in Japan. Yamato Transport handled and delivered everything with care, no matter how small or big or heavy it was.
Hopefully this information helps you on your next trip to Japan!
In May 2016, I signed up for Founderscard and detailed my experience here. One of the benefits of Founderscard is Total Rewards Diamond status, which is useful for people who go to Vegas and Atlantic City. I enjoyed the benefits of TR Diamond in my last 2 trips to Vegas since receiving the status, and recently booked my free 4 night stay at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. I had first heard about this benefit via TPG’s post, and originally people were skeptical about it and thought there would be some gambling requirement, etc. I thought I would write a post today for anyone who is planning to go. For the current benefit, the trip must be booked before Jan 31, 2017, with travel before the end of Feb.
My friend Michael (not my co-blogger) had gone at the end of September (during hurricane season, no less) and provided a lot of the tips and advice I will be describing in this post. He was essential in my preparation for this trip. Thanks, Michael!!
I made the reservation in November by contacting Atlantis Casino VIP Services and got a bunch of my TR Diamond friends to join in. In all, we booked 5 rooms for 8 people for mid-January. There are two packages available for the benefit:
The Daily Resort Fee is $49.95 + $3.75 VAT for a total of $53.70 per room per night or $214.80 for all 4 nights. Unless you want to gamble on turning your $100 free slot play into $200+, I would recommend selecting the Beach Towers, which is connected to the Coral Towers and is less than a 5 minute walk away through a beautiful hallway adorned with dolphin fountains.
I should also note that you still have to pay the VAT on the room rate and resort fees even though the room is complimentary, and there is also a mandatory gratuity. In all, expect to pay $6.99 (room charge) + $4.88 (VAT) + $10 (gratuity) + $3.74 (resort fee VAT) = $25.61 per room per night for couples or $102.44 for all 4 nights. For guests staying alone in the room, it would be $6.99 (room charge) + $4.88 (VAT) + $5.00 (gratuity) + $3.74 (resort fee VAT) = $20.61 or $82.44 for all 4 nights.
Jetblue was the best option in terms of timing for flying to NAS. I booked my flights SFO-FLL-NAS roundtrip with those Jetblue PointsMatch points for a total of 47,600 points and $214.38 taxes for two people. The cash equivalent of the flights was $954.00 for a cpp of 1.38. In hindsight, due to those taxes, it may have been better to book with Chase Sapphire Reserve at 1.5 cpp, but oh well.
Besides your usual beach gear, like swimsuits (I recommend bringing 2, since it takes a long time to dry due to the humidity), sunglasses, hat, sunblock, chargers, action cameras, water shoes, sandals, etc, here are a few things I’d recommend adding to your packing list:
Sadly, the Bahamas does not have Uber, so we arrived at NAS and found a sea of taxis. They stated that the fare was $32 for the first 2 people, $3 per person thereafter, $2 for the bridge toll to Paradise Island (entering the island only), and $1 per piece of luggage.We told them we had 5 people and they piled us into a van and said it would be $32+$3×9+$2+$1+$1+$1=$49 (we had 3 pieces of carryon luggage). I later found out that the sign on the taxi stand says each person is entitled to 1 bag and 1 carryon, and the $1 is only for additional bags, so we were overcharged $3. Oh well. Here is the price list for your future reference:
The ride is about 20-25 min for about 10 miles.
Our van looked like it was about to fall apart, and at one point halfway, it started smelling like gas and the driver slowed down to a crawl and told us his engine was overheating. We managed to roll into a gas station and the driver “fixed” his car there. This was actually a welcome opportunity for us to buy some gas station fried chicken. We bought about 10 small pieces for $20. This was one of the cheaper foods we’d find on this island… When we finally arrived at the resort, the driver opened the door to let us out and the handle fell off. #facepalm
We took the taxi to/from the airport 3 more times after this since we flew out of NAS to go to Exuma on our last full day. We noticed that all three times, the taxi drivers tried to charge us more than what was posted (one driver wanted to charge $10 PER PERSON!). We had to hold our ground firmly on the posted price and they did not fight back too much. I told one taxi driver that the price should be $46, and he said, “Well you pay the toll then.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll pay you $44 then.” 🤣
The moral of the story here is: DO YOUR OWN CALCULATIONS.
We arrived around 11 pm. The check in for the Beach Towers is at Coral Towers (so this is where you tell the taxi driver drop you off). As we walked through the building on the Wednesday evening, it was clear that the hotel was very empty. Many more guests arrived on Friday and the weekend, and even locals come to hang out at Atlantis on the weekends.
Atlantis is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, so put your rewards number in at the front desk. Platinum Elite gets a choice between a half bottle of wine and a snack OR 500 points. I took the points. I put my SPG credit card on the reservation for 2X SPG points at Marriott properties.
Before the trip, I tried to email for a possible upgrade to a different type of room since we had so many people, but was denied. If you check on the Atlantis website, you will see they have a variety of buildings on the expansive property of all different types ranging from mini apartments with kitchens next to the yacht dock to luxury suites. The Beach Tower is the cheapest and least luxurious of them all, but hopefully you won’t be spending much time in your room anyways.
Upon check-in, we were given the crappiest rooms in the Beach Towers by a receptionist who I wouldn’t exactly describe as friendly. When we got up to our room, the view was of a large flat roof.
After the first night, I asked for a room on the other side of the hotel facing the pools/ocean since the hotel was not full by any means, and was approved for a room change. The new room view was wonderful! It was definitely worth the move.
All of the rooms have balconies, which was really nice. The bathtubs have a clothesline, but I wouldn’t recommend hang-drying anything in there since it’s rather humid. Even the carpet felt like it was always slightly damp. I dried everything on the balcony instead, and even then it would take 2 full days to dry.
The rooms and the building were definitely showing their age and there were multiple maintenance issues. For example, in one of our rooms, the soap dish, hair dryer, and clothesline were all broken. On our 3rd night, there was a power outage in the middle of the night, which caused some people’s TVs to start screeching for over half an hour until they could figure out how to turn it off. On our last morning, the wi-fi and TV were down for over an hour, which made it hard for us to coordinate (we mostly were using Facebook Messenger). I reported all of these to Atlantis.
| Wi-Fi in guest rooms and lobby areas for up four (4) devices | For one of my friends, the previous guest’s devices were still connected, so it required IT to reset his room’s connection to free up the device slots. |
| Access to Aquaventure, a one-of-a-kind 141 acre waterscape | This is definitely the highlight of the resort. You get a wristband at one of the huts at Aquaventure (centrally located in the resort) and you can go on all the rides, use the River Rapids, etc. Plan to spend most of your days here! More on this below. |
| Access to the Fitness Center: Up to 2 persons per day per room | This is really far away from the Beach Towers, about a 15 min walk. It’s very nice though. From the site: Fitness center access entitles guests to complimentary use of the cardio studio, universal and free weights only. Tennis, fitness classes and personal training sessions are not included. |
| Two (2) 20 oz. bottles of water daily per room | Don’t touch the water bottles in the room…they cost $7 each. You get 4 water passes as part of your resort fee, each pass gets you 2 x 20 oz bottles of water at any food and beverage establishment. For us, 8 bottles was definitely enough for the 4 nights. |
| Unlimited local phone calls | We used this to call each other quickly and also to make arrangements for our day tour of Exuma (non-Atlantis). |
| Access to the Atlantis Movie Theater | The movie theater is between the Coral and Beach Towers. We didn’t watch any movies but they had daily showings of movies like The Secret Life of Pets. |
| Resort Shuttle Service | Honestly, we never saw the resort shuttles, and never used them. |
| In-Room Coffee and Tea | They use Starbucks coffee and Tazo tea. |
| Casino Lessons | We did not check this out. |
You may pick up your C-Pass at the rewards desk in the Casino during their open hours. DO NOT LOSE IT, since it cannot be replaced. When redeeming experiences on the pass, you must present both the pass and your room key.
| Experience | Value | Review |
| One shallow water dolphin interaction for one person per room | $150 |
Make your reservations first thing after checking in (call the Dolphin Cay from your room during their open hours and make a reservation). Wetsuits are provided. No cameras allowed whatsoever. No jewelry allowed. The experience is approximately 1 hour and consists of a short orientation (i.e. never touch the dolphin’s face, they don’t like it), and then you split up into ~5 groups. Each group has a trainer and a dolphin, and the trainer will have the dolphin do a few tricks, and then each person gets photos with the dolphin — kissing, high-fiving, and feeding, and then a pose behind the dolphin. Basically, there is a LOT of waiting around while each person takes photos. Warning: the official photographers are not very good and many of our photos came out focused on the wrong thing. Also, the photos are expensive. We purchased our group photo for $30 (an 8×10). The digital photos cost $149, even if you only want ONE photo, it doesn’t matter. It’s really a shame you can’t bring a GoPro or something. Since this free interaction is only for one person per room, your companions can watch from a viewing deck that is pretty far away (basically, they can’t really see much and they can’t talk to you). There is an option to watch from the little beach but it would cost them $33 for that privilege. |
| One round of golf | $275-295 | Can’t be booked for play prior to noon on Friday or Saturday. Does not include rental clubs ($75 per person). |
| One Sushi and Sake Sampler at Nobu (6 pieces of sushi and 2 shots of sake) | $35 + $8 gratuity/VAT | Nobu is a fine-dining Japanese restaurant located in the Casino. The sampler was delicious, but extremely small. It’s more like a snack. The sake tasted like Sho Chiku Bai. VAT and gratuity are also complimentary (covered by the pass). |
| Two cocktails at Olives | ~$30 + $7 gratuity/VAT | Olives is a restaurant/bar located in the Casino. The service at the bar is horrendously slow (took 20-30 minutes to take our orders, then another 10-20 minutes to make the drinks), and the glasses were often not fully washed. We opted for disposable plastic to-go cups. VAT and gratuity are also complimentary (covered by the pass). |
| Two cocktails at Seafire Steakhouse | $25 + $5.63 gratuity/VAT | Seafire Steakhouse is located in Marina Village (a short walk from the Casino) and has very limited hours. I think their hours are 5-11 pm and they’re not open every day. One of the members in our group basically forfeited this item on their C-Pass because the hours were not convenient for him. The service is also very slow here but slightly faster than at Olives. VAT and gratuity are also complimentary (covered by the pass). |
Note: You will MOST LIKELY see some or all of these charges show up on your final hotel bill, so be sure to read it carefully. I had the Nobu, Olives, and Seafire Steakhouse charges show up on my bill. The front desk quickly took it off after confirming that I had a C-Pass, so I am glad we looked at our bills carefully.
The Casino is not part of the Total Rewards or Caesars network, as I erroneously believed in the beginning. So, your Diamond card is useless here, no special lines for you or anything. You can get a specific Atlantis player’s card, or your room key also works as a player’s card.
No, you cannot charge bets to your room and cash out; i.e. this casino is not MS-able in that way. 😉
Written by Michael:
Compared to Atlantic City or Vegas casinos, this one is small, but they have all the standard games. (note from Esther: They do NOT have poker, pai gow, or baccarat, but there is video poker)
They have free slot play tournaments Sunday – Thursday at 11:00am, 11:30am, 8:00pm, and 8:30pm. Friday – Saturday 11:00am and 11:30am. The tournament contains a maximum of 20 people. You hit a button as fast as you can for five minutes and the one with the most points at the end wins. (from Esther: the game is completely based on pure luck, but in the 11:00 am tournament on Thursday that we played in, two of my friends earned 2nd and 3rd place!)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-Hotels-com-Gift-Card-Gift-Card-For-Only-40/152242949031
Note that there have been a few purchasers who have indicated that they got charged for a cash advance when making the purchase, but if you can avoid using Paypal, you should be okay (Doctor of Credit has a writeup of the last time this happened with a merchant). Reviews of the merchant are fine otherwise.
Even better, Hotels.com gives you the option to combine gift cards, allowing you to use more than 1 if you can get your hands on them (the deal itself is limit 1, but you can expect that these will hit gift card resellers soon or you can ask your friends to buy them for you). Find the combine link here:
https://www.hotels.com/deals/gcbalance/
Happy hacking!
