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Ran into the Mexican car insurance scam with Budget in Merida, Mexico 🇲🇽
Base rate was $18 USD a day, but if you didn't get the CDW costing minimum $85 USD a day, I had to put down a deposit of 330,000 MXN / $16,000 USD which obviously got rejected by all my credit cards.
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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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I recently checked out the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse in JFK and loved it so much (MilesTalk also went not long after me and seems to have felt the same way!) that when I saw the SFO lounge was also available with Amex Platinum, I knew it would be worth going to the airport early before my flight. I did keep expectations low though, since I knew it was smaller and it had less stellar reviews while it was a Priority Pass lounge.
On our long route back home from Necker Island (EIS-SJU-JFK-SFO), we had the opportunity to visit the Virgin Atlantic Lounge at JFK (operated by Plaza Premium) using the Amex Platinum card. Our flight was at 6 pm, so our plan was to lounge hop Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, Centurion Lounge, and Virgin Atlantic. After we picked up our to-go order at Bobby Van’s, it was 3 pm, so the Virgin lounge had just opened. We decided to go there first since it was further inside Terminal 4 than Centurion, which was right next to security. But the minute we stepped inside the lounge, we scrapped all plans to go to Centurion.
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!)
This post will be like my TPE lounges post, in that it’ll be mostly pictures, with my thoughts and reviews in the captions. The only difference is that in this post I will discuss a lot about the airport itself too, since the experience wasn’t just about the lounges. I also didn’t have enough time to hit every single Priority Pass lounge, but hope to catch them next time. Enjoy!
Terminal 1: Piazza Garden, Cactus Garden, Water Lily Pad Garden, Sculptural Tree Garden
Terminal 2: Enchanted Garden, Koi Pond/Orchid Garden, Sunflower Garden
Terminal 3: Butterfly Garden
Terminal 1:
Terminal 2:
Admittedly, I am one of the worst prepared frequent travelers out there. Due to taking so many frequent trips, and being a bit scatterbrained, I tend to barely plan, always forget to bring something, lose things in hotels, miss experiencing things, and make small mistakes that could have happened with better planning. But things somehow turn out okay in the end. But hopefully you can learn from my mistakes!
We left on a Friday afternoon from San Francisco to London, and onwards to Zürich. Alex had shown up to the airport before I did, and the check-in agent had asked to see the credit card that was used to book, but that was all cleared up when I arrived. But before we left SFO, we went lounge hopping! First we went to the Air France lounge with my Priority Pass, which had a very nice selection of alcohol but a somewhat limited selection of food. We wanted to check out the JAL and Cathay lounges, but they weren’t open at those hours. So next we went to the BA Terraces lounge. The food selection here was a bit better but the alcohol was not as nice. What’s interesting about this lounge is you board directly from the lounge!
Our longhaul was on BA 284 on a 747-400. Alex and I were seated next to each other in the center. I had spent the previous few days trying to convince BA to let us choose our seats online beforehand for free, as I was a new AA Platinum member, but due to claims that either BA’s systems weren’t seeing my status, or that my fare class was ineligible for free seat selection, I wasn’t able to do so. Fortunately, when check in rolled around, the seats we wanted were available. The amenity kit wasn’t very interesting, and the food was decent, but overall nothing super amazing about BA J, though it is nice.
Landing in London, we had a 3 hour layover or so before we needed to head to Zurich, so we went lounging again! This time was the British Airways Galleries lounge. I find it amusing that they give you a very upfront view of the First Class lounge as you are going up to the Galleries lounge. The Galleries lounge is quite nice, with a nice selection of hot food and alcohol. The lounge felt a bit commercialized though, with staff offering perfume samples and ads on the the walls.
We landed in Zurich in the afternoon and headed straight to the hotel. For our first stay in Zurich, we stayed at the Novotel Zurich City West, which I booked at around $130 a night, but with a 6000 Alaska Mileage Plan Miles bonus for booking my first stay through RocketMiles. Zurich was very pretty and had excellent public transport, but was way too expensive and not terribly interesting. I did have a great time at Widder Bar, and Uetliberg was very pretty.
I got a kick out of these dancing mice:
Onwards to Berlin! We noticed a couple of days before we left that we had bought hand-baggage only fares on both Air Berlin ZRH-TXL and British Airways TXL-LHR. Even though I was American Platinum, we would still not be allowed a free checked bag. So what we did was that Alex bought a checked bag, and I used an extra duffel bag that Alex brought as a carry on. Since we had to return to Zurich for one night for our flight back to the US, we loaded our extra luggage into my large luggage and left them at our hotel when we would return to Zurich.
None of our intra-Europe flights seemed worth it to use miles on. All the oneworld shorthauls had too much tax that made it not worth it to use Avios, and I had no Star Alliance programs that had cheap intra-Europe redemptions.
We stayed at the Grand Hostel Berlin for the 4 nights we were in Berlin, joined by one of Alex’s friends Jon. I hadn’t stayed at a hostel for about 2 years at that point. It was fun! We drank and socialized with other hostel guests each day. We had a private room and Jon stayed in a dorm. I remembered why I don’t tend to stay in hostels as much anymore: while it was quite fun and we met other travelers, Jon complained about being unable to sleep at night due to the noise, and it was way too hot in our room and we had poor sleep as well. Also, the shared bathroom situation wasn’t very comfortable either. I forgot to bring sandals for the showers so was walking around with my bare feet. I think I’ll still occasionally stay in hostels to meet other people when travelling alone, but you are trading comfort and security for socialization and money savings. For our touristy activities, we went to check out the Reichstag building, Checkpoint Charlie, the Holocaust memorial, the Bauhaus Archives, the Brandenburg Gate, the DDR musuem, and a Christmas market. Also, we had dinner at Lorenz Adlon Esszimmer, which was amazing modern European food, with views of the Brandenburg Gate. Berlin was fairly interesting, and the food was much cheaper than Zurich, though we failed to find any nightlife, possibly because we were looking in the wrong places and it was early in the week. Next time I want to check out the techno clubs in Berlin!
Next, London! We checked out some lounges in TXL, but none were particularly special. The British Airways lounge is nicer than the Airportclub Lounge, no matter what Loungebuddy might say. TXL is interesting in that the departure area is also the check-in area, so there is no post-security area and all the lounges are outside!
London is one of my favorite cities. I booked us for 2 nights at the H10 London Waterloo because I had $450 or so in Expedia credit (if used at Expedia VIP Access hotels) and it was the nicest VIP Access hotel just above $450. I’ve been trying to get rid of my Expedia points for quite some time and finally found a use for them. It was also conveniently right next to the Ministry of Sound, which we were planning on hitting up.
About the H10 London Waterloo: Wow. Just amazing. I had never heard of the chain before, but apparently they are an upscale hotel chain based in Spain. It was one of the nicest non-major chain hotel I’ve ever stayed at, and the price tag really wasn’t bad at all. We got a welcome amenity at the front desk of a glass of cava, and when we got to our room, we found a free large bottle of beer as well as marshmallow treats. Also, the bed and room were super comfortable to sleep in, which was a welcome change from our Berlin hostel. Oh, but the Expedia VIP Access thing was a total crock though. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly special that we got with it.
We were somewhat lucky with our timing, because we found out Benny Benassi would be playing at the Ministry of Sound that weekend! We met up with more friends to go clubbing. We may have pregamed a little too hard, as one of our friends drank so much that the club wouldn’t let her in, and she and the friends accompanying her disappeared somewhere into a backroom for 30 minutes, before she was sent home. For our troubles though, the rest of the girls ended up getting VIP passes for the night.
With all trips though, you have to go home eventually. So we said farewell to London to fly back to Zurich (to catch a flight connecting back through London lol.) Fortunately on this segment, we caught the terms of hand-baggage only fares and bought a slightly higher fare that included bags. This time, we were flying Swiss, so we were flying out of the new Star Alliance terminal at LHR, T2, the Queen’s Terminal. T2 is a really nice, and has a selection of 5 Star Alliance lounges to pick from (though the 2 groups of lounges are on complete opposite ends of the terminal and are not practical to hop around between.) We were closer to the United lounge and Lufthansa lounge, so we went to check out the Lufthansa lounge with access from my Star Alliance Gold. As Star Alliance Gold, we were given access cards to the Senator lounge. The Lufthansa Senator lounge in LHR is REALLY nice, and has excellent food and drink. We also went to check out the Plaza Premium Lounge in LHR. I’ve gone to other Plaza Premium Lounges in Asia and found them quite nice. This one was no exception, with pretty good food and a selection of drinks. I found it surprisingly Asian themed though, with Thai food and beer.
For our one night in Zurich before we had to fly back to the US, we stayed at the Sheraton Zurich West. I managed to use a Best Rate Guarantee to get the rate down to 132 CHF a night, with a 2000 Starpoints bonus instead of taking 20% off. The Sheraton was quite nice. I nearly forgot that I had access to the Sheraton Club with my SPG American Express Business card, and due to some confusion with the front desk by not showing it at check in, and not showing it later when I went to ask, wasn’t sure if I actually had access or not. Fortunately, I was able to clear things up and had a very nice breakfast the next morning before heading back to the airport.
On our way back, along with a ton of shopping at both the Zurich and London airports, we went to check out the Aspire lounge (accessed via Priority Pass) in LHR that we had missed earlier. It was a bit crowded and the food was just okay, though they did have some nice champagne. Side note: every single lounge in Europe seems to have the ingredients to make Bloody Marys. I ended up getting very good at making Bloody Marys on this trip. Our flight back to SFO was on an A380 and we picked a center middle seat and a center side seat on the Upper Deck. I passed out right after dinner and slept for around 3 hours before being woken up again for a light meal.
Landing back in SFO was somewhat depressing after seeing how nice LHR was. I told Alex to download Mobile Passport and somehow he got through Customs & Immigration at about the same time that I did with Global Entry. Overall, great trip and if I see any more BA business class sales, I’m totally grabbing them.
tl;dr travel tips and lessons
Before we entered, however, I asked Esther to put away her Priority Pass so I could just ‘see what happens.’ I had no expectations other than thinking that perhaps the rep would see my status on my ticket and ignore Esther’s completely (which was conveniently placed below mine as I handed the boarding passes to the agent).
Obviously, this didn’t happen, but the representative, rather than asking for money to pay for Esther’s lounge access, instead asked if I wanted to use one of my guest passes.
“Guest passes?!” I thought to myself. “Cool!”
Instead I stayed cool, calm, and collected like the composed status holder that I was trying to portray, and asked “How many do I have?”
For reference, here’s VX’s benefit list, with a fuller description here. Although Virgin alludes to passes of some sort, it’s not actually evident that this is a distinct benefit from the member’s own access to the lounge, nor did I ever receive an email notifying me of my passes. Long story short, I had no idea what she was talking about, but I went along with it.
“Well, if you haven’t used any, you’ll have three left. The balance resets at the beginning of the year as long as you re-qualify for Gold.” Unsurprisingly, upon reviewing my account, the rep noted that I did indeed have three passes remaining.
Given that Esther has a Priority Pass, I declined to use them, but the exercise underscored the importance of experimentation. Is a glitch repeatable? Is there a potential for arbitrage? Can you get something for nothing?
#TravelCon2 Thoughts + my 'Prezi' (if that helps the insanity) https://t.co/SocUdRkvtI via @saverocity
— Saverocity (@Saverocity) November 9, 2015
The point is that, as Matt had advocated during his talk at Travelcon (a discussion of which you can find here and which was fantastic, I might add), a large part of our hobby (and life in general) is about manufacturing luck. That is, you want to put yourself in situations where you can earn things that you either a) didn’t deserve or b) deserve, but didn’t realize you deserve. For me, the ideal case is the latter, since it means I don’t need to actively change my behavior to get the benefit a second time, but if it’s ever the former, well, I’m sure as heck not going to complain, and you (probably) won’t hear me blogging about it.
An alternative, but more general phrasing of the same principle is that no one is ever serendipitous by nature. Rather, those that appear to be lucky or serendipitous are only so because they have actively sought out opportunities for serendipity. (I think I read about it in an article about Thomas Edison on Farnam Street, but I can’t actually find it anymore).
What does that mean? Put yourself out there. Expose yourself to other people, and identify situations in which you can have a choice between a low (or no) risk but well-understood result and an equally low risk but strictly better possible result, and choose the latter. Don’t take out your Priority Pass if you don’t have to.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W9QJe4BgPo]
Arrived at the airport and headed to the lounge when you realized you left your physical Priority Pass card at home? Or in my case, left your Priority Pass card along with a bunch of credit cards in your hotel in Brazil? You now might have a backup option!
Previously the physical Priority Pass card was required to access lounges. But with a recent mobile application release, along with an improved look and feel, you can now access a digital Priority Pass membership card!
You can also add your membership card to Apple Passbook. I was also able to able to download the digital membership card from the prioritypass.com website.
The disclaimer from Priority Pass is that while most lounges will be able to accept the new digital membership card, not every lounge will be set up to take it, so for 100% ensured access, you should still carry your physical card.
I’m going to try it at the Air France lounge at SFO when I fly out to Hong Kong today. I thought I would be loungeless this entire trip as I’m not flying Star Alliance, and I left my Citi Prestige and my Priority Pass card in Brazil. I’ll report back and see how it goes!