I had some time between clearing passport control and my flight to San Francisco so I stopped by the United Club. Like the Narita United Club (and Global First lounge), the Hong Kong lounge is a bit different from those normally found in the United States.
First, the lounge sits on an open air platform above the terminal concourse. Off in the distance is N121UA, our Boeing 747 in United’s Star Alliance livery.
For my three nights in Hong Kong, I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui. The hotel occupies part of a mixed-use building in Kowloon, shared with a mall on the ground floor and residences on the higher floors.
For Thanksgiving, I decided to visit Hong Kong, convincing myself that flying via Honolulu and Guam was a “good idea.” When I tried to go to Manila this way in 2012, I was bumped from one of my westbound segments and rerouted via Narita in first class. I didn’t have the same string of luck this time around.
As a 1K on an international itinerary, I stopped by the Honolulu United Club to occupy myself for my two hour layover. While it’s like any other United lounge, it certainly offers a bit nicer scenery.
In late October, I had a visit to the Bay Area. Room rates on the west side of the Bay didn’t quite work out as desired, so I booked a stay at the aloft Newark. This hotel was formerly the W Silicon Valley until it underwent a rebranding. While the lobby has been redone, the rooms themselves didn’t fit the normal cookie cutter aloft pattern that I’m used to.
I looked away from the Internet for a few hours this evening before making one quick glance at it just now. When my gaze returned, I discovered that the sky is falling over in Atlanta.
Inside Flyer is reporting that Delta will be switching to a revenue-based frequent flier program in 2015, joining its illustrious peer group of Southwest, JetBlue, and Virgin America.
San Jose Airport launched “The Club” in early 2013 to coincide with ANA’s SJC-NRT service. It’s a Priority Pass lounge, so I stopped by when I had some time to kill waiting for a flight.
In mid-October, I found myself on another trip to Pasadena. As my hotel chain choices were restricted to Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood, I chose to stay at the Westin Pasadena again. During my previous stay in October 2012, I was a mere SPG Gold member and was upgraded to an Executive King.
I booked this trip about two weeks out for my first flight and about three weeks out for my return segment. My upgrade for this flight cleared a mere 12 hours prior to departure.
As I had a somewhat “early” departure (10:25AM) from Milan to New York, I decided to stay at the Sheraton at Malpensa Airport the night before. Room rates were on the pricier side, so I booked a cash and points award for $55 and 3.5k points when I spotted some availability open up.
Reviews of the hotel on FlyerTalk suggested that the front desk was a disaster and I feel they were spot-on. With one person ahead of me, check-in inexplicably took about 30 minutes. Further, after finally getting to my room, I decided to investigate the club lounge, finding that my room key didn’t work as my key hadn’t been made correctly.
The hotel has a long central corridor with small hallways jutting out periodically for guest rooms. The building itself spans nearly the entire length of Malpensa Airport Terminal 1, and I managed to be given the furthest possible room from the elevator bank.
During my visit to Italy, I never quite figured out the alarm cables that were setup in every hotel shower. In principle, it might be a good idea. In practice, I’m not quite sure how useful an out of reach string is when you slip and fall in the shower.
The club lounge had a sizable breakfast buffet of hot and cold food items, so I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before checking out and walking to the terminal to catch my flight to New York.
Overall, I had a few takeaways from this hotel:
