Saturday, January 14, 2006
First Class Ticket to Amsterdam:
Sidegames's misfortunes are my fortunes (or perhaps the start of my downfall if I'm not careful.) I told Sidegames that it is such a waste that he isn't going to AMS as he prepaid the expensive hotel. We even doublechecked with the hotel and they said they can't refund him. I started joking that I should fly out there and use the hotel so it doesn't go to waste. I looked for the Swiss Air flight on Saturday, but apparently they don't have one. The cheapest fare I could find was a $1000 US fare out of ORD. I later found a $600 something fare on Continental from MKE-EWR-AMS. That was highly tempting as it would be worth me driving 1.5 hours to save $300+. My other options was to use my UA miles to book a reward ticket. The only availability I could find for a Sat-Tuesday trip was on UA. In Y, I could get a standard award for 80K miles. I could book a C award for 80K or an F for 100K.
I wanted the EQM's, so I was considering the US fare for awhile, but then I realized that the 8900 miles weren't worth paying an extra $300+. The CO flight was tempting even though it was out of Milwaukee. A strike against it is that I only have 500 NW miles. I'd get 8800 miles but it would be on NW. I suppose that's not a total waste as I might fly NW or Skyteam in the future, but I really would rather get UA miles. The award ticket started to seem like a better idea the more I thought about it.
I was planning on saving my miles for a 120K award ticket to Asia or to Australia. I figured it would be good to book an F ticket on SQ and Thai as those are considered among the best F classes in the world. I feel somewhat bad about "wasting" 100K miles on UA F. In the end, I figured this to be the best option. First, since I'm only going to be in Amsterdam for 2.25 days, the F seat would allow me to arrive better rested than a crappy seat on CO or US economy. Second, if I'm going to spend 80K on C, I figure I might as well blow another 20K on F. I figure I'll fly C more if I qualify for 1K this year, but I'll only fly F on award tickets. UA F might not be the best F, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it since I've never flown international F before. It's better to try UA F now and enjoy it rather than fly SQ F and feel like UA F is a letdown.
Sidegames's misfortunes are my fortunes (or perhaps the start of my downfall if I'm not careful.) I told Sidegames that it is such a waste that he isn't going to AMS as he prepaid the expensive hotel. We even doublechecked with the hotel and they said they can't refund him. I started joking that I should fly out there and use the hotel so it doesn't go to waste. I looked for the Swiss Air flight on Saturday, but apparently they don't have one. The cheapest fare I could find was a $1000 US fare out of ORD. I later found a $600 something fare on Continental from MKE-EWR-AMS. That was highly tempting as it would be worth me driving 1.5 hours to save $300+. My other options was to use my UA miles to book a reward ticket. The only availability I could find for a Sat-Tuesday trip was on UA. In Y, I could get a standard award for 80K miles. I could book a C award for 80K or an F for 100K.
I wanted the EQM's, so I was considering the US fare for awhile, but then I realized that the 8900 miles weren't worth paying an extra $300+. The CO flight was tempting even though it was out of Milwaukee. A strike against it is that I only have 500 NW miles. I'd get 8800 miles but it would be on NW. I suppose that's not a total waste as I might fly NW or Skyteam in the future, but I really would rather get UA miles. The award ticket started to seem like a better idea the more I thought about it.
I was planning on saving my miles for a 120K award ticket to Asia or to Australia. I figured it would be good to book an F ticket on SQ and Thai as those are considered among the best F classes in the world. I feel somewhat bad about "wasting" 100K miles on UA F. In the end, I figured this to be the best option. First, since I'm only going to be in Amsterdam for 2.25 days, the F seat would allow me to arrive better rested than a crappy seat on CO or US economy. Second, if I'm going to spend 80K on C, I figure I might as well blow another 20K on F. I figure I'll fly C more if I qualify for 1K this year, but I'll only fly F on award tickets. UA F might not be the best F, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it since I've never flown international F before. It's better to try UA F now and enjoy it rather than fly SQ F and feel like UA F is a letdown.
