As much as I personally love finding new foods to eat, I feel that much better when I can share some of the findings with family and friends. Though, it would be fair to say I don’t always remember to get to a city supermarket for some last-minute local food souvenir shopping. Enter: airport supermarkets. […]
Travel Hacks
Tokyo Luggage Storage Hack
Let’s say you’re at Tokyo Station, and you’ve got some time to tour around. You’re either coming from, or eventually heading to Narita Airport. There’s not quite enough time to snatch a hotel room, but too much to haul around your luggage in one of the world’s biggest cities. Maybe this Tokyo luggage storage hack […]
Gifting Airline Status
Gifting airline status isn’t unique to Italy’s ITA Airways. Just ask the US3 (i.e. American Airlines, Delta, and United). For the past 15 years (save for maybe 2020 or 2021), I’ve had varying levels of airline status. Back then, the US3 rolled hard with distance-based mileage accruals, as did most of the world. You also […]
What is a Positioning Flight?
If you have ever come across the term “positioning flight,” it doesn’t always have to do with human locomotion. To clarify the first definition, it simply refers to when an aircraft gets repositioned from one airport to another, generally for operational reasons. These positioning flights don’t take on passengers or cargo. Whisk me away to […]
What’s Right with Hotels.com?
Whether or not you’re a fan of hotels.com, today’s criticisms of its consumer-facing existence are unfortunately not unique to that company. Bullet points, now! Go use another OTA (online travel agent), one might say. Book direct, chimes another. Chill out, at least you’re traveling. Nice rose-colored glasses you’ve got there. Start your own. Hmm. Feel good? Good. […]
Airline Status Match Reality
ASMR for me has nothing to do with the sound of someone crunching a mid-flight Air France crouton. No, it’s all about the airline status match reality I’m currently facing. Prepare your small violins for this one. In my last post, I mentioned about how Emirates was quite open to the idea of a status […]
The Emirates Status Match
Really, there’s a Skywards Emirates status match challenge available? If access is granted to its business class lounges in Dubai (DXB), it might be worth it. But how did this discovery come about, and more importantly, what’s a status match? A few years ago, to invite frequent fliers to sign-up for its brand-new Volare program, […]
Metro Access to Istanbul International Airport
If you, too, are as interested as I am in mass transit, then I’ve got some good news– there’s now metro access to Istanbul International Airport (IST). On 29 January the M11 metro line, connecting IST to Gayrettepe transfer station near downtown Istanbul, started operations. For your reference, I’ve added a snippet of the official […]
