Baby Songer Goes to Europe

Flight #56 – Lufthansa 411
New York (JFK) – Munich (MUC)
Friday, May 24, 2013
Depart: 5:40PM / Arrive: 7:55AM 
Duration: 8hr 15min 
Aircraft: Airbus 330 
Seat: 35F and 35G (Economy) 
Earned: 0 miles (4,038 miles flown)
Cost: 80,000 miles + $231 taxes / person
Redemption Value: 3.4 cents / mile
Lifetime Miles: 109,300 miles

2013 is definitely a big year of travel for my parents and me. In fact, my father counted the number of nights we spent in our NYC apartment so far this year and came up with only 27 nights, including last night. Put another way, that's about 1 month in our own apartment, 1 month at my grandparent's in Israel and 3 months in hotels.

And now, we're off on another adventure - Europe.

My father actually booked this trip using my mother's United miles back in August 2012 while he was still with his former company. He had always wanted to take my mother to Paris in the springtime so thought Memorial Day week would be as good a time as ever. So here we are.

Our first stop this morning will be Munich, Germany. We originally were going to just stop in Munich for a day before continuing on to Paris (our main destination) later that evening. But after reading some other travel bloggers about a great Bavarian mountain town a few hours away, we extended our stopover to 4 days/3 nights and used some Priority Club points to get 3 free nights at the Intercontinental Berchtesgaden.

Then on May 28th, we'll be driving back to Munich to catch our flight to Paris where we'll spend 7 nights in the City of Lights (using our Hyatt Gold Passport points and 1 Starwood free night award certificate).

Then on the way back, we're flying to Frankfurt for 1 day to connect to our 9 hour flight back home in Lufthansa business class.

I realize that I'm probably too young to remember any of this when I'm older, but I'm sure my Asian father will make good use of his Canon point & click to capture every second.

JFK Lufthansa Senator Lounge Has The Best Cookies!

We finished our Global Entry interviews quicker than we expected, so we had an hour and a half before our Lufthansa flight to Munich started boarding.

So we went over to Terminal 4 and found the Lufthansa Senator (Business Class) lounge right after you get through security.

We weren't flying business class, but my father had his United Airlines status card with him that shows the Gold Star Alliance status on it. Star Alliance Gold members get access to any Star Alliance business lounge.

Anyone with United Gold or above gets automatic Gold status with Star Alliance. When you have Star Alliance Gold with United, you get to access any Star Alliance lounges when flying on international flights (except United lounges when you're flying United domestically, oddly enough).

However, last year my father got his United status matched by Turkish Airlines for free. Why did he do that when he already has United status? Because using Turkish Airline's version of  Star Alliance Gold Status get us access to United lounges even when flying domestically. And Turkish status lasts 2 years so we'll have status through 2014.

Additionally, my mother also has Star Alliance Gold status through Aegean Airlines. Even though we rarely ever fly Aegean Airlines, we credited certain flights to them to get Gold Status (20,000 miles in any 12 month period) on them. To get Gold on United, it would require 50,000 miles in a calendar year. But not every flight gives 100% mileage credit on Aegean, so you have to check which airlines and fare classes give you 100%, 50% or 0% Aegean credit. Most discounted economy tickets on United only give you 50%.

But nevertheless, the Lufthansa Senator Lounge in JFK is pretty nice, especially compared to United lounges in Newark and definitely better than the TAM lounge (Rio De Janiero) or Air Canada (Vancouver). In addition to a full bar, there's plenty of open seating and a nice snack buffet with enough to keep a small kid eating for hours.

 

 

But of course, my favorite part were the sweets. In addition to M&Ms, pretzels, wasabi covered peas and muffins, they had some of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had.

Not a long post, but just wanted to make a note so that we'd remember next time we're flying through JFK. If you're ever early for your Lufthansa flight (or any other Star Alliance airline at Terminal 4), you should stop by the Lufthansa Senator Lounge and grab a plateful of freshly made chocolate chip cookies and don't forget to share with your parents.

Global Entry Interview

When you travel in/out of the country often, it may make sense to apply for Global Entry to speed your way through U.S. Immigration when you return home.

For those of you who don't know what Global Entry is, it's basically a VIP Fast Track through Immigration for those individuals whom the U.S. government has already done a thorough background check on and have deemed as "safe."

Sometimes, we've been stuck in some pretty long U.S. immigration lines even for American citizens (over an hour with no bathroom/baby changing options). I'm looking at you, LAX! So when our American Express Platinum card had a feature to reimburse you for your $100 application fee, I made my parents sign up.

Now, my father was originally hesitant about getting Global Entry. Not because he had anything to hide, but because there'd be no point in him getting through Immigration quickly when my Israeli citizen mother would still have to wait in line. However, I did my internet research and found out that U.S. greencard holders can also apply, so we were in luck!

Then my father responded to me, "What's the point of your mother and I getting Global Entry, when you (Baby Songer) won't have it?" Well, apparently, the U.S. government thought about this scenario as well because infants/children are welcome to apply for GE.

The steps are simple.

1. Apply online and fill out a question form.
2. Schedule an in-person interview with an immigration officer.
3. Get approved.

So to apply, we had to go to www.globalentry.gov and create a log in username and password for each of us. Then we had to fill out an online form asking us general background questions like name, contact information, passport information, current address, past addresses, and other yes/no questions about our past. The best part was the section where you had to list all the foreign countries you've visited in the past 5 years. As you can imagine, my family had quite a long list.

Next, you pay $100 per person for the non-refundable application fee. However, if you have an American Express Platinum card and use it to pay, then Amex will reimburse you the $100 GE charge within just a few days. Great customer service!

Then you hit submit after you've double checked all your responses, your application is submitted for review. But before you hit Submit, I HIGHLY recommend that you print out your application first. That way, you will have all your responses handy to study/remember, because I read that most of the GE interviews will be basically the same questions on the form or some derivative of it, such as "Why did you visit Laos in 2008?"

Then you wait.

About a week or so later, we each received an email stating that our applications been reviewed and we are allowed to sign up for an interview with a Customs & Border Patrol officer either at an international airport or select administrative offices in major cities.

We could have selected the office in downtown Manhattan, but since we were going to fly out of JFK Airport for our European trip anyway, we just decided to schedule our 3 interviews for 2PM (a few hours before our scheduled departure tonight at 5:40PM).

The interview took place in JFK's Terminal 4 Arrivals right by the entrance/exit. We walked into the small office and sat in the waiting room. They didn't have any check in system so people were called in randomly, and you had to police yourself in terms of who came first and who had a scheduled appointment. But no one was overly aggressive, so it worked itself out quite nicely.

I can't speak to my mother's interview, but mine was pretty simple. The CBP officer took my U.S. Passport and typed in a few keystrokes. Then I had to put my four fingers onto the pad to get scanned. Unfortunately, my fingers were too small to have the fingerprints read by the computer. So I guess the FBI won't be running any fingerprint checks on me until I'm a few years older.

But the CBP officer saw that I was an honest and trustworthy baby, so he approved me without the fingerprint verification. Now I have Global Entry status and can skip the Immigration lines whenever we come back to the US from abroad. But when we get to the Global Entry kiosk, my passport scan will be rejected, and I'll have to explain the situation to the Global Entry officer standing by. I'll put on my cutest little smile and let my father talk his way through it.

Let's hope he does better now than he did for his Princeton undergraduate interview.

Connecting through Toronto - 3 Special Steps

Flight #55 – Air Canada 702
Toronto (YYZ) – New York (LGA)
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Depart: 8:15AM / Arrive: 9:46AM
Duration: 1hr 31min 
Aircraft: Embraer 90 
Seat: 21D and 21F (Economy) 
Earned: 357 miles 
Lifetime Miles: 105,262 miles

If you follow my father's obnoxious Facebook status updates, you'd have seen we came back home yesterday morning. Since my mother came along to my father's work trip (at our own cost), he booked the most affordable ticket of the various options flying from Vancouver to New York.

• Option 1: Business class on the non-stop Cathay Pacific flight departing 11PM landing 7AM at JFK
• Option 2: Economy class on the 1 stop Air Canada flight departing 11:15PM arriving 9:46AM at LGA

  vs.

There was Option 3: Economy class on the non-stop Air Canada to Newark, but it departed at 4:10PM so he would have missed an entire afternoon of meetings, so it wasn't an option.

That put us all on the connecting flight that would land in Toronto Pearson Airport (YYZ) at a brisk 6:48AM Toronto time (aka 3:48AM Vancouver time). As you might imagine, the short overnight flight (4.5 hours isn't much time to sleep) and early arrival time made for a painful redeye flight. No REM for this lap child infant.

Then when we landed, we had a relatively tight connection. Landing at 6:48AM didn't give us too much time before the next flight started boarding at 7:40AM. Normally, 50 minutes would have been enough time, but you actually go through U.S. Immigration while you're in the Toronto Airport. So we needed some extra time to walk across the Terminal and then go through that process as well as another security checkpoint. At least we no longer had to claim our bags in Toronto and re-check them like they used to make everyone do.

Thankfully, Toronto's been trying to make it even more connection friendly by implementing a little procedure to the connection process. So as my favorite Secret Agent Bear Oso would say, you just need to follow 3 Special Steps.

"Three special steps, that’s all you need. Three special steps, and you’ll succeed. Your special assignment is starting now, and three special steps will show you how..."

Step 1...

Use one of the dozen kiosks they have and just scan the boarding pass for the next flight. It confirms your identity, flight information as well as the number of checked bags you have in the system. We got to this checkpoint at around 7:09AM.

Step 2...

Walk about 5 feet (aka 1.52 meters) down the hallway and look up at the screens on the left to see your name appear before you can proceed. The right screen in Phase 2 shows the baggage unloading status from the incoming flights you were on so I imagine that has something to do with this as well. This seems a bit unnecessary but I'm sure hopeful there's a rational reason for this Canadian bureaucracy. Our name didn't show up until 7:17AM. And we still had to go through Immigration and Security before our flight started boarding at 7:40AM.

Step 3...

Walk another 5 feet (1.52 meters) and scan your boarding pass again in front of the agents dressed in yellow. Assuming your name showed up in Step 2, you should be cleared to go through and then wait in line for U.S. Immigration.

Going through this process (before you even get to wait in line for Immigration) really makes you wonder what it accomplishes. One rumor is that they're prioritizing those passengers with shorter connections. This new process allows those with long layovers to be placed in line after those with tighter schedules even if they show up later.

Another rumor is that they're really trying to make sure your bags make it onto the next flight (which as we found out a few weeks ago, isn't always guaranteed). But as you can see from the photo below, I was not amused with the waiting for my name to show up on a screen at 7AM in the morning (which was really 4AM my time).

I don't know about how the adult passengers would feel about it, but I would have felt better about the whole thing if they had blasted Special Agent Oso music during the process.

"Three special steps, so now you know. Three special steps and you’re ready to go! The checklist has all the steps you need. Just follow them all and you will succeed with three special steps!"

Hyatt Regency Vancouver

Hotel Stay Details 
Hotel: Hyatt Regency Vancouver
Dates: May 19-22, 2013
Rate Paid: $224/night (by Company)
Points Earned: 5,392 Hyatt Points

Despite all the great Hyatt experiences we've had in 2013, my father is actively trying to shift his hotel stays to Starwood, because he has a better shot at making top tier SPG Platinum in 2014 than he does re-qualifying for top tier Hyatt Diamond next year.

That's largely due to the fact that Starwood counts free night award stays as eligible for status qualification, whereas Hyatt only counts cash paid nights. And because of our month long Thailand adventure, all those hotel nights using Cash & Points count to hitting the 50 night requirement.

But based on his scheduled 2013 trips and vacations, he'll be pretty close to hitting 50 nights at Starwood by the end of December, so he decided to book our 3 night stay in downtown Vancouver at the Hyatt Regency on Burrard Street (instead of the two Starwood options, Sheraton or Westin). Using his AAA membership, he was able to book a discounted special refundable rate, saving about $25-30 per night.

Why Hyatt?

The compelling reason to book Hyatt this time was three fold:

1. He has 3 remaining Hyatt Suite Upgrade certificates for becoming a Hyatt Diamond member this year and could only use them on paid stays through Feb 2014. As it turned out, the rest of our Hyatt stays this year are on points, so this would be the only chance to use the upgrade certificates.

2. The best parts of earning Diamond status are the benefits for staying at a Hyatt while you have the status. No point in going through the pain to earn status if you won't be using it. So might as well get some more benefits in 2013 while he's a Diamond.

3. Hyatt Vancouver was a better property in a better location at a better price point than the Westin (too expensive during the week and a bit further from his meetings) and Sheraton (not as nice as the Hyatt).

Check In

We checked in around 5PM on Sunday May 19th. We were immediately thanked for being Hyatt Diamond members and offered a choice of welcome amenity: 1,000 Hyatt points or a food & beverage gift.

We had enough Hyatt points to last us a while so we picked the food & beverage option, a bottle of wine and a charcuterie plate. Unfortunately, the wine and food never came, so we had to call a few times. After calling the second time and waiting another hour (it was 730PM), we told them to just bring it the next day because we were heading for dinner.

Room

The certificate guaranteed us a suite upgrade at booking. While we could have not used the certificate and just taken our chances as a Diamond member, we didn't have any reason to save the certificates that were going to expire in February.

We were in both Rooms 2412 and 2414. The 2414 room was the actual hotel room (bed, bath, tv and desk) with its own balcony. It had a door connecting it to Room 2412 which was just a living room with a couch and another TV, desk and full bathroom. After I looked closely, however, I saw that Room 2412 was actually just another regular hotel room but with the bed swapped out for a couch to be a "suite." Clever, Hyatt, very clever.

Our suite (aka two rooms) occupied the corner of the building so we had sweeping northern and western views of downtown Vancouver and the mountains in the distance peeking between the skyscrapers. It also meant that all these people in the nearby office buildings had direct views into our hotel room.

When we arrived, I asked the bellman for a separate crib to be brought up to our room so that I could give my parents some alone time this week. Lord knows they could use it.

But instead of a crib, they must have seen how mature I was because they brought me a twin bed instead and had it set up in the living room. I tried sleeping on it the first night, but I've actually gotten used to sleeping in the same room as my parents. So this big bed experiment didn't work out so well, because not because of me. I could hear my mother crying for me in the other room, so I went over and crawled into bed with them. I think she's addicted to snuggling with me.

Amenities

The hotel has an outdoor heated pool and hot tub. We could see it from our balcony and it seemed like there were quite a few guests enjoying themselves there. While it was a nice 70 degrees while we were here, I really didn't think it was great weather for swimming so we passed on the pool this time.

Additionally, we had free access to the Club Lounge for being Diamonds. Every few hours, they'd have a different serving (breakfast, coffee/tea, h'orderves, evening cocktails, etc.). If we were really trying to save money, we could have eaten all of our meals here and not spent an additional dime.

If you're not a Diamond, you can always pay a little bit more to get Club Lounge access. In addition to the free snacks and drinks (soft and hard), you can access the free wifi and business computer/printer station. Definitely something I'll make my parents consider when our Diamond status runs out next February.

The hotel also has Mosaic Grille as the primary hotel restaurant as well as the Grain Cocktail Bar and a full Starbucks in the lobby. Furthermore, the restaurant menu has a lot of kid options, because Hyatt has a program here called For Kids By Kids where the organic kids menu is designed by Alice Waters and her kids for "a fresh, healthy and fun dining experience."

The wifi, however, was pretty mediocre. Yes it worked, but they gave you the slow internet connection for free and offered the "fast internet" connection for a small fee. No thanks, Hyatt.

Vancouver in Photos

Unlike last time we were in Vancouver a few weeks ago, we had a 3 days this trip to walk around the city a bit more. Since we had already checked out Downtown, Yaletown and Granville Island, we decided to spend more time checking out the West End and Coal Harbor.

Since my father hasn't eaten Korean fried chicken a long while, I took him to a place called Zabu Chicken in the West End neighborhood on Robson Street.

The Korean fried chicken was fine, but the pieces were definitely smaller than in the United States. Not worth going out of your way for, but would stop by again if we were in the area.

 
But that was only a little afternoon snack to tide us over until Happy Hour started at 5:30PM at the Japanese small plates restaurant, Hapa Izakaya a few blocks up Robson Street. They had about 10 of their items for 50% off from 5:30-6:30PM every evening. My parents got a "bamboo" of sake, but I made sure to get my own bamboo shot glass for my water. Then I tried my chopstick skills, because you know the first thing an Asian kid gets asked in Kindergarden: "Do you eat with chop sticks?" Either that or "Do you know karate?"

After our early dinner, we decided to walk back to our hotel along the Coal Harbor neighborhood.

And later tonight, we're flying back on the redeye Air Canada flight to NYC (via Toronto) for a 1 day layover before we go on real vacation. Let's hope I can get some rest on the flight. Otherwise, it's going to be quite painful for everyone on board.

Maximizing Mileage - Dining Programs

Chapter 1 - Shopping Portals
Chapter 2 - Dining Programs
Chapter 3 - Double Dipping

A few weeks ago, I explained how you can really multiply your points earning by shopping online using Shopping Portals. In this next installment of my series, Maximizing Mileage, we'll talk about how you can do the same thing when you go out to eat.

If you know my parents in real life, you'd know they're never ones to turn down a nice meal. My mother's actually quite a good cook, but it's apparently very difficult to replicate some of the amazing restaurants and tasty local foods we've been able to experience on our travels.

But as you know, spending money on eating out can get quite expensive and really put a dent in your budget when my parents should be saving up for my prom dress in 13 years (yes, I fully expect to be invited to the Senior Prom in my freshman year).

So aside from the usual tricks of having an appetizer as your entree or splitting 1 meal for 2 people, there aren't too many new ways to save money when going out to eat. However, there are a few programs that will get you frequent flyer miles or points to help offset your next vacation, which is the next best thing to saving money.

Using the Right Credit Card

If you're a regular reader of LCD, you'd know that several credit cards offer bonus points for restaurants, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (2x). So a $50 dinner at any restaurant will net you 100 Chase UR points which can be redeemed for $1 USD off your credit card bill (so 2% cash back).

However, those same 100 Chase UR points can be converted into United Airline Miles or Hyatt Gold Passport Points. When you accrue enough for an award redemption, you can easily get 2-4 cents/pt of value, making your 100 points worth $2-4 (4-8% rebate on your $50 dinner).

Now, of course, $2 isn't going to change your life, but if you're going to eat out anyway, might as well start earning a few bucks here and there because they will add up quickly.

Now if you combine your bonus credit card spending with Dining Programs, you can really boost your balances.

Open Table

Similar to the way retailers will give a sales commission to online portals for sending customers to their websites, restaurants will do the same thing to services that will attract diners.

Websites like Opentable.com work this way and make money from the restaurants by generating a few reservations each week. Opentable will then give you some points (100-1,000 per reservation) to encourage you to use their website to book reservations in their restaurant network.

And when you have 10,000 points, you get a $100 coupon to use at any restaurant in the Opentable network. So by booking a reservation on their site, you earn 100 points which is worth $1. Again, not earth shattering but they do add up if you eat out anyway.

But they sometimes offer 1,000 points (worth $10) for certain restaurants that REALLY want to attract customers (many times they're good restaurants who want to seat people during off hours like 2PM-6PM, but you do find some horrible venues as well who are desperate for customers).

Rewards Network

But Opentable is very well known by now to many of you. However, there is another company called Rewards Network that runs a slightly different dining program for their clients (United Airlines, American Airlines, US Airways, Delta Airlines, Hilton Hotels, Priority Club Hotels, etc).

Each airline or hotel has its own dining program that is run by Rewards Network. In each case, you sign up to the specific program you want (we chose United MileagePlus Dining, of course) and register your credit card numbers. And yes, the RN website is as safe as anything else on the internet, so don't freak out that your credit card numbers will get compromised.

But instead of having to make reservations at specific restaurants, you will earn points WHENEVER you use one of your registered credit cards at a restaurant in the RN network. If you're a regular online member who signs up for their emails, you will earn 3 miles per $1 spent. If you hit VIP elite status (12 dines in a calendar year), then you'll get 5 miles per $1 spent. (Tip: splitting your bill using 2 registered credit cards will result in 2 dines toward your elite VIP qualification).

Admittedly, there are not as many restaurants in the RN program, but again, if you're going to eat out anyway, might as well have a chance at earning a few extra points. And if you're like my father who thinks that a burger is a burger is a burger, then you might even search for a nearby restaurant in the RN program so you can earn those 5x miles.

For example, after doing an address search for his old NYC office location, he found 3-4 nearby restaurants that he would always use for business lunch/dinner meetings or after work drinks with his co-workers.

• Philippe (60th and Madision)
• Papillion Bistro (54th and Madison)
• Rue 57 (57th and 6th)
• Uncle Jack's Steakhouse (56th and 6th)

And last week when he was working in Boise, he found a few nearby RN restaurants that had decent lunch and dinner.

• Cazba (211 N 8th Street)
• Asiago (1002 Main Street)

A lot of points earning for work travel related meals that will be reimbursed.

Savored

And sometimes, you really don't care about points and miles. Sometimes, cash is king and saving money is more important than earning a new form of illiquid currency that you can only use at certain times for specific situations. That's where the website Savored.com comes in.

Similar to Opentable, you use Savored to book a reservation but instead of points that you can redeem for restaurant gift certificates, you get an immediate 15-30% discount off your bill (including all beverages) immediately!

For example, my father wanted to thank his friends for helping him with his apartment before we left on our trip, so he used Savored.com to book a reservation for 5 people at Bread and Tulip (365 Park Avenue South). When he showed up, he mentioned that he booked through Savored and the waitress immediately knew what that meant - they'd order a lot because it was a 30% discount for them.

Of course, you should always tip your server on the pre-discount amount. After all, he/she still did the same amount of work even if you're only paying 70% of the price.

Overall Payout

So the beauty of this scheme is that they are run by 4 different companies and often, the same restaurant that needs help attracting customers will work with several of them at once whether they know it or not.

Imagine a scenario where an obsessive a dedicated person such as my father were planning a dinner with some friends. He selects a Greek restaurant like Parea (36 East 20th Street) and makes a dinner reservation for 4 on Savored.com so that everyone will save 30% on the final bill.

Coincidentally, Parea is also a member of the Rewards Network program which will earn him 5x United miles if he uses one of his registered credit cards. And of course, he will.

And it will be his Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa which will earn him an additional 2x Chase UR points. To top it all off, if he gets his guests to give him cash for their portion of the bill, he can put the entire charge on his credit card.

• Value of Dinner for 4 adults:  $200
• Savored Discount:  30%
• Price Paid:  $140
• Cash from Other Couple:  $70
• My Father's Out of Pocket:  $70
• Rewards Network Dine:  5 x $140 = 700 United miles
• Chase UR Dining Spend:  2 x $140 = 280 Chase UR points

So my parents ate/drank $100 worth of food and drink, only paid $70 cash and earned 980 points/miles that are worth anywhere from $10-39 (assuming 1-4 cents/pt award redemption). So even if you gave him the low value for his points, he would have only paid $60 for $100 worth of dinner, a 40% discount.

That $40 of savings will help nicely towards my future prom shoes.