Update on booking a hotel in Japan through Citi Prestige Concierge

As an update to this post: https://airsicktravel.blogspot.com/2016/08/my-experience-booking-hotel-through.html

It's been 36 hours or so since I first made the call to the concierge.  And after 3 calls, the bottom line is that they can't make the booking since they're strict in Japan about booking hotels over the phone.  The concierge said they won't allow bookings over the phone and they only allow it online but the concierge can't create an account so they are poop out of luck.

This has totally not been worth my time spent babysitting this.  I've had 2 evenings go by where they were supposed to call an make the reservation but both times, there was no response of any sort, no confirmation, no contact telling me they couldn't do it.  I had to chase them down both times to see what happened and each time the rep said, well the reservation wasn't booked and there are no notes on here.

To be fair, the last rep I got was good about actually getting back to me to let me know what happened but the lack of ownership and follow-through with the other 2 reps is very diasppointing.

Seems like I have to find a hotel that allows people to make an online reservation without creating an account to be able to use this benefit in Japan.

Oh Japan, I like many things about you but sometimes your strict, draconian adherence to rules annoys me.

American Airlines Amenity Kit Giveaway!

I've been getting some heritage amenity kits from my many flights on American over the past couple of months.  I have no use for these really.  So I'd like to give these away to folks who leave a comment on this blog.  You have to be within the continental U.S (the lower 48 states) and the first 3 comments will receive these free of charge and I'll pay for shipping as well.  These are all unopened and sealed and are your American Airlines business class international amenity kits.

The first comment will receive a set of 3 different themed kits (the first picture), the second and third comments will each receive one of the kits in the second picture.  If it ends up being only one person comments, that person will get all 5.  Unless you don't want that many.

My experience booking a hotel in Japan through Citi Prestige concierge to take advantage of the 4th night free benefit

I recently got a Citi Prestige card (note lack of referral link!) and I'm in the middle of trying to book a 5 night stay in Tokyo to take advantage of the 4th night free benefit.

The thing is you have to book through the Citi Prestige concierge at 1-561-922-0158

So I found a hotel I wanted. https://www.booking.com/hotel/jp/super-hotel-lohas-akasaka.html

Then I called the number but she could not find the hotel.  Turns out she's looking at the hotel's website here: http://www.superhoteljapan.com/en/s-hotels/akasaka/

And when she goes to the booking link, this hotel isn't on the list of available hotels on the English page.  If you go to the Japanese page and have it translated it shows up but since neither of us read  Japanese, she could not go ahead with booking this hotel.

I had already made a reservation using my dates just to hold a room so I have a backup.

Then I found this hotel which was showing up on the Super Hotels' English website:

https://www.booking.com/hotel/jp/super-hotel-akihabara-suehirocho.html

So today, I called the concierge again to try to book this hotel.  And while she was able to find the hotel, it required her to create an account to be able to book a room so she said she'll send this to one of her colleagues who speaks Japanese to call them overnight and try to book the room and get back to me by tomorrow.

So the catch is there is only one room type I want that is available on my dates, so I cancelled the reservation about 10 minutes before I made the call but now I'm left with someone potentially taking my room before the concierge is able to call and book the room.  Well, in my favor, it's middle of the night in Japan but then again the US is wide awake at this hour.  So I'll just not make another booking and just hope that the room is still available by the time the concierge makes the call.

All in all, this is not really a smooth process, if the hotel is a local brand overseas and doesn't have a good website.  If it was a chain hotel like Marriott or Hilton, this should be very smooth I'd imagine.  I'll update if the reservation runs into further issues.

Travel Annoyances

#1.  Why do hotels have to have their room doors slam shut?  I'm talking about those auto door closers (whatever they're actually called) that will automatically close the door so it doesn't stay open.  Very rarely, I will run into one of those that closes the door gently.  The vast majority of them slam the door.

I try to be considerate especially during early morning or late nights and slow down the closing so it doesn't slam but 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999% of people care about no such thing and the doors all over hotels are being slammed left and right.

How to explain mileage running to family and friends and coworkers?

Since I started mileage running this year, some people look at me like I have three eyes when I tell them what I'm doing this weekend or that I'm going to Panama X times in X months. I don't really care what acquaintances think, and friends just shake their head but they knew I traveled a lot anyway even before I started running so they at least understand kind of why I do it.

But recently my new boss asked me what I'm doing the 4th of July holiday weekend and I told him I'm making a quick trip to Panama (I forgot I told him that I was in Panama a month ago) and he asked why I'm going again. So I told him I'm doing it to get miles. He seemed interested and I explained it to him but some coworker friends (in a different group) later told me that he may think I have too much time and money on my hands or subconsciously think in his mind that I'm always on vacation (even though I'm not taking vacation on most of the trips).

I think they do have a point so I'll be more careful about sharing my hobby and all my premium cabin flying in the workplace.

If you take mileage runs, how do you explain your hobby to those around you? Or maybe you don't even mention it. I don't like to lie but I guess I could have just answered my boss that I'll be just hanging around this weekend. Not mentioning that I'll be hanging around in planes and airports.

Instantaneous posting of Amex MR points to Singapore Krisflyer!

So normally it seems like it takes about 24-36 hours for Amex MR points to post to Singapore Airlines and that was my experience the last time I transferred points a couple of months ago.

Tonight I transferred some more points and I'm happy to report that when I just checked a couple of hours later, the points were already in my Singapore account.

As a side note, this was to add a flight for my girlfriend who'll be traveling with me to Asia.  And as such, I'm changing my flight from SFO to HKG to start from LAX to ICN (Seoul).  The reason for this is that there is only waitlist Saver First Class award space on the flight to HKG for the 2nd seat while on the LAX-ICN flight there are 2 seats open in Saver First Class.  Even though on the HKG flight there are 8 seats in the cabin while the ICN flight only has 4 seats with 1 already being taken.

And why does a shorter flight to ICN (12.83hrs) cost more in miles vs a longer HKG flight? (15.5 hrs)

Flying 6 times with an ear infection

I woke up with an earache in my left ear.  I would be flying from SFO to JFK later that afternoon as the beginning of my trip to Panama over Memorial Day weekend.  I would fly on 6 flights.  I was very concerned about flying with pain in my ear.

I was able to find an appointment around noon with an Ear, Nose, Throat doctor (ENT).  Later I'd find out why she had so many open appointment slots even on the same day.  (Spoiler alert: she's not very good).  After my visit (for which she'd bill my insurance $720), she said I have fluids in my ear and prescribed steroid pills + nasal sprays.  When I asked if I can fly, she said there was risk of a rupture and damage but that I should be ok.

Being the risk taker I am, I went on with my trip.  I did consider canceling the trip, all the hotel bookings were cancellable except for 1 night at an Airbnb near JFK and with a doctor's note I thought I might have some chance of a free cancel on the flights (but going by my experience trying to get my dad's flight cancelled for free on United and United flat out refusing to do so, saying unless it's a life and death issue, a doctor's note doesn't matter.  So apparently potentially losing your hearing is not a reason where you can cancel your flight).

So anyway, I went ahead and flew, I can talk about the trip itself later but the Centurion Lounge at SFO was packed as I had heard it would be.  But we did manage to find 2 seats (I was traveling with my mom.)  The food was pretty good.

At this time, my ear felt very full and in slight pain.  When I took off it was fine and during the flight, no issues.  But as the doc said, it was painful upon descent and I was scared of something popping and me losing my hearing permanently.  By this time, I couldn't hear much out of my left ear and you'd think you just lose 50% of your hearing ability but it felt like much worse, perhaps it's an exponential loss but frequently I could not make out what people were saying to me.

The next morning, I dreaded my next 2 flights, JFK-MIA and MIA-PTY.  Both flights were a similar experience but landed in Panama without anything bursting but still in pain and half (or 3/4) deaf.

Then over the next 3 days in Panama, all the while taking the steroids and using the sprays, absolutely zero improvement.  I had suspected all along that this was an infection and that I should have been given antibiotics and not steroids but I didn't want to visit a doctor in Panama while on vacation so I waited until I would be in NYC to schedule another ENT visit.  The flight to MIA then the flight to LGA were perhaps a bit better and by this time fluids started coming out of my ear.

So the ENT in NYC confirmed it was indeed an infection and treated me accordingly and prescribed antibiotics and eardrops (which was $200 even with insurance).  At that moment, I knew my first ENT back home would blame me flying for it turning into an infection, rather than admit a misdiagnosis.  I suppose it's possible that flying in a plane would turn fluids in the ear into infection where there wasn't an infection before but I somehow doubt that.  Even though I'm not a doctor.

And I managed to make my final flight to SFO feeling a bit better still and when I went back to the first ENT, she did as I had predicted and blamed me flying for the infection.

So anyway, it's been exactly 2 weeks since that morning and my hearing is back to about 75% in my left ear, the draining has stopped and I think I'm well on my way to a complete recovery.

Which is good since tomorrow morning I fly out again.  On the same SFO-JFK transcon on the AA321t, except this time in first class, rather than business class.  This will be my first time in the transcon first, so I'll see how it compares.