Pre-Trip Planning Posted from the ANA F lounge in NRTI started planning this trip quite a few months ago, 8 months ago actually, as seems to be the norm for me. I planned the trip specifically for this time of year to coincide with my wife’s winter break. As a teacher, all of our trips either need to be during the summer or winter break.
Most of the time I’ve booked travel so far out I haven’t had any problems. This time I had 2, one big and one small. The small problem had to do with a mistake on my part: I accidentally reserved seats for the wrong week. This problem was easily fixed however. With a bit of rearranging and $20 in fees to SQ to change our flight I got everything straightened out.
Now for the bigger problem: about 2 months after I booked the trip, while vacationing in London in July, we found out my wife was pregnant. Mazal Tov!!
“Ok,” I thought to myself, “It’s not that big of deal; people fly pregnant all the time.” Oh was I wrong.
About a month later, towards the end of August, the doctor told us that my DW would not be allowed to fly after, get this, January 20, 2016, the exact date we were supposed to depart on our trip. Yikes!
This left me with 2 choices: cancel the trip and try to plan it for the following winter with a baby (we want to avoid Hong Kong in the humid summer) or go solo. After much deliberation I finally decided to go solo at the end of October when, thanks to a friend’s Hyatt Diamond account, I booked hotels—but I’m getting ahead of myself.
To minimize the amount of scrolling you have to do, I’ll just say that thanks to so doctors notes and some really nice CSRs at AC, AA, and SQ, I was able to cancel DW’s tickets fee-free.
This was the final routing, airline/cabin, aircraft, costs, and how I booked:
LAX-(NRT)-SIN, SQ F, A380, 91,375 SQ (from MR)+$288.65, booked with SQ online to get the 15% discount.
SIN-PEK-HKG, 30k AC (from MR)+$40.40, booked with AC online
SIN-PEK, CA J, A333
PEK-HKG, CA J A320 (originally B777 but was downgraded)
HKG-HND//NRT-LAX, 67.5k AA+$27.90, booked with AA over the phone
HKG-HND, CX F, B747-400
NRT-LAX, JL F, B777
For hotels:
SIN: 3 nights at the Grand Hyatt for 20k/night (60k total)
PEK: 1 night at the Park Hyatt for 20k
HKG: 2 nights at the Hyatt Regency TST using 2 anniversary nights, 2 night at the Sheraton for 12k/night
TYO: 1 night at the Andaz for 25k (Gasp! “You didn’t choose the Parky Hyatt Tokyo?!,” you exclaim. “No,” I answer, “I didn't chose the outdated PH over the modern and more centrally located Andaz.”
Enough chitchat, time for the TR:
Sorry, flight details will have to wait until later
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