A few days
ago I was settling into my latest circumnavigation. Now I am in the last
thirty-six hours. All transit now except for a fifteen hour mini visit in
Hawaii. This trip will be the fastest I have ever gone around the globe.
Although I will have been away from home eight days; I will actually have gone
around the world in six days since I started in Charlotte spent two days in LA
and then turned east and stopped in Chicago and Frankfurt on my way to Bangkok.
I left LA five days ago and have spent 30 hours in flight since then. My total
air time over the eight days will be about 54 hours. Total actual miles just
under 21,000. Total frequent flyer miles just under 100,000 with bonuses. My average trip is 12 days – I have never had
one last more than 18 days. The logic of a 12 day trip is two working weeks
with only one weekend away from home.
Yesterday and
today I was on the Shinkansen (Japanese “bullet” train) to Osaka for a meeting
and dinner and back to Tokyo. I rarely fly inside Japan – I love the bullet
train.
The best
flight of the trip was the ten plus hour flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok on
Thai Airways. Thai’s first class is still real first class from Dom Perignon
and caviar at the beginning of the meal to the Johnnie Walker Blue at the end. The amenity kit is a mini Rimowa case not some
“pleather” schlock served up by the US airlines. The crew seemed to like their jobs which made
for a pleasant experience from beginning to end. Actually the service started
before I boarded when a uniformed Thai agent met my United flight in Frankfurt
and escorted me to the lounge Thai uses. After I landed in Bangkok I got the
same treatment. Are all the niceties necessary?
Of course not, but some things in your life should be special and I
decided a long time ago, for me, flying is one of those things. Unfortunately
it is almost impossible to have a true first class experience flying a US
carrier. The US airlines for the most part have dropped any semblance of true
service and moved to a “Greyhound bus in the sky” model. How do I know the Thai
flight was the best when I still have four flights to go? Trust me I know – my remaining
flights are on United. United’s first class isn’t terrible – the seats are
pretty good now and the entertainment is almost world class but most of the
flight attendants do not appear to enjoy what they do – to put it as kindly as
I can. I will cross the two million mile barrier of actual flight miles on
United on my way home so I know of what I speak.
 |
| Thai Airway First Class |
Twenty years
ago when I began flying to Asia and experimented with non US carriers, I
quickly learned that flying Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa,
Thai, Swiss and ANA were the better way to go on long hauls. The difference
between the best foreign carriers and the best US offering is greater now than
it was then. The Star Alliance and OneWorld based RTW tickets have enabled me
to experience the best carriers and make gratuitous stopovers all under the well-worn
guise of “saving money”. When you are spending over $10,000 a ticket no money
is being saved but the idea sounds good to bean counters. Since I work for
myself now, I am spending my own money and I continue to fly first on
international trips. I am a “spoiled traveler” who often stays in $400 a
night hotel rooms but washes underwear and workout clothes in the sink to avoid
hotel laundry charges. “Value” is in the eye of the beholder.
I have spent
much of my adult life on airplanes but I never “rode in the front” until I was
thirty years old. I liked it enough that I began to study how to “hack” the
airlines rules without breaking any laws. Once I started flying
internationally, I spent time reading about how to get the most for spending
the least. I also picked the brains of experienced travelers like my seatmate
who told me about RTW tickets. Most people that use RTW tickets miss a key
point. The ticket is mileage based with enough miles to go about 1.5 times
around the world but ends once you return to the city where you started. If you
go around the world but land near your starting point you can buy a cheap
connector ticket to “home base” and continue to use the ticket to fly thousands
more miles. Early in my RTW days, I wrote the tickets starting in Charlotte, NC
but would fly back to Atlanta and connect back to Charlotte on a separate
ticket. To continue using the ticket I would fly back to Atlanta and then I
could fly to the west coast (or even Hawaii on one occasion), back to Buffalo
to see relatives and then to Charlotte to finally end the ticket. I almost always
go 1.25 around the world on one ticket. There are rules about how many total
stops – I think it is 14 now but that gives you a pretty long travel leash.
Since 2000 I
have started all my RTWs in Japan. I lived in Japan then but have lived in
China and the US the past ten years. Even still due to an anomaly in the Star
Alliance pricing model it is still cheaper to buy tickets in Japan in Yen than
in USD no matter what the Yen/$ exchange rate is. Japan is not famous for
bargains but this is one.
On night five
of this trip, I had dinner with a friend in a sushi restaurant off the beaten
path in Tokyo. The place was a 25 minute cab ride from my hotel. My friend,
well aware that I enjoy “local things”, took me to a place that doesn’t see
many non-Japanese customers. Clearly most of the patrons knew each other. In
central Tokyo, a gaijin (foreigner) doesn’t get a second look but in this place
I think anyone from outside the neighborhood would have been noteworthy and seeing
a gaijin was kind of like a bald eagle sighting. The meal ended with a brief
chat with the owner and some of the customers who were extremely tolerant of my
limited linguistic ability – another reason why I love Japan. For the most part
I avoid western food when I am in Asia. I love to eat local wherever I am so
the RTW ticket has broadened my food “world view”. The only dish I ever
rejected was in Sichuan province China. I would not eat “cat in a pig’s stomach”.
My host laughed and said “we won’t eat it either but wanted to see if you would”.
Time to board
a flight to Honolulu.
