TRIP - Paris 巴黎 2016.03

結束了巴黎之旅 趕快整理心得
巴黎 比我想像中吸引人 有一種魅力 無法解釋 會讓我想要再回來(當然 回來的話要順便去南法看看)
整個旅程 漸入佳境 又有一個完美的升等商務艙結尾 這應該是我們的2016旅行高潮了吧!

Good

• YYZ-CDG round-trip flights only costs $290/adult ($247/child) during price error on 9/18/2015
• We got 2 empty middle seats on YYZ-CDG on 787 to lie down
• Even better, we unknowingly got upgraded on CDG-YYZ 777 into Classic Pods. 4 J seats!!!
• Weather was forecast to be cloudy and cold, but we had many cold but beautiful sunny days
• AirBnb hotel was lovely, well-located in busy district, walkable to many things and close to many bus routes
• Paris is beautiful. I don't know how to describe it, Eiffel Tower and all of it just grows on you
• Tourists, despite the Easter long weekend, were not too bad. I hear it's much much worse in summer at busy places
• Seafood platter for 2 at Pedra Alta ($43 Euro) is huge and so good, memorable
• Paris the city is old, beautiful, but not dirty

Bad

• Accidentally dropped my aging Olympus camera when asking stranger to take photos of us at Chateau Versailles, oh well
• Weather was still chilly, even had hails one day
• Food is not cheap, as its costs, while reasonable, are in Euro (which is 1.5 CAD). $10E meal = $15 CAD

TRIP - Ella's first trip to New York City

We are itching and time-constrained to use up some travel vouchers, so another trip to USA and this time it's New York City

NYC 2013.05 - Google Maps  << in  chronological order

Day 1 Friday

• Drove and parked at Hotel Indigo via Global Airport Parking ($6/day), shuttled to YYZ for YYZ-EWR flight. Couldn't believe we still almost missed our flights despite arriving at post-security lounge 1 hour beforehand. It's a habit of running to board our flights nowadays :)
• Arrived EWR and bus/PATH'ed to Newport to visit cousin, visited nearby Target and Newport Green Park for some views
• PATH'ed to hotel (Radisson Martinique on Broadway) for a nap
• Dinner at Miss Korea (so good) and walked around after

Day 2 Saturday

• Breakfast for 2, and Check-in at Fairfield Inn
• Subway'ed to Chelsea Market 14th St, walked on High Line park to 23rd St and bus to the Flatiron building
• Lunch at Grimaldi's Pizza (tiny small door), tasty pizza
• Back to hotel for nap again, walked to Bryant Park. M42 to UN building for photo
• Dinner at MENCHANKO TEI for Japanese ramen
• Times Square photos, M&M World

Day 3 Sunday

• Check out Marriott and check-in at Radisson
• D train to Chinatown for walk
• Lunch at Excellent Pork Chop House, yummy/homey Taiwan food
• Waited forever for M5 bus to downtown which never came, so walked to 9/11 Preview Site, and then 9/11 Memorial
• Met up with cousin to South Seaport to catch the Manhattan by Sail - Clipper City Tall Ship tour. The 90-minute boat tour was great for picture taking, too bad it was too chilly to enjoy and there's no commentary at all @@
• Dinner at Kunjip. It was okay (a bit $) and didn't like being rushed out with fast bill and waitress hawking us (we were < 1 hour there)

Day 4 Monday

• Big breakfast buffet at Radisson
• B train to American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) only to be unlucky enough to see the B/D line stopped due to police investigation uptown. Had to transfer to 1 train
• Visited Central Park Playground for Ella
• Waited forever again for M10 bus to AMNH, only to find the bus super packed @@
• Donated $20 and visited AMNH for 90 minutes
• Back to Radisson to pick up luggage, N train to Astoria Blvd to catch M60 bus to LGA airport
• 6:30pm LGA-YYZ, arrived 8 pm and picked up car ~9pm, dinner at BR and grocery at T&T, home around midnight

Tips

• MTA MetroCards transfer only bus-to-subway or vice-versa, not bus-to-bus. Even then, I don't trust it much either as we used 1 card for 2 persons and sometimes it didn't read the 2 transfers properly. so in future, just buy the 7-day $30 pass
• Leave plenty of time for transportation, and allocate accordingly. We spent so much time on waiting, transferring, and finding elevators @@ 
• NYC is not baby-friendly at all, Washington is much better

Expenses

• Hotel for 3 nights = FREE
• 2 nights at Radisson with free night certificates (I got them for about ~$80/night, redeemed for $350+/night at NYC!!)
• 1 night at Marriott (30000 points, obtained free from Chase Marriott credit card signup of 50K points)
• Flights = $60 + $30 ~= $100 out of pocket
• YYZ-EWR is $460 for 3 (used $500 United vouchers)
• LGA-YYZ is $228 for 3 - $200 AMEX Platinum's annual $200 credit
• Transportation - $30 YYZ Parking, M62/PATH $10, MTA $50
• Dining - $70 Miss Korea, $15 Grimaldi's Pizza, $50 MENCHANKO TEI, $10 Pork Chop Chinatown, $53 Kunjip
• Attractions - $6 9/11 Memorial, $60 Clipper City sailboat, $20 AMNH

Aeroplan devaluation, and 2012 Mini-RTW

I meant to post this when Aeroplan was busy de-valuing itself in Nov 2011.

Then December 2011 came and they ran a "secret promotion" to redeem Business class for only 75000 miles, same as redemption for Economy class. Normally one needs 125K miles to redeem Business class so this was a great promotion (that lasted 2.5 weeks to everyone's surprise). We took advantage of booking one Mini-RTW trip to Taiwan for Summer 2012, so now I feel slightly better.

Compared to my 2011 Mini-RTW planning (days and $350 in fees), this one only took hours thanks to the limited # of YQ-free airlines and Istanbul lounge has been nominated as the best *A lounge so a visit is an easy decision. It was booked simply as Multi-City on Aeroplan.com

• YYZ-IST TK J on 777
• IST-ICN TK J on A330/340
• ICN-TPE TG J on A330
• ....................................................... 
• TPE-NRT NH J on 767
• NRT-ORD UA J on 747
• ORD-YYZ AC J on E75 but who cares...

Fees only $220 as we avoided most YQ-airlines

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=YYZ-IST-ICN-TPE&MS=bm&DU=mi

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=TPE-NRT-ORD-YYZ&MS=bm&DU=mi

My own calculations of Aeroplan mile's value 
I did a dummy Aeroplan booking for CNY 1.21-1.29
75000 Aeroplan + $400 in fees for 1-stop Y both ways (Tokyo, Beijing)
vs.
TourEast.ca
2-stop = Delta $1200 to United $1350
1-stop Cathay $1460

Let's take $1400 - $400 fees = $1000 for 75000 AE miles..
= 1.3 CPM.. worse than Gift Card redemption

Here are some complaints, taken from FlyerTalk
- No more earning points on Flight Purchases (1/$3.00 spent)
- addition of extra seats to the E90
- elimination of free baggage on transborder flights
- minimum flight/miles requirement on AC metal
- drastic devaluation of the E benefit package/gutting of the Elite program
- Increase to the mileage required to book travel.
- Tango fares no longer earning 100% miles on int´l routes and AC introducing Tango fares in many markets
- no more domestic 2-cabin F segments on int´l J/C awards
- implementation of fuel surcharges on *A partners without any/much notice
- retroactive application of new T&C, generally much less transparancy, the goodwill AC had managed to build with many FFs over the last years has pretty much disappeared
- LMUs offered before all upgrades on the waitlist have cleared (not confirmed, but also no statement saying otherwise as we received in the past)

Latest one being the new 2013 Top Tier program de-valuation. I'm glad I was never near Elite status because I'll be upset too

Just another note, my friend booked even crazier route to.... AFRICA

Counting Down

Counting down to

• Taiwan
• Flying, and flying on AC 777
• Super hot and humid weather
• Seeing family and relatives, new family and relatives
• Grandma's birthday
• A new chapter   ;-)

"Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." - movie Forrest Gump