Well, Adam & I called Canon on vox, just to escalate. I (think) we planted
the notion of a 'preliminary' Tokyo meeting at Thanksgiving before the 'big
boss' Tokyo meeting in December.
This means TRAVELMAN is fantasizing overtime about what to do with TWO more
round the world opportunities. First, he fantasizes much about (ab)using
the GTE holiday card (unlimited round-the-world December service for $25 --
including $10/minute satellite calls :-). Second, he schemes how these
trips could get any better than the first:
* Going around the world in 80 hours
* more time in Hawaii
* actually get off Heathrow in London
* Try it in First
Or, best of all... the Concorde!
Yep, TRAVELMAN's at it again. It looks like a supplement of $750, though --
not cheap! But, I've spent more than that on United FC upgrades this year
alone!
The baseline business class boston-tokyo fare to play with is $4800
100% UA, as you all recall, does it for $2570 / $3618 / $5019
BA does it (along with United for Tokyo - USA) for $2699/$3799/$5299
You can add a Concorde upgrade to the latter two for $1765/$907.
So, dickering UP from the base B-class fare, we'd pay $250 more or so to do
it in United First (and see what's behind those dratted International First
Class Lounge doors! :-).. .or $750 more in British Club World + Concorde +
Connoisseur.
Now, the BA/UA combination makes sense from the mileage maximization
perspective. I've already hit 1K and the plateau bonuses stop at 125k (and
are cancelled altogether after '97 -- so long, United!). So if I really
want to travel only 15,000 more miles on United this year, I need to ration
them and aim the rest at my next program. Well, it looks like British,
since I'm starting with them to Stockholm next week. Silver tier *used* to
be 30k miles of travel, but they've redone it to stack the deck against
economy travellers (sound familiar?). The new point system is wickedly
skewed to first and concorde passengers. The BA/UA combo service, though,
would net me BA Silver status -- and that includes access to all
USAir/American lounges (depending on BA's alliance strategy). The rest of
the benefits only make sense in the UK.
Bring on the mimosas!
TRAVELMAN
--- Rohit Khare -- World Wide Web Consortium -- Technical Staff w: 617/253-5884 -- f: 617/258-5999 -- h: 617/491-5030 NE43-344, MIT LCS, 545 Tech Square, Cambridge, MA 02139