I’ll see you in the morning.

West End Beach, Isle Rotan, Honduras. 10/18/2010. 

Back to the grind tomorrow.  Excited for my next trip to Asia next month.

Miles are great, used 12.5k for a One Way 2 day advance purchase ticket otherwise costing $600.  Even if you travel infrequently, I highly recommend signing up for the frequent flyer program.  The benefits, if used properly, can be quite rewarding.

Delta Airlines

I accumulated quite a few Northwest miles a few years back which was a airline and program I loved.  However when Delta purchased the airline and merged the Worldperks program with their program, Skymiles, I discovered their mileage–(which some have dubbed skypesos)– to be virtually worthless.  Every time I looked, I either couldn’t use my points for redemption or the rates were astronomical.

Since I realized I didn’t have much to do over this winter, I checked on their website for tickets out to Taipei.  The only option that was given to me was for 240k miles roundtrip in business class!!!  Considering all of the competition sells those tickets for half that amount, I figured an alternate routing properly inputted by a human for an alliance ticket was necessary.  The first and second customer service agent both had no clue what they were doing.  Even though I gave her great suggestions, both blew me off like they were reading a script.   Both were of no help, so I did what I recommend for anyone not getting the response they want from a call center– hang up and dial again.

The third representative listened to my suggestions and came up with a surprising routing that impressed even me.  The result: for 120k miles plus 200 in taxes gets me a Roundtrip Business Class airline ticket.

Lesson learned:  hang up and dial again.

I got a lot of free “hand me down furniture” from family and friends.

Much of it dated back from the 70′s and 80′s.

As useful as some of the furniture was, I’m feeling it’s about time to buy my own.  I want to start with a couch for my living room that reflects my preferences in style and comfort.  Unfortunately, every couch I’ve seen has something wrong with it.  I’m looking for what Goldilocks was looking for…a couch that was JUUUUSSSSST right.  If anyone has suggestions on which stores to check out in the SF Bay, I’m open.

So I’m still looking…and I think it might take a long long time.  Until I get my house the way that I feel comfortable in, it’s just a house, not yet a home.

“I drink to make other people more interesting.” ]]> http://jonathanchao.com/blog/archives/70/feed 1 http://jonathanchao.com/blog/archives/72 http://jonathanchao.com/blog/archives/72#comments Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:22:25 +0000 Jonathan Chao http://jonathanchao.com/blog/archives/72 After 5 trips to Bangkok over the past 4 years, I FINALLY am going to make it to the Tiger Temple.

I get to bear-hug tigger.  This is definitely going to be a blog worthy experience.

http://travelhappy.info/thailand/tiger-temple-thailand/

I’ll be doing inspections on the 3 restaurants I’ve scouted in the past few weeks.  Hopefully in a month or two one of those can be ALL mine.