US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Which US Airways Caribbean Destination(s)?

Okay, it's beginning to look like Europe might be a long shot for the near term, so now I'm thinking I might try for a trip to the Caribbean from 26 December until 1 or 2 January.

Questions:

1) Since I'm certain I'll have to book premium awards for these dates, can I upgrade them like North American premium awards as CP?

2) How's First Class service to the Caribbean? Are they particularly long flights?

3) Where should I go? I've never been to the Caribbean at all. Here are some things I'm looking for...

- Passport stamps. Are there places I can go and then do some island (and therefore country) hopping from there?
- Hints of Europe. I've been told that some places in the Caribbean are a mix of native and European culture.
- Nice beaches, great food, great weather, etc.

Other than that, I'm not too picky. I was thinking of St. Maarten (for the mix of Dutch and French, I guess), but I'd like to get some feedback from others. Thanks! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

PHL-SJU has the A-333, 30 Envoy seats and 6 FC seats. Good craft, betetr FA's! Also, You can puddle jump fairly inexpensively to Dominican Republic or St.Thomas.

San Juan is an under-estimated cosmopolitian City IMO.

P.S> Shameless plug for the Caribe Hilton!

Aruba is a long haul... About 4 hours from Philly.. An upgrade is a must.. Service was pretty good.. About what you would expect on a transcon...


Regardless of if you are in F or in the baggage compartment Aruba is great!

Aruba and St. Maarten are my favourite islands. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FlyerAl:
Aruba and St. Maarten are my favourite islands. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif</font>

And, SXM is a historically high fare destination. This would be a good bang for the mileage buck destination.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Gandalf:
PHL-SJU has the A-333, 30 Envoy seats and 6 FC seats. Good craft, betetr FA's! Also, You can puddle jump fairly inexpensively to Dominican Republic or St.Thomas.

San Juan is an under-estimated cosmopolitian City IMO.

P.S&gt; Shameless plug for the Caribe Hilton!</font>


TravelScholar,

After doing some searches a couple of weeks ago nothing much showed up as being available for the Carribean using Standard awards. Since your from Boston you might want to try the the new BOS-SJU Satuday service. I jumped on it Friday and got a FC for 60K miles. The redemption desk rep did not even now about the service.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/021213/dcf005_1.html

Gandolf,

Going for the Caribe booking today although I am wavering about spending some time at the Ponce too.

Woops....re-read the msg and saw your dates.

Thanks for the feedback. I think either Aruba or St. Maarten would be great, although it looks like St. Maarten might work better if I wanted to try to do some island hopping.

How does one get around on a Caribbean island? Do I need to rent a car? Thanks for answering the basics, since this is my first time trying out the region. Hopefully, I'll be able to call later tonight or tomorrow morning for tickets. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Does anyone know if there are any Caribbean destinations where I can go to place A, stay for a day or two, then continue on to place B for a few days before returning home with the same award?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TravelScholar:
Thanks for the feedback. I think either Aruba or St. Maarten would be great, although it looks like St. Maarten might work better if I wanted to try to do some island hopping.

How does one get around on a Caribbean island? Do I need to rent a car? Thanks for answering the basics, since this is my first time trying out the region. Hopefully, I'll be able to call later tonight or tomorrow morning for tickets. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Does anyone know if there are any Caribbean destinations where I can go to place A, stay for a day or two, then continue on to place B for a few days before returning home with the same award?</font>


I was in St Maarten earlier this year - you need to rent a car to get around. I had a Daewoo Matiz - an experience I won't soon forget. My favorite so far is St Thomas last year, with lots of time over in St John (no car needed - plenty of taixs). It's all US, so no passport stamps, but I much preferred it to St. M. The Bahamas were very nice, although it was much like being in the US - KFC and Subway just across the bridge from where we stayed. PR I wouldn't recommend, and Jamaica was too long ago to give a valid opinion, but we loved it. Aruba is the next location - I've heard great things about it.

All of the above were on US F awards - service is the same as standard transcon F - 757/321/etc. - very nice for a 3 hr flight, through CLT or PHL. Usually a meal, a movie, etc., but not Envoy-class level as to Europe.

We were planning to fly mid-Nov RDU to CLT to BZE, but mechnical problems on our first leg forced a change to AA. Our return trip was long, but since a caterer hadn't been set up yet in BZE, there was no food service on the US BZE to CLT return flight. The highlights of the trip: Snorkeling with sharks and rays in a marine sanctuary. My wife also got a kick out of being allowed the co-pilot seat on the Tropic Air connection to Ambergris Caye.

You definitely need a car to fully enjoy St. Maarten. Everything's scattered all over the island. Expect to pay over $200 for a week's car rental.

It's not really necessary in Aruba. If you're just wanting the beach and shopping they have a good citybus service that goes to downtown.

OK, thanks for everyone's advice. I've booked two premium award tickets to Aruba and upgraded to First! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

It's a shorter stay than I'd like, but short is better than none. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Now the problem is finding a place to stay! Everything I've found so far is sold out. Any ideas?

Is the Aruba bus system pretty easy to use? Or should I really consider a renatal car here, too (if I can even get one)?

Thanks again, especially if anyone can come up with any hotel ideas! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

The Aruba bus systm is very easy to use. They run up and down the "hotel strip" constantly. Cost is $2 r/t per person.

I'm just back from Aruba last Sunday. Made CP on this trip. The trip went smoothly in F both directions, except for POTUS holding up PHL on the outbound that Thrusday. Very friendly crew - I gave out 2 'thank you' cards to very surprised FA's.

I agree on Aruba bus system being the best way to travel from the Palm Beach hotel strip to downtown (even at night). However, on our last 25 hours we rented a small car from Amigo and went to Natural Bridge on the north shore and Baby Beach on the eastern end of the island. We used it as our transportation back to the airport and it ended up replacing the $20 taxi ride. So the net cost for the car was like $18.

CAUTION: We stayed at the Marriott and really got taken by the $5/minute calls through hotel. I did get a Setar prepaid calling card mid-trip, but that was only good at 5 locations on the island (Holiday Inn has one phone). I saw an ATT prepaid card vending machine at BWI - anyone used them in the Caribbean ?

I'm going to Aruba towards the end of January (burning some miles in F and some hotel awards too...)

Wouldn't a pre-paid phone card work the same as it does domestically? I was under the impression that the phone system is essentially an extension of the US...

And while we're on the topic -- what is the likelyhood of internet connectivity? I know that I should leave the laptop home but...

Tom, FlyerTalk will be here when you get back! Give up the monkey for the week. You can do it...
Plus work can wait even more!

St. Maarten and the Platinum Room go together like bread and butter...

Can I get a witness?

Well, as of today, a whole load of new US destinations got loaded into the computer.

Anguilla - daily via PHL and SXM; St/Sun via CLT and SXM
St. Kitts - non-stop or via SXM
Saba - via SMX
St. Eustatius - via SXM
Nevis - via SXM
St. Barthelemy - via SXM

The SBH flight is 15 minutes and 14 miles!!!

Well I was taking a Dash-8 for extra segments and extra GOM from Newport News, VA to Norfolk VA over the summer. It was a 6 minute flight from about 500 feet in the air on a Dash 8(it seemed) :-]

They caught on to me after several months and did not award the extra segment or GOM because the flight # did not change. But they didn't retract anything.

I've always wanted to do this same trip.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Heinrich:

Well I was taking a Dash-8 for extra segments and extra GOM from Newport News, VA to Norfolk VA over the summer. It was a 6 minute flight from about 500 feet in the air on a Dash 8(it seemed) :-]

They caught on to me after several months and did not award the extra segment or GOM because the flight # did not change. But they didn't retract anything.</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Heinrich:

Well I was taking a Dash-8 for extra segments and extra GOM from Newport News, VA to Norfolk VA over the summer. It was a 6 minute flight from about 500 feet in the air on a Dash 8(it seemed) :-]
</font>

I did about the same several years ago on a Plattsburgh (no longer served) to Burlington
flight. I think it was 23 miles, vs. the Newport-Norfolk 27 miles. I timed it at 7 minutes, wheels up to touchdown, hopping over Lake Champlain.

There is a regularly scheduled flight in the Orkney Islands of Sctland that is 2 minutes - 1 minute with a good tailwind. Now THAT would be a waste of an award.

You can actually book a flight from Newport News to Norfolk and back if you want. I wonder if anyone ever has? Come to think of it, I met an Airtran (Newport News) passenger who didn't want to drive to Norfolk so he connected in Newport News to USAir to Norfolk. I wonder if their reservation system offers that automatically like USAIr's does when you keep pressing "More flights" button

Every once in a while, US does a BWI-DCA repositioning flight. I took it once when I did my first GhettoJet flight. FLL-BWI-DCA. The distance is 30 miles; wheels up time is 10 minutes. Probably would have been shorter had the aircraft landed on 21 instead of flying south and turning north for runway 33.

If I remember correctly the phone system in Aruba is much different.. 6 digit numbers. To dial the US you have to do the country code thing. Not sure how that works with phone cards, but its definatly not an extension of the us system.

As for places to stay. I stayed at the Marriott and the Hyatt for our honeymoon, and would highly recommend it, if it isnt already sold out... Anywhere on Palm beach is key.. Raddison always looked nice as well as the Wyndham.

I would disagree on the bus though, although it is conveienent, you will only see about 10% of Aruba. One of the best decisions we made was to get a car. The people are so friendly and the driving so easy it was a blast (well once I figured out the international driving signs). Figure even at $30 a day that is one roundtrip cabfare a day. The wife and I were downtown a lot so it was well worth it.

Well, after MUCH MUCH searching with no success, I finally settled on booking the Brickell Bay Beach Club. I have NO idea what to expect, but it didn't look too horrible, I guess.

http://www.brickellbayaruba.com

All of the major brand resorts were either sold out, or would not accept a reservation for fewer than five nights. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Oh, well...at least the weather and food should be good. Any good eating recommendations? Must see attractions?? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif I'd be interested in hearing about a few more experiences before I go.

Also, this is a silly thing, but can I get my passport stamped when I arrive at the airport? Or do they just waive US passports through?? I like collecting the stamps as little souveniers for all the places I visit. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by TravelScholar (edited 12-23-2002).]

You DO realize that you have to report back when you return, don't you? I don't really need to tell you that, do I?

I have been to Aruba twice and it is great. You do get your passport stamped, even though the passport agents are on a rotation from the US.

Be very careful about the phone system in Aruba. I would not suggest buying a phone card ahead of time because in certain hotels, they only let you use certain brands of calling cards, phone cards, etc.

The bus system is very good, and inexpensive. You do not need a car, unless you plan to go to eat at the opposite end of the island.

There are some great threads about Aruba, dining, etc. on both the Marriott and Hyatt sections in Flyertalk.