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Dubai, Seychelles, and Vegas for BAcon (EK J/F, CX J, HM Y, Burj Al Arab, and more!)

Dubai, Seychelles, and Vegas for BAcon (EK J/F, CX J, HM Y, Burj Al Arab, and more!)

Old Sep 29, 2014, 1:04 pm
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Dubai, Seychelles, and Vegas for BAcon (EK J/F, CX J, HM Y, Burj Al Arab, and more!)

[Additional details and photos can be found in the external links below to my blog]

1. Introduction - Camels, Bats, and Bloggers
2. Emirates Lounge at SFO
3. Emirates First Class San Francisco to Dubai
4. Conrad Dubai
5. Old Dubai, Ski Dubai, and At the Top
6. Emirates Terminal B First Class Lounge at DXB
7. Emirates First Class Dubai to Mahe, Seychelles
8. Four Seasons Seychelles
9. Air Seychelles Economy Class Mahe to Praslin
10. Raffles Praslin Seychelles
11. Island Hopping - La Digue
12. Island Hopping - Praslin, Cousine, Curieuse, St. Pierre
13. Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort and Spa
14. Emirates Business Class Mahe, Seychelles to Dubai
15. 7-Star Luxury at the Burj Al Arab
16. British Airways Lounge at DXB
17. Cathay Pacific Business Class Dubai to Los Angeles via Hong Kong
18. 2014 BAcon Conference in Las Vegas + Mandalay Bay Hotel
19. American Express Centurion Lounge at LAS
_______________________________

It all started with BAcon. Not the type that you get on a cheeseburger at 2AM after a long night of drinking, but the type that involves sitting in a room for 3 days with 75 other bloggers and learning some really cool stuff.

As a recent addition to the BoardingArea/Prior2Boarding family of bloggers, I was ecstatic about receiving an invitation to attend the 2014 BoardingArea Conference (BAcon) in Las Vegas. It would give me the chance to develop my amateur skill set, and to meet and network with my fellow bloggers from the BoardingArea family.

And best of all, with BAcon scheduled for mid-September, the stars aligned with work schedules to allow for one final vacation for the year leading up to it. We blocked off the time, and turned our attention to figuring out where to go.

One of the many takeways from blogging school? People freaking love lists. For some reason, we have a deep need to see things ranked in list form. Everything from weekly power rankings of all 32 NFL teams, to the 10 best things to eat in a particular city, and even stuff like ranking the 6 Kardashians from best to worst. Or are there 7? 8? They're multiplying too quickly and I can't keep track.

And a list is exactly how we ended up deciding where to spend the bulk of our two week vacation. In my opinion, beach vacations are the best type of vacation. Based on some detailed research which involved Googling "what are the best beaches", I came across this CNN list "World's 100 best beaches". Scrolling down to the bottom, I noticed that 2 of the top 5 beaches in the world, including #1 in the world accordingly to this list, were located on the island of La Digue in the Seychelles, which is located off the East Coast of Africa.

My wife isn't a big fan of complicated, long flights itineraries, and a best-case scenario for getting to the Seychelles from San Francisco would involve 2-3 connections and 24+ hours in transit each way. Given this, I knew that there could be some hiccups in getting her on board, so I made sure to use a less direct approach than simply asking:

"So, I'm leaning toward heading to the Seychelles for our trip. Seems like they have some really nice beaches there"
"Seychelles? Never heard of it, it must be really far away. How many connections will it take to get there?"
"It's where Kate Middleton and George Clooney recently went for vacation"
"I'm in!"

Getting to/from the Seychelles is actually quite easy as there are basically two choices - flying Emirates via Dubai or Etihad via Abu Dhabi. With enough Alaska Airlines and American Airlines miles on hand, respectively, I had my choice of either.

Unfortunately, when I started looking for award availability we were sort of in no-man’s land. We had missed the really early booking window (~330 days out) and the semi-early window (~4-6 months out), but hadn’t reached the last-minute window (~2 weeks out) when things really start to open up.

With about a month to go, I started to make placeholder bookings with the outbound on Emirates in Business Class via ORD, and the return from DXB where I found a great Business Class fare on Cathay Pacific which would also be a huge help in my quest to re-qualify for MVP Gold. It was a relatively low-risk move since Cathay’s cancellation policies, even on revenue tickets, is very generous and the ticket could be re-scheduled (route must stay the same, but dates can change) for free, or cancelled for $50.

I wrote about my experiences using Alaska Airlines miles to book Emirates, and in the end was able to get First Class seats aboard the direct flight from SFO to DXB just a couple days before departure. I was holding out hope for First Class seats aboard the AUH to LAX flight on Etihad which never opened up, so I decided to stick with the Cathay Pacific flights that had been booked.

My trip reports seem to be getting longer and longer. Clocking in at 19 parts, this will officially be my longest trip report to-date.

Speaking of long, that's a good way to describe the route that we took from San Francisco to Vegas. Normally, it's 414 miles each way and takes about an hour and a half. Our routing? A 2 week trip that took us around-the-world, spanning 23,866 miles. As a miles and points fanatic, when given the choice between those two, you can guess which I'd pick every single time.

SFO-DXB-SEZ-PRI-SEZ-DXB-HKG-LAX-LAS-SFO

Last edited by sfoactuary; Dec 8, 2014 at 10:39 pm
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 1:18 pm
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Emirates Lounge at SFO

With lady luck on our side, a couple days prior to departure we were able to snag 2 seats aboard the direct flight from San Francisco to Dubai. With no need for an early morning positioning flight to Chicago or Seattle, we were able to sleep-in and take our time finishing up packing.

Our flight was scheduled for 4:45pm and I had scheduled the chauffeur service, which is included with Business and First Class bookings for all US gateways, for a 1:45pm pickup. While I certainly appreciate the Emirates chauffeur service in Dubai, it was even more valuable in this case since it saved us the cost of a taxi or Uber to the airport which can easily run up to $50. We arrived at the airport shortly after 2pm, and headed over to the check-in counter.

Since I had checked-in online, we simply picked up our boarding passes, zipped through security, and made a beeline for the Emirates lounge at SFO. This is one of two Emirates lounges located in the US, with the other located at New York's JFK airport. To be perfectly honest, with just once daily service to Dubai being the only flight of the day and even with the upgrade later this year from a 777-300ER to an A380, I have no clue why Emirates has its own lounge at SFO versus partnering with another lounge.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not complaining, because this is the best lounge I've been to at SFO. Certainly better than United Airlines and Delta lounges, better than the Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Cathay Pacific lounges, and even better than the United Global First Lounge.

We checked-in at the front counter of the lounge, and took the elevator downstairs to the main area. This place is huge - no need to fight for seating, although it did get more crowded closer to departure. Upon entering there's a sleek water feature as well as two huge TV's which were perfect for keeping up with all the Sunday action on this NFL opening weekend.

Emirates Lounge at SFO




Plane spotting from the lounge - Cathay Pacific 77W bound for Hong Kong


Our ride to Dubai - Emirates 777-300ER


Instead of getting settled in the main seating area, we headed toward the back of the lounge to the full-service restaurant area where there was a fantastic selection food and drinks which included cold appetizers, a hot buffet, and dessert bar. There were 3 lounge attendants servicing the restaurant area and regularly cleaned the tables and replenished the food items.

It's easily the best food I've had at a domestic lounge in the US, even on par with the food at the American Express Centurion lounges. The shrimp and salmon salad appetizers in particular were really tasty, and the creme brulee was just fantastic. If anything, I wish I had eaten more at the lounge since the food was much better than what we were served onboard our flight.

Emirates Lounge at SFO dining room


Appetizer and dessert selection


Hot, cold, and alcoholic drink selection


Hot buffet selection


Food selection at Emirates Lounge at SFO


Shrimp appetizer


After eating, we moved back over to the main seating area and hung out for about an hour before boarding. The internet in the lounge was blazing fast - note that the lounge has three different network options (Emirates 1, Emirates 2, and Emirates 3). At first I was on Emirates 1 but the internet was really slow since that's presumably the option that most people choose. But switching over to Emirates 3 fixed that issue, so just a tip in case things are slow.

I also roamed around and checked out the other facilities which included showers, a large business center with 6 computer terminals, and a prayer room.

For our 4:45pm flight boarding commenced punctually at 4:00pm and was available directly from the lounge, just as our Korean Air flight earlier this year from the British Airways lounge. This really enhances the premium cabin experience and I hope it becomes a default feature offered by all airlines. While most of the passengers stayed in the lounge presumably until the last possible minute, I dragged my wife on board right away so that I could get settled and take pictures.

As I mentioned before, I have no clue why Emirates has a lounge at SFO, but I'm glad they do. This is easily the best lounge at SFO. Unfortunately, since Emirates is not part of an alliance the lounge is not accessible unless you're flying Emirates on their once daily flight to Dubai.

Last edited by sfoactuary; Sep 29, 2014 at 2:51 pm
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 1:26 pm
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I looked forward to this report
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 2:19 pm
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I hope you enjoy Dubai~!! One of my favourite cities to visit during the winter months. I think the only thing that is missing from this trip report compared to your previous ones might be ippudo and Din Tai Fung~!!
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 2:21 pm
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Looking forward to the report! That lounge food looks awesome... V/r, Tim.


*Could downsize the pics a bit so the text won't have to be a scrolling left and right to read it
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 2:45 pm
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I love those high(er) resolution pictures! Looking forward to seeing more of this report.
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 4:51 pm
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Another sfoactuary report! Yay!

I'm excited to have been able to grab DFW-DXB using AS miles. And doing it after October so that it will be an A380 flight!
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 5:06 pm
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I used to run into the same issue with my wife regarding taking the most direct flights, but now I've found that if I say we're flying international F or J, I can get her on board fairly easily with complicated multi-continent itineraries.

Looking forward to the TR!
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 5:43 pm
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Excellent report. Can't wait to see the rest.
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 10:22 pm
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Grest start, sfoactuary . Waiting for the rest, especially Dubai.
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 11:33 pm
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Subscribing
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Old Sep 29, 2014, 11:58 pm
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Tuned into this one!
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Old Sep 30, 2014, 1:38 am
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Subscribed and eagerly awaiting the rest!
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Old Sep 30, 2014, 3:25 am
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Great so far, waiting for the next part(s).
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Old Sep 30, 2014, 12:55 pm
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Oh this is going to be good!
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