We are now in Baku. We are the ONLY tourists in the JW Marriott! A parade of Marriott suits, inc the GM, came into the lounge to greet us. If you want to come also as a tourist it is the cheapest, best Marriott deal I know of. It is only a 3 level hotel for points and costs bottom of the line-up $300 per night! We did the Stay 2, Get 1 promo with Marriott and are staying free. We matched with our United Gold so are Gold members. We were upgraded to a corner studio king suite which has a water and flame towers view and lounge access. Thank you, Flyertalk, for all the good advice over the years! Food is excellent with many local dishes, esp at evening snack time. Not crowded at all and definitely dinner. Of course, being international, there is free wine. We love this oasis. City is amazing, clean and full of Armani, Tiffany's and the like stores. What oil can buy. After doing all the tourist stuff, I have concluded that we may be the only tourists in the whole city. I highly recommend a visit as it has a nice old town plus many 19th century classic buildings as well as dramatic new edifices, unlike the Gulf States with all new. Tomorrow we plan to take a trip out of the city to an area with amazing, very old, petraglyphs and an excellent new museum. I wish we had time to take in the countryside more. Only thing lacking is good public bathrooms. Restaurants are not required to have them! Yesterday, we used the ones in the Four Seasons as it was near our old town restaurant. I am really happy we tacked this stay onto our trip to Iran. You can get here on Lufthansa.

Oh, and for those of you going through the visa process, I spoke to a fellow traveler who also went to LA to see the consulate guy in person. When her visa was delayed and she was in a crunch, he actually came in on a Saturday to give her her visa in the passport. Now, that amazed me! Kudos to Nahid!