Hello all! It's been a while since I posted a trip report and with travel largely returning to pre-pandemic normalcy (I'm talking about passenger numbers... not how difficult it is to redeem award tickets nowadays), I figured it would be a good time to post.
Background and booking: I needed to be in Taiwan for a family wedding and decided to make a trip out of it. I started planning back in August 2022, when we weren't sure what quarantine restrictions would look like in December. However, the Taiwanese CDC announced that as of October 13, 2022, inbound travelers would only be subject to a "0+7 framework" - with 0 denoting the number of days of mandatory quarantine, and 7 being the number of days of "self-initiated epidemic prevention" (which I find ironic).
Primarily located in SEA, I looked at every single routing possible. EVA Air is the most direct routing to Taipei, with the only non-stop option, however prices were high and award availability for business class was zilch, especially as I was flying during the 2 last weeks of the year, when most Taiwanese return home, exacerbated by the fact that this was the first time since the pandemic that no mandatory quarantine restrictions existed. Much like many others on the forum, I have a multi-year streak of playing this points game that lets us fake currencies to sit in the pointy end of planes. My personal policy is to have a lie-flat seat when crossing an ocean and luckily I was able to keep the streak alive during this trip; however it was difficult.
I looked into virtually every single routing option from all North American gateways (YVR, SEA, SFO, LAX, ORD) and set up ExpertFlyer alerts (where I could..)...
- BR direct
- KE through ICN
- JL and NH through NRT / HND
- CI direct
- UA direct from SFO
- DL through ICN or HND (lol just kidding, there's likely never a scenario where I'll pay 480,000 skypesos for a seat)
The return proved a little easier as I was flying the day after Christmas - I first booked CI TPE-SFO through Flying Blue for something like 95K Flying Blue miles, then switched to TPE-YVR-SEA, then finally 4 days prior to departure, EVA Air released award seats on their 787 service direct to Seattle so I canceled my Flying Blue ticket and booked through Aeroplan for 58K points transferred over from Chase (for 75K with a 30% transfer bonus).
The outbound was tough, though in mid-November EVA decided to add a second flight out of SFO and I just happened to be lucky enough to snag 1 of 4 award seats for the same 58K Chase points transferred over to Aeroplan, then booked a separate positioning flight SEA-SFO on Delta with some skypesos.
I was a bit bummed to not get to try out CI's business class (it looks beautiful, if not for the food), but I've flown EVA many times and it's one of my favorite ways to cross the Pacific.
Final itinerary:- SEA-SFO in Delta Comfort +
- SFO Polaris Lounge
- SFO-TPE in EVA Air Royal Laurel Class (777)
- The Sheraton Grand Taipei
- A few days in Taipei
- TSA-TTT in Uni Air Coach and the Sheraton Taitung
- A few days in Taitung and TTT-TSA in Uni Air Coach
- A few more days in Taipei
- TPE-SEA in EVA Air Royal Laurel Class (787)
Overall, our award game is getting a bit more difficult to play, and I think I spent more time looking into options, booking, and rebooking flights than I ever have before. It's tough out there!
