Meet the owner of the wine bar and found out he does the contracts with airlines for there miles for CC. The more interesting part is that he lives in Stillwater, OK. I told him he should try to get CO to give miles for the wine bar, I would rack in the miles! :) It is so strange how many interesting people you sometimes meet in a small town.

Wow...looks like you had a really good time at the wine bar tonight. :D :eek:

Is this basically iDine?

No, sounds like this is a company that handles the talks between the airlines and the CC companies. I will have to pick his brain for more information in the coming weeks. As to the having a good time. One glass of wine and i am gone. I am looking forward to relaxing this weekend.

BTW, I may not be going to NYC the second weekend of Nov. SO I may head down to OKC the night you fly through.

Well, sorry to hear that you might have to miss that conference/convention, but I'm definitely up for something that night if you're around.

And I'm surprised that there is a company that handles those talks. I'd think that each airline has their card issuer of choice and it is pretty much a set, long-term contract between them. Either way, see if you can come up with a plan to skim a few off the top.

The place was cool , I believe it was a brand new construction.
It is adjacent to a huge parking structure and a Muvico movie theater
near the Intercontinental Hotel.
It was my first aloft experience so I have nothing to compare it to, it felt just like a W Hotel minus a restaurant and room service.
They have a 24 hour snack bar which has breakfast starting at 6 am ( I left before It was set up) . For dinner , the front desk ordered a Giordano's Stuffed crust pizza for me . They also informed me that some places around there that don't offer delivery will still deliver to their hotel in case I wanted something else .
The bar apparently closes at midnight during the week which can cause a problem for this board.
overall it was a good experience and even though there are some bad reviews out there, I wanted to try it and was satisfied.

I hinted at this question before but does the fact that a VS flight codeshares with CO but the ticket was bought through VS earn you EQMs on CO?

My trip to SA has been revived and I am thinking I will just do VS all the way, EWR-JNB in Premium Economy. If I do an unrestricted ticket on DL or AF I will make Gold for the year but the cost is fairly high.

Yes, you'll get EQMs even if it is a VS-issued ticket, at least on the EWR-LON flights assuming that they are available as a CO flight, even if you don't book the CO flight numbers. You will not get EQMs on the LON-JNB flights. And you get no COS bonus for the PE purchase. Just double-check the fare class on the co.com page but it should be listed in the 100% bucket.

That's what I thought but wanted to make sure.

I may do LAX-LHR-JNB to grab a few more EQMs. If some of the other partners had PE I would probably fly them.

In other news, I was looking for tickets to BRU and the options to upgrade. I could find a few available seats but the fees make me a little sick to my stomach.

That unrestricted ticket is also E- if it's on DL or AF. Save your back. :D

BTW, morning Box. How good it feels to sleep until 10 minutes ago on a weekday.

And, no elite RDM bonuses on any of the flights.

I will miss out on about 9,000 miles r/t but the more I think about doing DL (which appear to be able to pack their flights) the more I cringe.

It would suck to fly DL (or any) coach all the way over there and back (do they still have the fuel stop?), and would be well worth 9,000 RDMs to avoid.

Both the JFK and ATL flights stop in DKR for fuel.

I've reached the point in following this discussion where I don't know what is more insane: Y on DL or backtracking to LAX. Both seem about equal on the :confused: scale to me.