puls

42: it’s the answer to life, the universe, and now the question “How many honeymoon threads are there in the Trip Reports forum?” And so.

It finally happened. After seven years of dating and epic trips to Turkey, Hawaii, Belgium, Egypt, Central Europe, Iceland (where I asked her to marry me), and Hong Kong and Singapore, we finally tied the knot. It was a wonderful wedding full of all the friends and family we dearly love, and it left us with one more trip to make happen. The honeymoon.

Hiking in New Zealand sounds like our idea of a good time. Taking way too many flights on the way there and the way home also sounds like a great idea, especially since there’s no really great way of getting to New Zealand on points unless you get unreasonably lucky.

Maybe we’ll throw in some quality time on the beach to make the out-of-the-way routing worthwhile. This is our honeymoon, we have plenty of points sitting around, let’s throw caution to the wind and go crazy.

Here's the full index of the 31 posts up ahead:

1. Booking
2. Temporary International Lounge*, SFO
3. ANA First Class, SFO to NRT
4. ANA Suite Lounge, NRT Terminal 1 Satellite 4
5. Thai Royal First, NRT to BKK
6. Conrad Bangkok
7. Bangkok Airways Boutique Lounge, BKK Domestic
8. Bangkok Airways Economy, BKK to USM
9. Conrad Koh Samui
10. Samui Domestic Departures
11. Bangkok Airways Economy, USM to BKK
12. Thai Royal First Lounge and Royal Orchid Spa, BKK
13. Thai Royal First, BKK to SYD
14. Air New Zealand Lounge, SYD
15. Air New Zealand Business operated by HiFly Malta, SYD to AKL
16. Air New Zealand Economy, AKL to ZQN
17. Sofitel Queenstown
18. New Zealand South Island Highlights
19. Interislander Premium Plus Lounge, Picton to Wellington
20. InterContinental Wellington
21. New Zealand North Island Highlights
22. Cordis Auckland
23. Air New Zealand Lounge, AKL
24. Singapore Suites, AKL to SIN
25. Crowne Plaza Changi Airport
26. The Private Room, SIN
27. Singapore OMG NEW SUITES!, SIN to HKG
28. Half a day in Hong Kong
29. The Pier, HKG
30. The Wing, HKG
31. Cathay Pacific First, HKG to SFO

puls

Booking

The most difficult get with points was going to probably be the beach resort somewhere in Asia, and I spent a few days looking around at what was available and when. I eventually found five nights in peak season at the Conrad Koh Samui and gladly waved goodbye to five years’ worth of Hilton points.

Booking this well in advance, I had no trouble finding premium cabin space for most of the long outbound flights on a combination of ANA, Thai, and Air New Zealand. I booked San Francisco to Koh Samui with Singapore KrisFlyer miles and Koh Samui to Auckland with United MileagePlus miles shortly before that remaining award chart sweet spot went away.

The return from New Zealand would be a little trickier, and due to some quirks in award charts, I found a couple of Singapore Suites flights as far as Hong Kong and a separate Cathay Pacific flight back to San Francisco on an Alaska award for fewer points than booking Singapore Airlines the whole way home.

Leaving it to Thai Airways to change one’s plans at the last minute, though: instead of doing an aircraft swap for the one ancient 737-400 they were inexplicably keeping around for the short hop between Bangkok and Samui, they canceled the flights entirely. I called in to KrisFlyer and MileagePlus and got answers from well-meaning agents on both calls that since no Star Alliance carrier served the route anymore our only options were to drop the segments between Bangkok and Koh Samui or to have our tickets refunded entirely.

I ended up having to buy the short hop on Bangkok Airways, now the only carrier serving the route, about a month before departure for a cool full-fare economy price of $339 per person round trip or 59 cents per mile. But hey, if we had gone to the Maldives or Bora Bora or so many other distant resort locales we would have spent just as much for a connecting flight.

puls

United Temporary International Lounge*, San Francisco

We arrived at SFO about 90 minutes before the flight after our usual Uber ride in from the suburbs. I was surprised to see the check-in lines for ANA were completely empty! We stepped to the front of the first class line and got our bags checked in and received our boarding passes in no time at all.





We also received a total of four $20 prepaid American Express cards with notes apologizing for the lounge situation. About a year ago, there were four lounge options at SFO’s International G concourse for passengers in first class on Star Alliance carriers, including the United Club, the EVA lounge, the SilverKris lounge, and the Global First Lounge. But the first three closed on October 1st of last year to Voltron together into the new United Polaris lounge, leaving only one temporarily-renamed lounge for premium passengers across all of the airlines.



Security took no time at all thanks to TSA PreCheck and a continuing complete lack of lines, and we decided to take a look at the lounge.






And hoo boy, was it full. After being warmly welcomed in, we wandered about for five or ten minutes before two seats together opened up anywhere at all in the lounge. I waited to take some photos of the seating area until it cleared out a little bit.

Pretty sweet view straight out to our plane.



Food and beverage spread was reasonable, though we passed on the food since we had an 11 am departure and we were looking forward to a sizable meal onboard.








A couple of glasses of Moët makes any wait go down a bit more easily, though.



By the time the Beijing flight and the Seoul flight and the Haneda flight boarded and left, we nearly had the lounge to ourselves.





The review

Clearly, United is making the best of a bad situation when it comes to lounges at SFO until the big construction is done. That said, it’s a bad situation they imposed upon themselves and upon their partner carriers that probably could have been avoided by somehow doing more construction in phases and less all at once. We intentionally arrived at the airport a little later than we might have otherwise since we knew there was no good lounge option.

NYC Flyer

...one more trip to start the next lifetime of adventures. Congrats! Looking forward to the rest of your report.

puls

ANA 7, San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo Narita (NRT)
February 1st, 2018
11:00 am–3:15 pm (+1)
Boeing 777-300ER JA778A
Seats 2D/G (center pair, first class)

The temporary lounge was next to gate G98, the same gate we were departing from, so it only took a few seconds to walk over. Big crowd waiting to board.



We arrived about halfway into pre-boarding, so we queued up and waited just a minute or so before first class and diamond elites were welcomed onboard.





We were met at door 2L by a swarm of flight attendants and shown to our seats up front. My first time in ANA’s First Square product.



Amazingly, there was very little storage to be had at the seat. A coat closet had space for, well, a coat, but not much else, and was only accessible from the aisle in any case.



Looking forward, there was space for a rollaboard below the ottoman, and the ottoman itself had a drawer that could be opened to store maybe a file folder with some documents in it, but nothing else.



Slippers, pajamas, and a sweater were waiting for us on the ottoman.





The literature pocket was full and it was a bit hard to get anything in or out.



There was a compartment for hanging headphones and a compartment for storing eyeglasses, and that was about it. Nowhere to keep a tablet or a laptop close at hand, and no preset bottle of water.




I was especially surprised at the lack of storage given the large walls surrounding both sides of the seat; they’re great for privacy but my wife and I couldn’t even talk to each other without leaning as far forward as we could manage.

There was a retractable touchscreen remote for controlling seat functions as well as a standard retractable IFE remote.




Power outlets included one low-current USB and one universal AC outlet along with the old 2006-era Panasonic iPod cable port, highlighted in the seat function guide as “iPod cable is no longer available”.



Headphones (Sony-branded) and an amenity kit (Samsonite-branded with cosmetics from The Ginza) were waiting at our seats as well.






A flight attendant stopped by with a choice of champagne or juice as a pre-departure beverage.




Another flight attendant appeared a few minutes later with a tray full of additional items, most of which were duplicates from the amenity kit. I passed on the lip balm and the leg refreshing sheet.



About 15 minutes after our scheduled departure time, the plane pushed and the safety video began to screen. I didn’t manage any pictures of the taxi or takeoff since we were in middle seats and the camera was deactivated for some reason.



Maybe five or six minutes after takeoff, the seatbelt sign was switched off and it remained off for the next nine hours. I decided to check out the lavatory. Pretty standard for a 777, upgraded with some nice flowers and towels. The sink in this one was beautiful but nonfunctional.






As I returned to my seat, a flight attendant brought the menu, presented in a dark blue book cover and mostly taken up with the wine list.
























I started browsing the list of available movies, only to be briefly interrupted in the most pleasant way possible.



I generally use long flights like this to catch up on Marvel movies I haven’t seen, so Thor: Ragnarok was an obvious choice.












Speaking of showtime, the amuse bouche came by around the same time. The four items are risotto wrapped in roast beef, smoked salmon and scallop tartare, gazpacho with shrimp and sea urchin, and a cheese pepper bar.



The table is set.



First courses: kombu kelp with herring roe and a selection of morsels including grilled Alfonsino, abalone in soy sauce, jellied monkfish liver, crab meat rolled with marinated daikon, and yuba with soy sauce. All six items were new and different to me, because I know very little about Japanese cuisine. But it was all great.



Soup course: clear soup with scallop fish cake. Absolutely wonderful.



I took a recommendation for some sake to go with everything.




Fish course: tuna, yellowtail, and shrimp sashimi.



Main courses, all served together: grilled sablefish, simmered beef, chrysanthemum and crab meat in soy-vinegar gelée, pickles, rice, and miso soup. I was perhaps getting a bit full at this point, because I didn’t enjoy these as much. I’m probably just too much of a gaijin to get around a piece of fish that’s full of bones with only chopsticks.








Though I did manage a delightful glass of burgundy to go with it.



The dessert, which I was feeling dubious about even trying given how full I was rapidly becoming, was such a profoundly delicious white chocolate mousse that I ate every last bit.



And if that wasn’t enough, there were still some last bites and a glass of port to finish it off.



Really, a wonderful meal. Plenty to send me straight into a food coma, which is all you really want on a westbound daytime flight, right?

After finishing the movie, I asked the flight attendant to make the bed for me. It took several minutes of figuring out how to get the seat unstuck, but I eventually ended up with a flat bad with an egg crate mattress pad, a duvet, and a second pillow.



Not the most comfy or plush of beds I’ve tried in first class, but once the food coma wore off an hour and a half later I was pretty awake anyway.

When I woke up, I used the prepaid Amex card pictured above to buy the inflight wifi, which was pretty atrocious. Super slow and the $20 flight pass was limited to 100 megabytes, which even at the slow speeds on offer lasted me only about two hours.



A bit later my wife woke up and we decided to order some more food as we approached Japan. She had a cheese plate.



I enjoyed the Ippudo ramen, some more Krug, and an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.




We had another hour or so before landing, and I enjoyed a ridiculous anime presentation from NHK about the Ramen King along with a farewell drink from the crew, and just like that, it was time to land at Narita.



The review

I would place this somewhere on my list of top flights but not at the top. There was really nothing wrong with it, and the soft product was really wonderful, but the service wasn’t as quick or as personal as some of the other airlines I’ve flown and the seat was really unfortunate in its lack of storage space and its huge walls getting in the way of communicating with my traveling companion.

Still, I certainly wouldn’t turn down another opportunity to fly ANA in first class.

puls

ANA Suite Lounge, Narita Terminal 1 Satellite 4

After quick farewell to the plane, a quick trip through the Star Alliance Gold Track at transfer security, and a quick walk from Satellite 5 to Satellite 4, we found ourselves at the ANA Suite Lounge.





The front desk quickly admitted us and handed us off to a staff member who showed us to a pair of seats and offered us a hot towel and a couple of glasses of champagne.





Contrary to the United lounge in San Francisco, this one was less than half full, with plenty of open seats everywhere.





The food and drink on offer consisted of a reasonable buffet and a very nice bar selection. More was available on order from the noodle bar.














We mostly passed on the food, having only a couple of hours between onboard meals. Our layover passed quickly, and a few minutes before we left, I had a thought to check on our incoming plane when I realized I could just look out the window to my right.



The review

Much like the first class flight we’d come from on ANA, the first class lounge was very nice but not quite in league with the top carriers I’ve ever flown. Still nothing to turn down and a solid reason why flying through Narita is a good way to go.

puls

Thai Airways 677, Tokyo Narita (NRT) to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (BKK)
February 2nd, 2018
5:30 pm–10:30 pm
Airbus A380 HS-TUF
Seats 2E/F (center pair, first class)

By the time boarding for our flight was announced in the lounge and we made it down the escalator to gate 46, boarding was already well underway. The line for economy class was extending well into the terminal, while the priority line for Royal First and Royal Silk was just about empty.



All three jetbridges were in use at both ends of this leg, as they should be!



We were met at the top of the upper deck jetbridge by the usual host of flight attendants and shown to our seats in the middle of the cabin. A cold towel and an orchid greeted us at our seats.





Champagne was delivered shortly thereafter. My wife said “I think I recognize it. Is it…” and, looking at the menu, I said “yes, the 2006”.



The seats on Thai’s A380s are a little last-generation but there’s something delightfully comfortable about them. Almost as a polar opposite from our preceding ANA flight, there’s very little in the way of walls around the seats and there’s a ton of storage compartments for anything you could want to stash. Though I still don’t get the point of the big blue light right next to the seat.




The menu and a newspaper were preset at the seat in addition to the usual in-seat literature.



Headphones and a bottle of water were preset to my left.



A Rimowa amenity kit was preset to my right.



Headphones were super low quality and the audio jack on my seat had a broken right channel. I managed to listen to movies only by using my own headphones and pulling the plug out just a little bit to bridge the channels.



A flight attendant also stopped by with a voucher for 20 megabytes of free wifi. With data caps that low, why even bother?



The safety video started playing a bit before the flight pushed back. Again, being in the middle of the plane and it being too dark outside for the tail camera, I didn’t get any pictures of the takeoff.



About 40 minutes into the flight, a flight attendant came by with a new glass of Dom Pérignon and the amuses bouche, including some nuts and dried fruits, some seared tuna, and some goat cheese on a lotus root chip.




I took a look at the menu, presented in an attractive cover as always. I decided to go with the western option this time around, while my wife went with the Thai option.













Here we go!



Starting with a personal bread basket, butter, an entire head of roasted garlic, salt and pepper shakers, and a hot towel.



First course: sautéed shrimp with tarragon cream, foie gras terrine. Delicious but about three times as much foie gras as I’d ever really want to eat at once.



Main course: wagyu short rib with butter soy sauce. I hate to say it, but this was bad. The meat was neither braised to the point of fall-apart tender nor a fatty cut that could be cooked quickly, but rather it was just tough and dry at the same time.



Samrab Thai set menu: seafood curry, grilled pork neck, fried green bean with garlic, steamed rice. This seemed to be missing a couple of the items listed on the menu.





At this point, I switched from champagne to red wine, and this 2012 Saint-Émilion was just great.




Some pre-plated fruit and cheese followed. No explanation or information on the cheese was offered.



Lavender panna cotta for dessert.



Meal service concluded about two hours into the flight, leaving us five hours to go before Bangkok. We promptly fell asleep without even managing to ask for turn-down service, and before we knew it, the pre-arrival video was playing.



I took a quick trip the lavatory and found it as spacious and comfortable as ever.




So much wasted space at the front of the upper deck. Some day, I’ll get on a first class flight with Etihad or Emirates and take a shower in the air. But not today.




After landing at one of the C gates at Suvarnabhumi, a Thai Airways agent met us on the jetbridge to escort us to a waiting buggy for the ride to the arrivals area, which saved us from walking a significant distance.




Fast track arrivals was quick, and our bags were out shortly thereafter. Except the bag that arrived on the belt immediately after mine was not my wife’s bag but rather one of the same brand and same color also with a first class priority tag on it, and since a Thai Airways porter was handling everything for us, we didn’t stop and realize we had somebody else’s bag until we had already exited customs.

After a few panicked moments, the porter disappeared with the incorrect bag and told us to wait for his return, leaving us standing minus one bag in the arrivals area of the airport feeling a bit bewildered.

Amazingly, the porter returned about five minutes later with the correct bag, saving the day. We thanked him profusely and set off in an Uber to our hotel.

The review

My aforementioned list of top flights ever may well be topped by my first flight in Thai Royal First four years ago, which was a tough act to follow.

Still, even though we were a bit too tired to fully enjoy it and even though the some of the food wasn’t great, this was still a great flight. Thai Airways continues to impress.

puls

Conrad Bangkok

After a brief half-hour drive into Bangkok, we arrived at our overnight stop at the Conrad. Our bags were whisked out of the vehicle by waiting staff members, and we proceeded to the front desk to check in. The stunning lobby is several stories high, and our post-midnight arrival unfortunately meant that it was full of extraordinarily loud live music coming in from the bar.



I smiled and nodded at everything the check-in agent said to me, even though I couldn’t hear a word of it, and we got our keys to head to our room on the 27th floor.



Nice room, though I don’t believe it was an upgrade over the base room at all.







The bathroom featured both a rainfall shower and an oversized bathtub.





Bath amenities were Shanghai Tang-branded.



Even with a fifteen-hour time change and a very long day of traveling, we managed to sleep like a pair of logs until the morning, when we opened the curtains on the haze of Bangkok.



In the morning, we went down to breakfast at the main hotel restaurant “Cafe@2”. We had to stand in line for ten or 15 minutes to get in, but we eventually made it to the buffet. And what a spread it was!



















After breakfast, we took a look around the pool and the grounds, which are both gorgeous and seven stories about the actual ground on the roof of the hotel’s convention area.











The review

As I understand it, Bangkok is a market full of luxury hotels at very cheap prices. This hotel was quite nice, but I have to imagine one can do even better with a bit of looking. I’ll probably go somewhere else next time.

offerendum

The food at your flight sounds disappointing! While the breakfast at Conrad looks great it would have been over for me after the wait. Inacceptable.

1P

Really enjoying this, puls. Keep going!

puls

The food on the first Thai flight was a little bit disappointing, but it was still pretty good. The wait surprised us as well, and it was mostly down to a matter of not having enough staff to seat the whole rush of people who showed up at once. Though during our whole breakfast, the line never died down, either, even though there were always several open tables in the restaurant.

Thanks for reading, 1P! More coming as quickly as I can write it down.

Thanks, NYC Flyer! I'm just glad it finally happened. 😁

puls

Bangkok Airways Boutique Lounge, BKK Domestic

After the half-hour ride to the airport on the Airport Rail Link, we had no trouble printing our boarding passes from a kiosk and checking our bags at the Bangkok Airways desk.

Since Bangkok Airways offers lounge access to all of their passengers at BKK, we decided to stop by the domestic lounge and see what was up.



After the agents at the door scanned our boarding passes, we found a relatively comfortable space that was completely full of people.




There were a few snacks set out, mostly sweet and nothing really of substance.






Coffee, tea, juice, and water were also available.






Feeling a bit hungry, we ventured out to the food court in the domestic part of the terminal where we had much better luck with some ramen and some curry.




We found a seat with a view of the garden in front of the terminal and enjoyed our lunch until it was time to board.



Then it was off to the bus gates.



The review

I wouldn’t bother with the Bangkok Airways lounge. Maybe we should have investigated the Miracle Lounge instead, though the reviews there didn’t sound much better.

That said, Suvarnabhumi is a fantastic airport and even without a beautiful amazing lounge to go to, there’s still plenty to see and do while waiting for your flight.

offerendum

Wow, lounge Access for all passengers? For this I find the offerings good. Many European pay-lounges don´t offer as much as they do.

puls

Wait, now you have me confused. Bangkok Airways' website refers to two lounges, a Boutique Lounge with access for all passengers (where we clearly were) and a Blue Ribbon Lounge with access for premium passengers. But it also says they're in the same location, and we only saw one lounge. I'll update the post.

puls

Bangkok Airways 951, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (BKK) to Samui (USM)
February 3rd, 2018
3:50 pm–4:55 pm
Airbus A319 HS-PPG
Seats 3E/F (aisle/window, economy class)

Our boarding passes said the flight was boarding at 3:10 for a 3:50 departure, but as we arrived at the gate, it was clear that we should have waited a while longer. The 3:35 flight (yes, same airline, same destination, adjacent bus gate, 15 minutes earlier) had just started boarding and our incoming plane was slightly delayed.



After standing around for what seemed like an eternity, the gate agents called boarding (zone 2 first, zone 1 second) at 3:40 and it was out to the buses.




We arrived at the plane a few minutes later and found our way to our seats.





Nothing to complain about here, I suppose. Enough legroom to stretch out just a bit.




Despite the short 45-minute flight time, the crew managed a full hot meal for everybody along with coffee and tea service. Impressive hustle, even if the food was mediocre at best.




Low-level clouds and haze prevented anything in the way of views, but after the meal service, the last 15 minutes of the flight passed quickly and we were on the ground in Koh Samui. Our arrival was about 20 minutes behind schedule.




The review

It’s hard to find anything to complain about during at 45-minute flight. And it’s probably not Bangkok Airways’ fault that the bus gates at BKK are pretty bad. And there was a hot meal service. And we had no other choice.

But I still felt kinda ripped off given how much I spent for this flight.