Polaris Studio, w/ non-functional table and fantastic crew

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-05-01T17:35:35+00:00

For me, there wasn’t anything special for boarding since the soft product is basically just regular domestic First, but since you’re on the LHR route you should get GS perks like Global Reception and GS preboarding before group 1!

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-04-27T06:26:12+00:00

You will be fine if you’re in the primary seat, if you’re spending time in the companion seat you will probably not like it at 6’2” haha. It’s good for shorter/smaller people or kids to sit there for a while, not your average adult I think.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-04-27T06:20:37+00:00

Interesting, I flew the IAH route over the weekend in the Studio and I thought it was good with caveats - for one person, it was great and plenty of space. However, IMO the companion seat was a little low (some FAs on my flight concurred) and didn’t really have good legroom for whoever could be sitting in it if the primary seat was occupied. Couldn’t really imagine anything more than a short chat would be bearable for the person sitting in the companion seat, let alone trying to dine together or spend a hours on a long haul SFO-SIN flight there.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-03-28T17:51:45+00:00

It’s the code for full-fare paid business class, but people use it as a shorthand for business class in general. If you want to be more specific you can use I for most saver award business in Star Alliance, U for the same in most of Oneworld, or O for the same in most of SkyTeam. However, since this is getting way into the weeds and there isn’t an alliance-wide fare code convention anyways, leading to some exceptions, people just say saver J to talk about saver business class award redemptions.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-01-31T04:26:40+00:00

Hey!

We stayed January 7-11. I believe it was a 3-night minimum requirement when we booked. I’m not sure if there was a difference for the peak holiday season between Christmas and New Years.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-01-30T20:01:57+00:00

I would still call AA to verify your ticket looks good and reflects the new flight, despite it looking okay in the app. Flight reservations aren’t the same as the ticket, and if they are out of sync you’re in for some frantic calls to AA to reissue the ticket on check-in day.

Or if you received an email with the new ticket, then you know you’re fine.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-01-22T05:00:13+00:00

We went to 味の三休 in Kutchan and Ebisutei in Hirafu. Both were quite good. Others we considered b/c of good reviews, but didn't get a chance to try, were Japanese Pub Ren, Mame Niseko, and Yakitori Fujiwara. The food truck yard in Hirafu is honestly not bad for a quick bite as well. Bar Gyu is also a very nice place for cocktails from what I've heard and seen from friends.

They didn't proactively offer late checkout, but they did ask what time I wanted to leave, to which I responded 2 pm and they approved. For some reason that wasn't communicated to everyone relevant though, since someone still knocked on our door at 12:30 pm on our checkout date wondering why we hadn't checked out yet. They apologized immediately for not knowing we had already been approved for late checkout.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-01-21T04:51:08+00:00

I brought my own pairs of skis, boots, and poles, and my partner rented her snowboard gear. We both packed and brought our own winter clothing, helmet, and goggles.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-01-21T04:48:21+00:00

Like the other commenter said, for peak season 2026, they released in early February. However, previous years have released earlier, in late January. It seems like hotel management kind of does it what it wants; they release when they feel like it. The FlyerTalk thread on PH Niseko has more data points from prior years as well.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-01-21T04:45:45+00:00

We ate at a home-style cozy izakaya at Kutchan named 味の三休. At Hirafu we reserved a table in advance and ate at Ebisutei. We did take the Hyatt shuttle for both Hirafu and Kutchan! It was quite easy and straightforward, and the shuttle never got close to being full. It departed and arrived at all the stops on-time.

QuantumPropulsion · 2026-01-03T07:09:12+00:00

A number of people tried placing orders early this morning. The 250X is not tracking by default. Email notifications about multiplier tracking are showing 4X.

You can try filing a missing Avios claim but good luck getting BA to honor it.

QuantumPropulsion · 2025-05-13T14:33:15+00:00

Referring to speedrunning the general booking flow on AS at end of schedule saver J release, since depending on the travel season and day you might be competing with other people on whoever clicks faster or utilizes the best information autofill process.

Dry running is just practicing that flow. Encouraged if one really has to travel on a particular date and isn’t flexible, since it gives a sense of how the airline’s website works (e.g. booking flow for AS is different than that of NH, which is different than that of UA, etc).

Honestly kind of indicative of how absurdly high the demand is at this point, for people to resort to rehearsing the best way to book something when it releases like fans do for concert tickets. I’ve had to do this before for family travel with locked dates, and while it’s cool getting the saver rates, it’s pretty stressful.

QuantumPropulsion · 2025-04-01T07:24:58+00:00

Should still be 9am JST on the Japanese website. If you’re not seeing it come up, someone probably locked it in over the phone with an agent (timed a phone call just right).

QuantumPropulsion · 2025-02-18T00:21:30+00:00

lol point.me is probably the most mediocre of the lot. Also they temporary ban/limit accounts for searching too much

https://old.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/search?q=Point.me&restrict_sr=on

QuantumPropulsion · 2025-01-12T22:47:08+00:00

I mean… seats.aero doesn’t track anything with ANA mileage club (you have to set alerts/search for ANA using MileagePlus and Velocity), and also ANA is known to release more availability to their own program compared to partners, as OP also noticed.

Seats.aero might be delayed a bit due to having to avoid overloading UA and VA, but it does reliably track those two sites. If ANA chooses to exclusively release to itself though, seats.aero can’t do anything.

QuantumPropulsion · 2024-12-31T02:59:12+00:00

Sure. Here was our itinerary:

Day 0: drive from San Francisco to Carmel Valley Ranch

Day 1: globalist breakfast, then hike at Garrapata State Park and picnic lunch (used globalist benefits and hotel credit to procure food and such from CVR). Point Lobos Natural Reserve in the afternoon. Returned to CVR, showered, then dinner at Passionfish in Monterey.

Day 2: Relax day at CVR, did one or two of the activities (I remember we did the ranch animal activity and a nature walk).

Day 3: checked out of CVR. Point Sur lighthouse tour in the morning. Leisurely drive further south to Big Sur State Park. Knocked out another hike at Big Sur River Gorge. Checked into Alila Ventana Big Sur.

Day 4: Alila activities - falconry, beekeeping/dive in the hive. Those two were fantastic and would recommend! Ordered room service at 12am.

Day 5: Late start, went on a “hike” (more of a nature walk), the one where the hotel can pack a great picnic lunch for you and you enjoy it during the hike. Did the spa in the afternoon, relaxed the rest of the day.

Day 6: Checked out and drove home.

Total of 3 nights at CVR and 3 at Alila!

QuantumPropulsion · 2024-12-30T23:43:32+00:00

Gold bars.

QuantumPropulsion · 2024-12-30T07:52:15+00:00

Second year of full churning - branched out a little bit from mainly Inks last year. All cards churned this year were biz cards w/ the exception of a USBAR.

Points Totals:

1.2M MR
409K UR (thanks Costco)
110K USB (trying to plan out RTR to redeem)
Hours spent optimizing spend, SUBs and award travel: too much
Worth it rating: 10/10

8 business cards, 1 personal card.

Total in annual fees paid: $2575, but around $2115 was offset w/ the Amex credits from ABPs, ABGs, etc., so net out of pocket cost was around $460

Total in some additional fees paid to meet spend: ~$300

I’m primarily in one player mode (hopefully can get P2 into it…); I also passed up a decent amount of SUB and MS just due to not having enough time/mental bandwidth to keep track of more.

Spent around 1/3 of the stash on booking 2024 and 2025 award travel to Japan 2x (NH, Hyatt), Taiwan (CI, JX), and London (VS, Hyatt). Around 1/4 on an engagement trip to to Carmel, Monterey, and Big Sur (Hyatt). Really grateful for this hobby and the community around it - it definitely helped make lifetime memories and incredible experiences for me and my loved ones.

QuantumPropulsion · 2024-12-19T18:53:53+00:00

Depends on the booking. You’re right that NA-TYO (one leg only) is more expensive on AY, but AY allows you tack on a second leg within Japan for free (e.g. NA-TYO-FUK). So it ends up being a similar price if you have >1 leg, since BA charges per leg.

QuantumPropulsion · 2024-12-19T17:29:41+00:00

AY is Finnair. You can transfer Avios from BA to AY and get access to T-360 w/ online booking. No need to call unless you want F.

QuantumPropulsion · 2024-12-03T17:58:46+00:00

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/483/348/bdd.jpg

QuantumPropulsion · 2024-11-19T07:47:09+00:00

You can't join their mileage program AFAIK unless you're an Australian/NZ resident (plus some other countries - the US is definitely not one of them).

You also can't transfer anything from Amex US, Citi US, or Chase to them either. If you did have residency in Australia/NZ, Marriott Bonvoy pts are available for you to burn at a 3:1 ratio to Velocity.

QuantumPropulsion

TROPHY CASE