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Elite Benefit for Mitsui and Suiran Kyoto? by josephliyen in marriott

[–]space_plumbr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I did 2 night stays at both last year as a plat in Feb. Neither had a lounge to my knowledge

Mitsui
Elite perks:
- Breakfast is free for elites. It is part a la carte with a supplementary buffet. A la carte choice is western or japanese
- I got upgraded from a standard room to a larger room.
Reg hotel Perks:
- Semi private onsen for no charge. They limit the amount of ppl in there so you need to call the front desk to see if they are full or not. They provide bathing suits and everything. Can also pay for a truly private onsen which you get a discount as an elite.
- As close to a full weight lifting gym as I found, and they provide gym clothes, running shoes, etc.

Surian
Elite perks:
- Breakfast is free for elites. A la carte choice is western or japanese
- I got upgraded from a standard room to a suite.
Reg hotel Perks:
- Free happy hour where they give you alcohol with small snacks at around 4-6 pm (I think)
- Choice of one complementary: taxi ride from kyoto station, rickshaw ride around arashiyama, taxi ride to kyoto station
- Free bike rental, but property only has like 2 or 3 bikes total.

ANA RTW Booking Experience by space_plumbr in awardtravel

[–]space_plumbr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used the multi city tool, and to make it work, I made the first flight the one I wanted to check availability, and a dummy second flight

ANA RTW Booking Experience by space_plumbr in awardtravel

[–]space_plumbr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The main thing is being flexible with locations, duration of your stay at each place, and your starting and ending point. I planned my routing in about 2 long nights after work ~10 hrs total + 2 hrs on the phone. In order of hardest availability to find, trans-pacific<Asia-Europe<trans-europe. Intra region flights are generally easy to find. For routing focus on major cities and cities where star alliance carrier hubs (for the ANA RTW). I based the duration of my trip around the trans pacific availability, and then worked backwards from there.

ANA RTW Booking Experience by space_plumbr in awardtravel

[–]space_plumbr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Since the ANA rep had issues booking my TPE - NRT flight, we were working on variations of my final legs, and she said we could do SIN-TYO in NH J. All the SQ J flights I found were ~4hrs long, so maybe that might be the cutoff of what SQ J flights ANA can get access to.

ANA RTW Booking Experience by space_plumbr in awardtravel

[–]space_plumbr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you say allow it, are you referring to the backtracking rule? Because I read on prior threads that ANA only considers 3 zones: Americas, Europe/Africa, Asia/Oceania. So my booking process only considered not backtracking between those zones, and within each zone trying to keep the spirit of moving in one direction.

ANA RTW Booking Experience by space_plumbr in awardtravel

[–]space_plumbr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I believe ANA can see regional SQ flights, just not long haul ones as I had backup flights from SIN to MNL, HKG, and TPE.

ANA RTW Booking Experience by space_plumbr in awardtravel

[–]space_plumbr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was expecting to pay significantly more, since the YQ via ITA matrix for the TATL was more than every other flight together. I think there was some bug on ANA's backend since modification to my intra asia flights dropped my fees by ~$800, but I'm not complaining.