Review: ANA Suite Lounge – Tokyo-Narita

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We arrived at Narita Airport after about an hour and 45 minute bus ride from the Hyatt Regency Tokyo.  Since we were on different flights, my buddy and I split up at check-in and planned to meet up again at the lounge.

I proceeded to the ANA Suite Check-In, and WOW, it was nice.

ANA Suite Check-In at Tokyo-Narita

ANA Suite Check-In at Tokyo-Narita

At Narita, there’s a dedicated room where I was able to check-in with a personal check-in agent.  After that, I proceeded through a private security line, and on into immigration.  This entire process from check-in to immigration took less than three minutes… that’s pretty awesome by any standard.

Once immigration was cleared, I chose to head one of the two ANA Suite Lounges closest to my gate, by gate 47.

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Posted in: Advice, Airlines, ANA, Asia, Award Travel, Cities and Places, Food, Japan, Layovers, Lounge Reviews, miles, Tokyo, Travel, Travel Hacking, Trip Reports \ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

A Twenty-Two Hour Layover in Tokyo and the Hyatt Regency Tokyo

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For my return flights home to Washington, DC, I intentionally booked a twenty-two hour layover in Tokyo between my inbound flight on Air China from Shanghai and my final leg in ANA First Class to Washington-Dulles.  Why, you ask?

Because I freakin’ love Tokyo.  And my buddy had never been.

That, my friends is an opportunity to maximize my routing on this award.

I’d been to Tokyo before on a previous globetrotting adventure, so I was pretty familiar with certain areas in the city — mainly Shinjuku since I stayed at the Park Hyatt Toyko last time.  Since I knew Shinjuku well, I figured that would be the best place to stay this time around — we could hit some highlights and be done with it.  I was looking for a Hyatt property, and the Hyatt Regency Tokyo fit the bill nicely, as it is a few blocks from the Shinjuku Station and was reasonably priced.

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Posted in: Advice, Asia, Award Travel, Bars, Cities and Places, City Guides, Food, Hotel Reviews, Hotels, Hyatt, Japan, Layovers, miles, Tokyo, Travel, Travel Hacking, Trip Reports \ Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

Review: Air China First Class Lounge – Shanghai Pudong

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We arrived at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport after a quick, 35-minute commute from the Grand Hyatt Shanghai on the metro and the maglev.  First Class check-in was painless and uneventful, as was the short trek through immigration and security.  We made our way directly to the new Air China lounges, located near gate 71 in Shanghai-Pudong’s Terminal 2.

There is one large desk with a ton of Air China agents to direct you to either the First Class or Business Class lounges.  Since I was booked in first class for our short flight to Tokyo-Narita, we had access to the First Class Lounge.

I really hadn’t read a whole lot about this lounge, so I was anxious to see what it was all about.  I must say, my expectations were quite low for this lounge, but I was very pleasantly surprised.

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Posted in: Advice, Air China, Airlines, Asia, Award Travel, Cities and Places, Food, Layovers, Lounge Reviews, miles, Travel, Travel Hacking, Trip Reports \ Tagged: , , , , , ,

Weekly Roundup – 12/12/2014

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First of all, my apologies — I’ve been M.I.A. for the last couple weeks.  Frankly, life has gotten into the way, as I’ve been busy with work, finding a new place for when my lease expires next month, and of course spending time with my family over Thanksgiving.  Once everything settles down, I will start posting a little more, as I still have trip reports and how-to guides and all sorts of stuff I want to write about!

In the meantime, I’ll briefly touch on a few things going on in the World of travel, points and miles — a weekly roundup of sorts.  It’s been a relatively slow week, but there’s still stuff happening!

Me in Lufthansa B744 First Class, sans falcon

Me in Lufthansa B744 First Class, sans falcon

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Posted in: Air New Zealand, Airlines, ANA, Award Travel, Hyatt, Lufthansa, miles, Southwest, Travel, Travel Hacking, United \ Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Review: Grand Hyatt Shanghai

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Since I was scheduled to pick up my award ticket and start my journey back to Washington, DC via Tokyo on an Air China flight from Shanghai to Tokyo, I arranged to get back to Shanghai the prior day, leaving the two of us with one last afternoon and evening in Shanghai.  Since we were exhausted at this point of the trip, we decided to cancel our pre-existing reservation at the Andaz Shanghai, Xintiandi in favor of the Grand Hyatt, which is located in the Jing Mao Tower — directly across the street from the Park Hyatt, where we had stayed the previous week.

After arriving on a short hop from Hong Kong on China Eastern, we this time opted to take the Maglev to town, avoiding the ripoff that we experienced on our first stint in Shanghai a few days earlier.  The Maglev only cost 80RMB round trip and took only 12 minutes to get from Shanghai-Pudong Airport to the Longyang Road stop on the metro.  A twenty minute metro ride and five stops later had us a couple blocks from the Grand Hyatt.

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Posted in: Analysis, Asia, Cities and Places, Food, Hotel Reviews, Hotels, Hyatt, Shanghai, Status, Travel, Travel Hacking, Trip Reports \ Tagged: , , , , , ,