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My review of LATAM VIP lounge, Santiago
I’m making my way back to Europe from Santiago on LATAM. I flew LATAM a few years back – they didn’t and still don’t have an own lounge at Peru and I don’t remember anything about the one in Brazil, but now I get to try the Santiago Lounge, which turns out to be exceptionally good.
The lounge opened in April 2022 and is proclaimed to be the largest airport lounge in South America. After emigration and security check, turn left and the lounge is in front of you upstairs.
The receptionist lady puts on a very sweet smile after scanning my boarding pass and welcomes me to their best Signature Lounge. I was a bit surprised to find out there are three VIP lounges here:
- Signature – Business Class / LATAM Black Signature & Black / Delta Diamond & Platinum
- Premium – LATAM Platinum / Delta Gold
- WorldMember – Select Santander customers
As you can see from the entry requirements, Signature is clearly the most prestigious out of the three.
The wooden “huts” are eye-catching when you walk inside the lounge.
The Furnishing is mostly wood and leather in dark colours, which fits the “Signature” branding. Many Visa Signature cards are black or dark grey.
You have many different styles of chairs to choose from:
I find the dining area more comfortable though with proper desks and power sockets.
The bar is quite fancy, and they can make barista coffee!
There is a huge buffet section that includes cold and hot food, snacks and desserts. The selection is more than great.
Today’s hot food menu is:
- Rice with nuts
- Chicken breast with citron sauce
- Tortellini stuffed with ricotta
- Roasted beef
- Potato millefeuille
- Polenta
- Pea and mint soup
They are quite tasty.
There’s a kids club on the side. The press release mentions interactive games but I didn’t see any.
Hidden at the very inside is the sleeping and rest area.
There are quite a few sleeping pods here with real beds! No reservation is required, which is a luxury that you rarely see even in first class lounges.
Finally the bathroom:
The LATAM Signature Lounge at Santiago is not only the largest airport lounge in South America, but probably also the best if I hazard a guess. Except for not offering an a-la-carte dining experience, it is pretty much up to the standard of a first class lounge, so don’t miss out if you have the opportunity!
Aegean flash sale: £30 off and buy 1 get 1 free!
The Greek airline Aegean is working with Trip.com to launch a flash sale targeting the UK market. You can see the offer details here.
For our London audience, the most relevant bit is the BOGO sale.
- Going live on November 2, 10am
- Buy two economy class tickets from London to Athens for the price of one
- Travel between November 15 and March 31
- Limited availability
In addition there’s a promo code YXWFIVIWAW that you can claim and redeem until November 10. It gives you £20 discount when travelling from London / Manchester / Birmingham / Edinburgh to Athens and the Greek islands, but unfortunately London – Athens is excluded.
Remember that by booking via the Trip.com app you get an additional £10 off – £30 off a flight is not to be sniffed at, although not as good as the BOGO deal.
As you can see from the image above, your itinerary doesn’t have to be entirely Aegean, but somehow it doesn’t always work. Note that you must enter the passenger information first before being able to see whether the £20 promo code applies.
Search reward flights with ChatGPT & Seats.aero
If you haven never heard of Seats.aero, they are an online search engine for award flight availability, kind of like Seatspy except that they have data of many frequent flyer programs, including United MileagePlus, AAdvantage, Delta Skymiles, Air Canada Aeroplan and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club etc.
Most importantly Seats.aero is free as long as your search date is within the next two months. However they don’t have the best UI – you need to switch between programs, and the Excel-inspired interface is a pain when you need to search for multiple dates and cities.
Good news is, Seats.aero has now developed a plugin that is available on ChatGPT’s plugin store. Note that you must pay $24 per month for ChatGPT Plus to use that feature, although the plugin itself is free.
GPT’s backend has full access to Seats.aero’s data, and you can query using natural language.
- You can name a city, country or region
- You can specify a date or a date range
- You can specify the airline or alliance
- You can narrow down the search results by adding restrictions
It appears that you can’t specify the frequent flyer program though (e.g. Aeroplan). Here are some examples:
It is a very powerful feature that makes finding reward flight availability much easier. ChatGPT Plus doesn’t have a free trial so you must pay the $24 though, which is not cheap unless you use it regularly.
My review of Iberia A330’s business class
The final trip before my next job is to South America, and first stop Buenos Aires! It sounds insane, but a one-way flight from Madrid to Buenos Aires in business class costs only 51,000 Avios plus just over €100, so although I have to add the London – Madrid leg myself it’s still a fantastic deal!
The flight, operated by Iberia, is mostly on an A350 aircraft which features the newer business class design. Unfortunately my flight is operated by an older A330 aircraft instead. However, from my research the two business class products don’t differ that much (at least not from the pictures), and it’s not worth tweaking my travel plans for the A350.
For checking in, Iberia uses Terminal 4 at Madrid airport, although you’ll actually take the shuttle train later to T4S for all non-Schengen departures. Priority passengers (business class and Oneworld elite) use the check-in counters numbered 700-799.
Priority passengers, as well as cardholders of Amex Platinum, are invited to use the fast track security.
We are onboard! Iberia’s business class cabin features 1-2-1 staggered configuration, which is probably the most commonly seen nowadays across all airlines.
For solo travellers the real window seats provide the best privacy, especially when you are sleeping.
If you are travelling with a partner, then choose the middle seats that are closer to the centre.
The monitor is mounted above the ottoman, which is my preferred design.
The seat converted into a bed:
The baseline is, it is a lie-flat business class seat, and that’s about it. It’s not really pleasing aesthetically, not very comfortable and is lacking in storage space. The A350 product appears nicer but kind of follows the same design principle and is barely anything revolutionary.
The amenity kit – Iberia is obviously obsessed with beige and grey!
The menu:
My beef tenderloin, cod tartare and ice cream:
Here is the thing: the meal portion isn’t really big, and for a 13-hour flight you don’t get served another meal (small plate of pasta) until close to landing.
In between there’s only salad and fruit available. I think it’s the first time I have to fight hunger when flying business class!
The IFE contains a decent, although not great selection of international films and dramas.
Their in-flight wifi is excellent though. Business class passengers and Iberia Plus members (free sign-up) can get the messaging package for free. A full package costs €24.99 for the entire flight and supports video streaming.
I had known what to expect before I hopped onboard, so there’s little surprise (good or bad) in this trip. Other things equal I’d probably choose most other airlines over Iberia, but given their excellent redemption deals I’m likely to fly with them again when going to South America next time.
Earn United miles on every Marriott stay, and vice versa
Marriott and United has had a long-term partnership which allows members to receive reciprocal benefits when staying at a hotel or taking a flight. They have taken a step further and launched a Dual Currency promotion.
It appears that the following members are eligible for the offer:
- Marriott Titanium Elite and Ambassador Elite
- United Premier Gold, Platinum and 1K
You need to link your Marriott and United accounts first if you haven’t done so yet. Once completed you can register to the offer, and:
- Earn 500 United miles for every Marriott stay
- Earn 750 Marriott points for every United flight
The flight and stay must be taken by December 9th. Only paid stays and flights count. You don’t need to change your earning preference, as the bonus is on top of what you normally accrue.
It is a great offer, even though for us who live outside the U.S. only the first offer is likely to be useful. Remember that you earn 1,500 bonus points for each stay as well in the current Marriott promotion.
In the United program it costs only 6K – 9K miles to redeem a short-haul flight in Europe and Asia, which is quite good especially since BA is constantly devaluing its partner redemptions. There is an ongoing offer to transfer Marriott points into United miles too.
My review of Etihad B787 First Class
I wasn’t expecting to be sitting in the first class cabin again so soon after the Emirates Suite, but here I am flying from Abu Dhabi to London on Etihad. Unfortunately it was just several months before Etihad resumed its First Apartment service on this route, otherwise it would have been a very different experience.
After visiting the very underwhelming first class lounge, I am ready to board the plane. First and business class passengers are invited to board together, but the flight attendant is vigilant when a first class passenger arrives and guides them to the seat.
In business class they have the Business Studio which I very much liked.
Back to business, oh I mean first 😛 There are two rows and eight seats in total. Oddly half of them are backward facing which you don’t normally anticipate in premium cabins.
The first class cabin is very empty today. From the conversations I picked up one of the passengers was upgraded, probably due to his elite status in Etihad Guest.
Etihad’s first class seat is rather industry standard. It is a long rectangular-shaped private suite. When I say suite, it’s obviously not on a par with Emirates, but still quite spacious otherwise.
The sofa chair and IFE screen are fixed to either end of the suite. If you are travelling with someone, they could sit down on the foot rest for a paired dinner.
There’s a mini-bar under the arm rest, which contains some soft drinks.
There are a remote control and small screen on the other side. It might sound counter intuitive but the seat a bit too wide for me to be comfortable, as my arms cannot rest on both sides at the same time.
Like in business class the amenity bag is produced by Acqua di Parma. Don’t forget to take your pyjamas!
This is when the suite is switched to sleeping mode.
I find it private and cosy enough. One big problem though is the lack of storage space. Not sure if you have noticed but there’s NO overhead locker in first class. The only place where you can leave you stuff is under the foot rest.
Fortunately the seat next to me is empty so I just put my bags there. I’m not sure where people store their personal items when the cabin is full.
The IFE system is the same across all cabins, as I have also travelled in Etihad’s business and economy class recently.
Time to eat something! A collection of amuse-bouches before the meal:
The menus:
The selection of food is similar to what Emirates offers. It goes without saying that I need to order the caviars first:
It’s nice but I’d love to have more than just 20 grams.
Followed by the Arabic mezze and lamb shank mandi. The latter is braised lamb with rice, which tastes really good and reminds me of a delicacy in China’s Uighurs region.
But the most amazing dish has be to the chocolate fondant, and I’m not even a chocolate person! On the whole I think Etihad’s first class wins against Emirates on catering.
It’s very poor of them to offer first class passengers only 200MB free wifi though. Remember to create a Boingo account beforehand for your free wifi.
Finally, the bathroom:
Etihad’s first class on Boeing 787 is good but nothing spectacular, and the next time I’ll probably lean towards its Business Studio as the experiences aren’t so different and the latter costs a lot less. Etihad’s First Apartment will be of course, a totally different story and I hope to try it out soon.
Great offer preview: Marriott to United 30% conversion bonus
United MileagePlus are about to launching a great incentive for converting points in October, so hold on if you need some United miles!
The offer page is here. As it hasn’t started yet you will be redirected to a placeholder instead, however in Terms and Conditions you can see all the details already.
- Registration: To qualify for this offer, members must register for the promotion between October 1, 2023 and 11:59pm EST on October 31, 2023 (“Promotional Period”).
- Qualifying activity: A member must earn award miles as a result of one or more points to miles conversion transactions from any combination of MileagePlus hotel partner programs that offer a points to miles transfer program that are conducted during the Promotional Period (“Qualifying Activity”) in order to qualify for MileagePlus Hotel Points-to-Miles bonus miles (“Bonus Miles”). Qualifying Activity must be completed by 11:59pm EST on October 31, 2023.
- Posting of Promotional Miles: At the conclusion of the promotion, all miles earned by each member from Qualifying Activity will be multiplied by 30% to determine the eligible bonus up to a maximum of 25,000 bonus miles. Bonus miles will be credited into the member’s account on or before January 31, 2024. The maximum bonus miles that can be earned by a member under this promotion is 25,000. MileagePlus will not be responsible for technical problems with partner miles postings, or failures or delays in miles postings by hotel partners, that would render any points to miles converted as ineligible under this promotion.
Basically you’ll earn 30% bonus when any hotel points into United miles in whole October, after you’ve registered to the offer. The bonus is capped at 25,000 miles under this promotion.
Although a few hotel programs will be participating, the true value lies only in converting Marriott Bonvoy points.
3 Marriott points converts into 1 United mile, and as a permanent offer you are awarded 10,000 bonus miles when converting 60,000 Marriott points. With this new promotion on top, you earn 39,000 United miles when converting 60,000 Marriott points, which is an excellent deal. If you convert 180,000 Marriott points, you’ll get 115,000 United miles in total.
Unfortunately United devalued their U.S. – Europe redemption recently, and now a one-way flight in business costs at least 80,000 miles.
Good news is however, there’s no carrier-imposed surcharges. For the same route BA wants 80,000 Avios + £175, and 47,500 points +$977 from Virgin Atlantic!
Big Avios devaluation on CX/JL redemptions
Over the last five years or so, British Airways’ Avios program was one that devalued most frequently and probably to the largest extent. Sadly it just took another hit overnight, and redemptions on Cathay Pacific / Japan Airlines have got a lot more expensive.
Note that British Airways no longer publishes a redemption chart, and they removed the Avios cost calculator too, to avoid to awkwardness when they run no-notice devaluation like this. As of today the chart above still holds for most of their partners, except for Cathay Pacific and Japan Airlines.
Here are the before/after charts for Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific respectively (H/T FlyAsia):
Tokyo – Osaka (269 miles) now costs 10,500 Avios / 17,500 Avios per way:
Hong Kong – Shanghai (779 miles) now costs 12,000 Avios / 30,000 Avios per way:
Hong Kong – Beijing (1,234 miles) now costs 14,300 Avios / 32,500 Avios per way.
Tokyo – Ho Chi Minh City (2,685 miles) now costs 15,600 Avios / 46,500 Avios per way.
It is without a doubt horrendous news and Avios is no longer the best, or even a good way to travel within Asia, at least not if you aim to book business or first class. There isn’t any change to long-haul bands over 3,000 miles, but they were hardly good value anyway.
From the very limited data points I saw Iberia seems to have adopted the same pricing swiftly, and their partners awards are non-refundable so you wouldn’t want to book through them anyway. Qatar Airways however, is still showing BA’s old pricing for now.
Therefore it could make a LOT of sense to transfer your Avios to QRPC first and book there. Your tickets won’t be issued immediately though – you can only fill out a request form and their ticketing team needs to issue your ticket manually.