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My review of Delta Sky Club, Seattle
I’m finished with my Seattle trip, and will be flying with Delta for the first time. I read some good things about the Sky Club at Seattle and I’m very excited in trying it out.
The Sky Club is located at Concourse A and hard to miss. All concourses are connected post-security, so although my flight departs from Concourse S it doesn’t stop me from visiting the lounges.
According to Virgin Atlantic’s website, I’m entitled to Sky Club access automatically when flying back to the UK on Delta as a Flying Club Gold member. My boarding pass fails the scanner though, then the staff go on a little discussion before telling me Delta’s partnership with Virgin has terminated a couple of days ago?!
I’m so astonished and know that’s impossible. After exchanging a few words I realise that they are talking about Virgin Australia. Anyway they don’t seem well trained on the reciprocal benefits, and I decide to just flash my Amex Platinum instead. This time it works like a charm.
An array of lenticular cards by the entrance.
The Seattle lounge is generally regarded as the best Sky Club that Delta has. The lounge is huge with two floors, and leaves a very good first impression on me.
Seattle is one of Delta’s main hubs, but the lounge is not as busy as I thought.
Further down the line is more workspace.
A view of Delta aircrafts.
Some memorabilia of Seattle SeaHawks, an American Football team sponsored by Delta.
The second (first) floor:
The upper floor is quieter, but food is only offered downstairs.
The following hot food is on offer:
- Ivar’s clam chowder with bacon
- Spicy tofu stir fry
- Steamed brown rice
- Roasted green beans
- Teriyaki chicken
If you haven’t got to taste Seattle’s specialty Clam Chowder yet, there is one last chance! The Teriyaki chicken isn’t cooked right and tastes salty instead of sweet, but I actually prefer it this way.
A limited selection of beer and wine is complimentary, but most alcoholic drinks are payable. I read somewhere that redeeming Delta miles on Champagne is a good idea, but I didn’t check.
Desserts:
The chewy marshmallow looks very similar to a Chinese snack that I liked when I was a kid.
The bathroom might have been inspired by a few horror movies…
I want to take a look at the Amex Centurion lounge as well so didn’t spend all the time here. The Seattle Sky Club didn’t disappoint me, and is well worth a couple of hours before your flight.
Travel business class from US to France and Caribbean for only 34,500 miles
I wrote an article to talk about the boomerang tricks for redeeming Flying Blue miles. Basically Flying Blue’s redemption chart is zone-based, and the pricing doesn’t change even if your interchange airport is out of the zone.
A reader just approached me about an interesting itinerary he found:
Instead of flying directly from Seattle to St Marin in the Caribbean, you can do it the long way by stopping over at Paris first. The flight time will be MUCH longer, however you get to travel in business class with both Delta and Air France. Even better, you only pay 34,500 miles plus €183 in fees which is dirt cheap!
As I mentioned, this is because the pricing is based on your departure / destination and Paris doesn’t play a role here. You can also book SXM-CDG-SEA the same way but surcharges will be much higher.
You may be able to use this itinerary to just travel to Paris (cheaply) and drop the second leg. If you are handbag only there shouldn’t be any problem, otherwise make sure there’s a long transit time so you can convince the airport agent not to check through your luggage to the final destination. Also beware that if you do this too often, you may be on Flying Blue’s radar and get into trouble.
Unfortunately the max stopover time is 24 hours so you can’t really break the itinerary into two proper trips. However, if you are very keen on going back to travel after having been trapped home for the last year, this can be an attractive deal.
Donate $5 and Earn 2000 Hilton Points & 250 Delta Miles
If you’ve ever been to the US, you must have heard of the name Lyft. Lyft is a major competitor to Uber in North America, and it has partnered with several frequent traveller programs which allows you to earn points or miles when you ride.
They have just launched a Lyft Up initiative to help those who can’t afford to travel to vaccination centres in the US. Any Lyft members can make a donation, and even better it comes with returns:
- 2000 Hilton points, and
- 250 Delta Skymiles (limit to first 15,000 members only)
The minimum donation amount is $5, and the offer runs until May 31. Even if you don’t travel with Delta, 2000 Hilton points are worth around $10 already.
To participate, you’ll need to link Lyft to your Hilton and Delta accounts first. A mobile phone number is needed to create or login to your Lyft account, and my UK number works fine.
Remember to add a credit card to the wallet before proceeding to the donation page.
It’s unclear how much time it takes for the points to post. But anyway, it may be worth spending a few minutes and $5 to bag the some points and miles.
500 Flying Blue miles for using their shopping portal
Flying Blue, the loyalty programme of Air France and KLM, has an online shopping portal called Shop for Miles.
Similar to BA eStore and Topcashback, it’s a cashback-style website where you earn a rebate for purchases referred by them.
As a new customer, you also earn 500 bonus miles for your first purchase, on top of your regular rebate. 500 miles is not much, but may be handy if you are a few miles short for an award redemption. It should also extend the expiry of your miles.
Get Virgin Atlantic Silver status with one short-haul return!
When we wrote about the Flying Blue programme, we mentioned its partnership with Virgin Atlantic and a trick for you to get Virgin Atlantic status very quickly. Let me elaborate on it today.
Flying Blue double miles / XP promotion – Skyteam Elite in one return
We spoke about Finnair’s double points promotion last week. Interestingly, Flying Blue – the loyalty programme of Air France and KLM – has just launched a promotion which is almost identical.
An Introduction to Air France and KLM’s Flying Blue programme
Just like British Airways and Lufthansa in their respective alliance, Air France / KLM is of equal importance in Skyteam. Today we’ll give an overview of their Flying Blue programme.
The Boomerang Trick for Your Flying Blue Miles
Flying Blue, the loyalty scheme of Air France and KLM, is a popular programme for those who fly Skyteam regularly. Since the introduction of dynamic priced redemption, it is more difficult to get good value for Flying Blue miles nowadays. Today we are going to talk about a trick that can potentially maximise its value, if used correctly.
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