ReviewSity

My wife and I flew Qatar Airways business class from Karachi to San Francisco in April 2021. It was during pandemic but after vaccines were out. We went (we took Turkish on the way out) exactly two weeks after getting our shots. I used American Airlines miles to book this ticket, it cost 70k points.

I flew Virgin Atlantic from San Francisco to London back in May. Used Delta points for the flight, it cost 35k points which is not bad. Sometimes it can be much higher than that. Overall I was distinctly unimpressed with this flight. Seats The seats were mediocre, there was something about lumbar

My wife and I stayed at the Conrad Bora Bora the week after ThanksGiving 2019 for four days (since we used the Citi Prestige card to make our reservations, we got four nights for the price of three (minus taxes and things). We had booked the cheapest room there (a King Lagoon View suite) but got upg

We flew to Tahiti from LA on ThanksGiving 2019. We got a relatively good fare from San Jose to PPT via LAX (it was actually a Delta fare but with Air France as the carrier from LAX to PPT). This configuration is 10 abreast seating with narrower seating than those with 9 abreast. However, we paid ex

We had a corporate event here at the end of Sep so stayed here for four nights. Decent hotel with decent facilities (including a small workout room in the basement). The room was decent (I guess large by European standards), carpeted and a decent view of some parts of Lisbon. My main beef was with t

I took a United flight from London back to San Francisco a week ago. There are two United flights, one is a 300ER (reviewed separately), this one was a -200. But refitted with the new 1-2-1 Polaris biz class and (more pertinently) 10 abreast economy seating vs the previous 9 abreast. They changed th

My wife stayed at the Kayon Resort on the second leg of our Bali trip over the 2018 ThanksGiving break. While we’ve visited Ubud many times before, we had not stayed there so specifically sought out a nice place there. We Googled “best places to stay in Ubud” and cross checked places there with fi

We flew on board an Airbus A350-900 from San Francisco to HongKong on the way to Bali for our Thanksgiving break. Booking We had quite a few Chase Rewards points so wanted to use those to go to Bali. We considered transferring points to a number of airline partners or just buying the ticket through

My wife and I stayed at the Metropole Hotel in Brussels in Sep 2018. The following are some thoughts about our stay. Recommendations and Reservation We chose the Metropole based on recommendations at Frommer's and Lonely Planet. Price seemed decent (Brussels isn't a particularly expensive play to s

I attended the One Day Car Control Clinic at the BMW Performance Center West at the end of October. The following are my views on the class. Invitation & Reservation Back in April, I got an email from inviting me to a free one day course. It was in their “under the hood” newsletter of sorts that

Back in January of 2018, I flew from SFO to KHI in economy on Emirates. This is a very personal review of that flight, with particular emphasis on the "muslim friendliness" of the experience. Long line at checkin, which is to be expected for a full flight. I didn't see any airport staff at SFO wear

We flew Turkish from San Francisco to Karachi via Istanbul back in September. We used Chase points to directly purchase on the Chase travel site. That was cheaper than transferring points to (say) United and then getting the ticket using Mileage Plus. The ticket was just over $900 which included a s

Last week, I flew from Chicago to Istanbul in Turkish Airlines business class. This was one leg of a journey from SFO to KHI. We used United miles to get the ticket which cost us 80k points back in March when we got it. The prices seem to have skyrocketed, currently, United doesn't offer SFO -> KHI

In ThanksGiving 2019, my wife and I flew to Tahiti to spend 4 nights in Moorea and another 4 nights in Bora Bora. Expected Bora Bora to be more exotic so elected to stay in Moorea first. Moorea can be reached from Papeete by ferry but we booked a flight on Air Tahiti to get there (since we had to fl

After finishing my work meeting in Lisbon, my wife and I rented a car and drove down to the south of Portugal to explore the Algarve region. And made this hotel our base. It is pretty much western and southern most point of continental Europe. And of the rare places where you can see both a sunset a

We stayed for a couple of day at the Eurostars Museum Hotel in Lisbon in late Sep. This is right by the river (a block away with a building between the hotel and the riverfront). We booked a simple doubleroom (with no view) and we got upgraded to a suite (with no view). The lobby is small but reaso

My wife took a United flight from San Francisco to London a few weeks ago. This was the (somewhat) new 300ER with 10 abreast seating in economy (meaning narrower seats than previous 777s with 9 abreast seating). We were fortunate to grab one of the few two seaters at the back of the plane so it'd ju

My wife and I spent four nights at the Spa Village resort in Tembok, Bali in Nov (the week of US ThanksGiving) in 2018. This was our third visit to the resort, so obviously, we like going there! Reservations We have the Citi Prestige credit card, which gives the fourth night free, so we used that t

This is a brief review of the Doubletree in Amsterdam Central. The hotel is close to the main train station in Amsterdam (where international trains arrive and you can catch the train to the airport). However the entrance is at the other end of the hotel to the train station, needlessly extending th

My wife an I flew from San Jose, CA to Frankfurt in September 2018. Here are my personal views on the experience. Lufthansa operates an Airbus 340-300 on this route (or used to, it has canceled this flight as of Oct 2018). This direct flight is super convenient for those in the South Bay (we live

What makes an airline experience (from the perspective of a passenger, not an employee) muslim friendly? Here are some thougths: 1. Food: availability and quality of halal food 2. Infotainment: whether they have one, do they show the direction of the qibla (is it correct!), do they show times of the