It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for some food porn. “What’s onboard”.
Today’s featured flight is SQ298 – Christchurch – Changi (departs at 11:20am)
Lunch
This was my first daytime flight with Singapore Airlines. Therefore had been very excited about the lunch menu they’re offering.
Even in economy class you have the choice between several meals.
Lunch on SQ298 - January 2012
appetizer: Couscous salad with beef pastrami
main courses
Grilled salmon fillet with green peppercorn sauce
Kung-po style chicken with rice and vegetables
dessert: Ice cream
I opted for the Grilled salmon fillet. It’s really delicious and maybe the best economy class meal I’ve had so far.
They offered hokey-pokey ice cream. I read it’s Kiwi’s favourite ice cream.
Inflight snacks
The lovely Singapore Girls regularly go through the aisle and offer drinks and light bites
What they offer:
Savoury sandwich/rolls
vegetarian sandwich/rolls
Roasted peanuts
Sweet slice
Muffin
Potato chips
Fruit
I picked a delicious Savoury sandwich.
Light meal
Time for an early dinner. (I love time zone differences).
appetiser: Waldorf salad with smoke chicken
Main courses:
Roasted chicken with honey mustard sauce
Stir fried beef in oyster sauce
dessert: Chocolate mousse
I opted for the stir fried beef. with seasonal vegetables and rice. My first thought: The best inflight meal in economy class.
While I focused first a bit on the introduction, I will now tell you more about the different benefits and requirements at the member airline frequent flyer programs.
In addition to the Star Alliance Gold benefits, you also get, what I call, “local benefits”. E.g. Upgrade voucher or Lounge access even If you’re only a Silver status member. These benefits depend on the member alliance and their frequent traveller program.
A few people asked me, what’s coming next? Sorry for the delay, I’ve been very busy at work and had only a few minutes at night to write about what I love. Travelling.
Welcome to my series of posts about the Star Alliance Gold Status.
What is Star Alliance?
Star Alliance Livery at Munich Airport
The Star Alliance is a worldwide alliance of airlines. Star Alliance was founded in 1998 by 5 major carriers. Lufthansa, SAS, Thai, United and US Airways.
Today, Star Alliance has a network of more than 26 airlines to more than 1200 destinations worldwide that fly on optimized schedules. That means, even if you have to change the airline for a connection flight, it’s smooth between these airlines.
Many airlines are home in the same terminal at airports around the globe. That results in less hassle and shorter connection times. Many airlines are also able to check you through to your destination. Which means, you can collect all your tickets before you board your first flight.
What is Star Alliance Gold status?
Star Alliance Gold is the alliance-wide “top tier” frequent traveller status. Holders of this status (like me) enjoy the following benefits:
Priority reservations waitlisting No seats left on your preferred flight? this will give you priority over others if a seat becomes available.
Priority airport stand-by Missed your flight? even if the next flight is fully booked, you get priority.
Priority boarding Board the plane at the same time with business and first class passengers (if available)
Priority airport check-in You can check-in at the business class or first class counter (depending on the airline)
Priority baggage handling Sick of waiting for your bags at the baggage claim? Your luggage gets a special tag and will be among the first unloaded.
Additional checked luggage allowance of 20 kg (or one extra piece where the piece concept applies)
Airport lounge access to designated Star Alliance Gold lounges (over 950 worldwide)
How to get Star Alliance Gold status?
While *Gold is the highest alliance-wide status, it’s often just the medium to high tier status from a member airline perspective.
Examples
Lufthansa Miles & More has 4 tiers in their frequent traveller program. The no status member, the Frequent Traveller status, Senator and HON-Circle.
The Senator and the HON-status are both recognised as Star Alliance Gold when traveling on any star alliance flight.
ANA has also 4 tier status levels. Again the 2 highest levels are recognised as Star Alliance Gold status.
Singapore Airlines (my favorite airline) has 3 tier status levels. KrisFlyer, Elite Silver, Elite Gold.
For members of Singapore Airlines frequent traveller program this means, they have to achieve Elite Gold to get the alliance-wide Star Gold status.
Basically, you just have to achieve the right tier level on one of the member alliances to get the Star Alliance Gold status.
All member alliances have different requirements to their medium and high tier status members (segments flown, status miles accrual, qualification period).
In my next post I will feature the differences between some of the frequent traveller programs. All Airlines offer their members something special, what I call “local benefits”.
[note color=”#FFCC00″]If you have any question about frequent traveller programs, just send me an email.[/note]
Welcome to the 2nd part of my new series “What’s onboard”. In this series I will feature the awesome meals (and drinks;-)) I get while flying at 30,000ft.
Today’s featured flight is SQ285 – Changi – Auckland (departs at 21:10) on a Boeing 777-300ER.
Dinner
Dinner on SQ285 - January 2012
The first dinner was awesome. Even in economy class you have the choice between several meals.
I opted for the Chicken with rice, carrots, cabbage and Chinese mushrooms. It’s really delicious and a perfect meal before sleeping through the flight.
It also includes a delicious salad and a roll with butter, cheese and cracker.
Quite a few people asked me “How is Contiki?”.
Quote: “Is Contiki just a big party or do we get to see some sights?”
I’ve done several Contiki tours. I think I am able to tell you more about the differences between tours in several countries
Are there only drinking people on the tour?
During my tours I’ve met 3 types of people on each tour.
First, the people who want party und action, then the people who want discover “country, people and culture” and the third group who want best of both world. You can see that with the booked optionals. While some people do Bungy jumping, Sky diving…, other people do tours to the Rainforest or similar.
Usually you book the same optionals as your new friends. 🙂
How are the people in “Quad-Share” rooms?
Sleeping on a sailing boat between the Whitsundays
On my first Australian Contiki Tour, Justine, the tour manager did assign the rooms. If you had problems with any of your room mates, you could go to her and arrange something. Usually you stick together with the same people, which means if you like your room mates, then the tour manager assigns the same people to a room.
Josh did it a bit different on my Contiki New Zealand tour. He handed out a room list while on the coach, everybody can sign up for himself and
the new friends. So get the list early to make sure you get one of the better rooms (triple share instead of quad share in some hotels)
Contiki Tours are different in Europe?
According to my tour manager Josh: yes. In Europe it’s more like:
Sightseeing during daytime, Dinner at night and then booze and party all night.
Josh is a “Kiwi” tour manager, who did tours in Europe for a long time, then he moved back to New Zealand.
Get up early or long nights?
Relaxed afternoon on Whitehaven Beach
On my first Australian Contiki tour and my New Zealand tour,there were often the so called “Early Mornings”.
Depending on how far the distance to the next point of the journey, sometimes this may mean:
7:20 am bags to Coach (bags / suitcases to the bus), 7:25 breakfast, 7:55 departure.
Sometimes there are also departures at 8:30 🙂
In Surfers Paradise Contiki stays 2 full nights, that means on the 2nd day you can sleep in, if you didn’t any booked early optionals.
On my first Australian Contiki tour and my New Zealand tour, there were often the so called “Early Mornings”.
Depending on how far the distance to the next point of the journey, sometimes this may mean:
7:20 am bags to Coach (bags / suitcases to the bus), 7:25 breakfast, 7:55 departure.
Sometimes there are also departures at 8:30 🙂
In Surfers Paradise Contiki stays 2 full nights, that means on the 2nd day you can sleep in, if you didn’t book any early optionals.
You’re flying to Sydney. Here are 5 tips you should read. I love this Airport and stayed there for several hours on my first arrival in Australia.
1. Get a local sim card
Telstra - sim card starter kit
for your mobile phone. Using a local sim card with an Australian phone number is in most cases cheaper than roaming with your carrier at home.
Both Vodafone and Yes!Optus have retail stores in the public area of the international terminal. Also, you can get sim cards for Telstra at the Australia Post Office in the departure hall of the international area.
Make sure your phone is unlocked and supports the right 3G frequency bands. Telstra uses mostly 850 Mhz, while Vodafone and Optus use a Mix of 2100/900 Mhz (and sometimes 850 Mhz, depending on the area).
Check your phone’s manual or ask your carrier at home for details.
Also check details of your Australian carrier of choice, the frequencies may changed.
2. Get sunscreen!
My travel agent recommended SPF 30 or SPF 50 depending on your skin. The o-zone layer in Australia is not as strong as it is in Europe or the USA. You can get sunscreen at the pharmacy stores at Sydney Airport.
You need to check your emails or update your Facebook status?. Sydney Airport has internet kiosks in several locations at International Terminal (T1) and Domestic Terminal (T2). Most offer a free internet session for a specific time period
Before heading to duty free shopping and the customs and immigration counters, make sure to grab a free Sydney city guide book. some of them also include coupons for several attractions.
The city guide books are available in several languages.
5. take the train
Most people I know stay in Sydney when they arrive in Australia at Sydney Airport. When you stay in the Central Business District, the train is often a better option for transport from/to the Airport.
It’s a direct connection, no traffic jams and it’s eco friendly.
There are train stations at the International and the domestic terminal. According to airportlink.com.au a ticket to the CBD costs $ 15.40 AUD
Beep beep beep! Your host is in Paihia in New Zeland.
Today it’s time to do a full day optional. A few of us waited for the bus to arrived. We’re going to drive to the most northern point of New Zeland’s mainland. Cape Reinga, the 90 miles beach and some other places.
I won’t write much about this trip, because it was pretty boring.
First we drove to a place where we could buy some lunch and snacks for the tour. Then we headed to the famous 90 miles beach, where we drove with our bus on the beach.
First opportunity to take a group photo 🙂 After this 20 minutes stop, we made our way to a place to have some fun. Sand boarding!
Time to continue our journey to Cape Reinga. Yes! More driving. We arrived at about 2:30pm and walked he rest to the light house, where we could enjoy the strong sun of New Zealand. Later we enjoyed lunch and spent more time with our Awesome NZ driver . He took us to a rainforest, where we hugged a tree and made a short walk through a rainforest.
We made our way back to Paihia in the late afternoon with a short stop at a ice cream shop. The ice cream’s very good. Maybe I remember the name of the shop later.
At night we walked around Paihia and tried to find some of our tour mates, but they took the last ferry to Russell. A nice place to have a beer. Therefore we headed back to our hotel and enjoyed some cold drinks in one of our hotel rooms. A nice relaxed night with amazing contiki tour mates. 🙂
The latest travel buzz and insider tips from around the world
