Now waiting for Asia Miles and Cathay Pacific to get back to me on the same email I sent to both of them.
Because this IS important - Asia Miles has CTrip and China Eastern as its partners.
I've bought from CTrip before and its prices for an entire Shanghai trip compared to those from Expedia are higher by only a little. If CTrip gets me mileage, I'm jumping over there immediately.
China Eastern is a Shanghainese airline, so if I'm to fly there annually, chances are I'm going to find better prices there regularly. Already, one of my trips will be with this airline.
If I don't have to be a member of the loyalty programmes of the different airlines to spend my Asia Miles mileage, I'm going to rack up mileage faster than my initial estimates.
At the very least, I can definitely get a free upgrade to Business Class every 3 years, round trip.
First Class is still out of the question though.
The thing is that Business class tickets cost S$1000-1500 more than Economy class even for short trips from SG to HK. First Class, at least S$2000.
Signing up for Marco Polo, if necessary, is very worth it even with the annual $50 renewal fee if I really want the upgrade.
I would be paying about $150-200 for an upgrade.
Except this is not a necessity and therefore isn't worth it to me.
...
Holy shit!
I don't have to be a Marco Polo member to get upgrades using Asia Miles mileage!
Fck yes!
Free Business class upgrade by 2014!
My next 3 trips will be getting me almost 15k miles. If I book everything from CTrip from next year onwards, I'm totally hitting 30k by the beginning of 2014!
Or, if I'm feeling stingy, the same mileage can also be spent to redeem free Economy class return tickets on any of the partner airlines.
However, all these numbers are based on Category B, ie the distance of the flights are between 1201-2500 miles. The distance from Singapore to Shanghai is around 2300 miles while that of Singapore to Hong Kong is around 1600 miles.
However, the distance between Singapore and Seoul is about 2800 miles. Under Category C, the cost of free Economy return tickets is 45k miles while the cost of a free Business upgrade for return tickets is 50k miles. In other words, I will never be able to take Business Class for the longer flight to Korea.
I'm excited about this because I've never taken Business Class in my entire life. Part of me thinks it's overrated but all I know about those seats is what I've seen when I'm boarding and alighting. The same part of me also thinks that I should just save up 70k miles for the free First Class return tickets instead.
That last really depends on how much Asia Miles charges to renew my mileage upon expiry.
For a chance to redeem free First Class return tickets, necessity is not a concern. Saving up for 6 years means I will have to renew some of the mileage at least once. If it's less than S$100 total, I'm completely ok with it; calling it a "bargain" would be the understatement of the year.
...
Thinking about mileage makes me want to get the credit card from StanChart, except I don't have the annual income level to qualify for any but the Preferred Banking card, the only one that does not have a minimum income requirement.
Instead, it requires a deposit of S$50k and is by invitation only.
I wonder if I can qualify for that card with my business account. Going to ask them.
Because, 1 airmile for every dollar I spend? Since I pay all the utility bills both at home and at work, I'll be racking up mileage LIKE A BAWS with that card!
And free travel insurance. Wow.
If deposits in that account are counted, I'm totally going for it immediately.
On the other hand, $300 annual fee.
D:
Let's see if it waives the fee when I spend a certain amount of money.
The Runelords series is kinda weird.
It stands out from the other series I'm reading but not in a very positive way. Fortunately, it's not too negative either.
It's just strange.
The story and everything is good enough but the direction is sorely lacking.
Maybe it's meant to be two series under the same title but that just confuses readers.
Right now it feels as if the first few books were just backstory plus introduction, and Fallion is the real protagonist of the series. Yet he's completely missing in Chaosbound, the latest paperback volume.
If David Farland wanted to emulate the style of George R. R. Martin, he should have done it since the beginning, or he could have just split the series. You don't write one series with different styles; it's confusing.
The concept of this whole Runelords universe is great but the execution could have been better.
Feels good when I use enough coupons so that I'm paying less than the total pre-coupon discounted price of the two bigger items out of the three in my order on Qoo10.
Two bigger items: $23.80 (discounted)
Smaller item: $5.00
Final payment: $23.30
This is obviously with a $5 cart coupon and a $0.50 coupon on the smaller item, and those numbers look great.
Then again, if I look at the total discount vs original prices, things don't look that good.
All 3 items: $30.80
Total discount $7.50
% discount: 24.35%
Ordered more samples but will probably be too late.
Been postponing everything so much.
I don't want to break promises so I'll have to get some stuff during my Shanghai trip.
10 tubes of men's facial cleanser samples. That's how many that are standing in formation on my basin.
4 from the Silkpro hair treatment purchase at Watsons, 2 from Nivea's FB page and 4 from the goodie bag for buying an insurance policy at the SAFRA roadshow.
Not to mention the large tube I've been using since last month.
Looks like I won't have to worry about this for quite some time.
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