Guillaume Schaer

DEAL ALERT: Business Class to Bali or Cape Town for EUR 1,500

By Guillaume Schaer on February 20, 2017 0

Have you ever been to Bali, Cape Town or Ho Chi Minh? Would you love to take your significant other to enjoy the sun and beaches?

Would you love to fly there in comfortable bed?

Qatar Airways just released an amazing promotion from Madrid or Barcelona. It’s a 2 for 1 promotion, meaning that you need to fly with a friend. You can fly from now until september 30th.

Flights to Cape Town start at EUR 1,499 per person. To Johannesburg, it will cost you only EUR 1,579 per person. And if you want to fly to Bali, it will be only EUR 1,689 per person.

To get these prices, you just need to go to the Qatar Airways website, search for flights from Barcelona or Madrid for two and decide where you want to fly.

This time, it’s worth positioning yourself in Barcelona or Madrid to enjoy so many hours flying in a bed!

When will you go?

DEAL ALERT: New Year in Australia from Zurich for EUR 1200

By Guillaume Schaer on October 12, 2016 0

UPDATE: it seems all availability is gone. I hope you could get it.

Got any plans for New Year? Today Qatar Airways released the cheapest Business Class rate I’ve ever seen between Europe and Australia.

You can fly from Zurich to Adelaide for EUR 1,200 (CHF 1,300). You read correctly, for less than the regular Economy price, you can fly in Business Class on the Airbus 350 and the Boeing 787.

There are a few conditions:

The flight to Adelaide has to be between October 14 and December 10, 2016
The return trip has to be completed before January 31, 2017
There is a three day minimum stay
Ticket has to be issued before October 16, 2016

Ready to book? Good, because I can assure you that this deal won’t last…

First, go to the Qatar Airways website and select a departure from Zurich to Adelaide. Make sure to allow only Premium cabin.

You will then be transfered to the booking option page. If seats are available, you should see an option such as this:

As you can see it costs CHF 1,300 for a flight from Zurich to Doha to Adelaide and back in Business Class for a month!

If the date you want is not in the list, use the arrows to check for another day.

When you get in Adelaide, you can take local flights or rent a car for the ultimate road trip.

If you decide to stop in Doha for a day, you will even get a FREE city tour.

This trip even gives you miles, I advise you to credit them to the American Airlines AAdvantage program.

So, will you book it?

Earn Miles while sleeping (and 1,000 free miles)

By Guillaume Schaer on September 26, 2016 0

I usually tell you to book directly with the hotel to save when booking.

Today, I need to tell you about a cool service called RocketMiles.

Rocketmiles gives you air miles when you book through them.

They partner with great frequent flyer programs including the following:

Would you love getting miles for staying at hotels? You can get a few thousands miles per stay and if you register with this link, you will get 1,000 free miles in the program of your choice.

What is Travel Hacking?

By Guillaume Schaer on September 25, 2016 0

Ten years ago, I was leading a customer support team with a large American company. Our goal was to fix some of the largest videosurveillance systems in the world. Based in Switzerland, I was traveling extensively: I never spent more than a week per month back home. On a Friday night, as I was about to fly home after a week in a very secure facility downtown Moscow, I got a call from a coworker:

“We need you in Vegas on Monday, which hotel do you want us to book for you?”

I’m quite tall (1.96m or 6’5″ if you prefer imperial units) and company policy was to get the cheapest airfare you can find, even for a 12 hours half-way-across-the-globe flight. As such, I was flying in Economy most of the time. Traveling is fun, but it can be highly tiring when you need to work right after sitting for 13 hour straight in an Economy seat. As any good engineer facing a tough problem would do, I started to look for a solution. How can I travel in comfort? How can I get anywhere on the world and feel refreshed on arrival? Am I the only one?

As far as I remember, this trip to Vegas was my last flight in Economy (besides short two-hours trips around Europe or Asia). When flying back from the States, I was introduced to the wonderful world of Travel Hacking. Don’t worry, there’s nothing illegal here.

I love defining Travel Hacking as a way to find tricks and loopholes in the travel system in order to maximise your experience. Do you want to fly Business or First class for the price of Economy? Do you want to stay in some of the best hotels of the world for the price of a Motel? All this is possible with Travel Hacking.

Here are a few examples of how I used Travel Hacking for my own benefit or my friends:

I brought my family on a three-weeks safari in Tanzania. We payed less than $1,500 per person for flying in Business Class from Europe. Economy tickets were more expensive.
I sent teddy bears to children hospitals and had pizzas delivered to fire stations in the US. It allowed me to get two Business Class tickets from Europe to South America. I proposed at the Iguazu Falls in Brazil and she said Yes!
I flew on Lufthansa First Class between the Europe and the US for less than $2,000.
I helped a friend save $200 by flying in Business Class instead of Economy on a flight from Europe to Australia. She stopped in Bangkok on the way to Sydney and even got a free 1-hour massage in between flights.
I helped friends get upgrades, free breakfast and spa vouchers at 5 stars hotels around the world.
I helped a friend save $4,000 by changing his travel dates by one day.
I even got paid to stay in cool hotels.

I decided help more people get that kind of results. Join the MilesAddict community today and you will get my complimentary guide on the tips to sleep for free at the best hotels in the world. I will then send you regular tips and tricks on Travel Hacking in the next few months.

If you listen to me, you will not travel in Economy anymore…

Europe to Hong-Kong for EUR 1,600 in Business class

By Guillaume Schaer on September 23, 2016 0

Cathay Pacific is the flag-carrier of Hong-Kong and one of the best airline of Asia. Today, there is a way to get to Hong-Kong on Cathay Pacific Business Class on the Boeing 777-300 for the price of EUR 1,600 instead of 5,000.

To get this great fare, we need to use a promotion from one of their partner: Alaska Airlines. Based out of Seattle, Alaska Airlines has a very special frequent traveler program called MileagePlan. With this program, you can redeem flights on some interesting airlines such as Air France, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates or Icelandair.

Alaska Airlines sells you an unlimited amount of miles per year at the regular price of $1,182.50 for 40,000 miles (or 2.95 CPM). On a regular basis, Alaska Airlines runs special promotions and today their promotion is quite interesting. It consists of a mistery bonus of 35%, 40% or 50% bonus. You will only know your personal bonus when checking your account.

Let me walk you through the process. If you haven’t already, you must create an account with Mileage Plan.

After creating the account, you can check your bonus level.

Did you get 50%? I got a 40% bonus.

Here is the exact bonus I got:

Buy:	Bonus:
0–9,000 miles	No bonus
10,000–19,000 miles	20% bonus miles
20,000–39,000 miles	30% bonus miles
40,000–60,000 miles	40% bonus miles

I can buy any value between 40,000 and 60,000 miles and get 40% extra miles. If I buy 40,000 miles for $1,182.50, I will get 56,000 miles. A value of 2.12 CPM. If you need more than 60,000 miles, just buy multiple packages of 40,000-60,000 miles.

Let’s have a look at how to use these miles:

The MileagePlan award chart is mostly limited to flights from and to North America but there are a few gems such as Europe to Hong-Kong on Cathay Pacific in Business Class for 85,000 miles round trip. At 2.12 CPM, you get a Paris to Hong-Kong and back or a Zurich to Hong-Kong and back for $1,800. At today’s exchange rate, it means EUR 1,600.

If you get the 50% bonus, you will buy at 1.97 CPM. The flight will then be at $1,700 (roughly EUR 1,500)

Wouldn’t you love to sit in that chair for 12 hours:

A business class seat onboard a Cathay Pacific B777-300ER. Courtesy of Sunnya343 on Wikimedia.

Again, here is the link to the Alaska Airlines mistery bonus promotion

This promotion is valid until September 29th, 2016. So hurry and buy your miles today.

Will you buy miles today?

Europe to Botswana in Business Class for EUR 1,500

By Guillaume Schaer on September 21, 2016 0

Last week, I told you how to get from Europe to India with Lufthansa First Class for less than EUR 2,000. Today, I’ll show you how you can get to Botswana (or any other African country south of the Sahara) in business class for EUR 1,500 roundtrip.

Lifemiles, our beloved Colombian Dealer just announced a special promotion with the Brazilian Blog Passageiro de Primeira. Instead of the 130% bonus we saw last week, Lifemiles is offering 140% bonus for a very limited time.

With this promotion, if you buy 101,000 miles for $3,333, you will get 141,400 bonus miles. This is a total of 242,400 miles or 1.375 cent per mile. To use this promotion, you should first open an account with LifeMiles if you haven’t already. Then, register for the promotion between Sep 19th to Sep 26th here. You then have to wait 24 hours to make sure that your bonus is activated and you can buy the miles on Lifemiles.com between Sep 20th and Sep 27th 2016.

Here is a summary of the bonuses:

When you buy between	Receive	Accrue up to
LM 2.000 – 50.000	2X1 + 15%*	LM 107.500 When buying LM 50.000
LM 51.000 – 100.000	2X1 + 30%*	LM 230.000 When buying LM 100.000
LM 101.000 – 150.000	2X1 + 40%*	LM 360.000 When buying LM 150.000
* The bonus percentage is calculated based on the miles purchased without taking into account the 2×1 bonus. This exclusive offer is valid for subscription from Sep 19th to Sep 26th and to buy from Sep 20th to Sep 27th 2016.

If you check the Lifemiles Award Chart, you’ll see that Europe to South Africa is 55,000 miles one-way (+ taxes).

Here we’re talking about the “South Africa Region”, not the country. Lifemiles defines South Africa Region as all the following countries:

Angola	Guinea	Sao Tomas and Príncipe
Benin	Guinea Bissau	Senegal
Botswana	Guinea Ecuatorial	Seychelles
Burkina	Kenya	Sierra Leone
Burundi	Lesotho	Somalia
Cameroon	Liberia	South Africa
Cape Verde	Madagascar	South Sudan
Central African	Malawi	St. Helena
Chad	Mali	Sudan
Comoras	Mauritania	Swaziland
Congo	Mauritius	Tanzania
Cote d’ivoire	Mozambique	Togo
Democratic Republic of Congo	Namibia	Uganda
Eritrea	Niger	Yibuti
Ethiopia	Nigeria	Zambia
Gabon	Reunion	Zimbabwe
Gambia	Rwanda
Ghana	Sahara

So you could fly from Europe to Johannesburg and connect to Gaborone, Botswana with South African Airlines in Business class for a 55,000 miles + EUR 150 one way. You could return with Ethiopian via Addis Abeba.

So remember the procedure:

Create an account with LifeMiles
Register for the promotion between Sep 19th and Sep 26th
Wait 24 hours
Buy the miles between Sep 20th and Sep 27th 2016
Book your flight

Will you buy miles?