Review: Cebu Pacific Economy Class – Manila to Jakarta
Cebu Pacific is a low cost carrier based in the Philippines
and is the only other major Filipino carrier besides Philippine Airlines. Domestically, it does have a bit of a bad rap, and when things go wrong, things can get ugly quite quickly. However, facing a long
connection in Singapore, I decided to try Cebu Pacific’s international product.
Thankfully, Cebu Pacific uses the shares the same
international gates as other foreign carriers flying out of terminal 3, which
meant the seating area around the gate was plentiful and not crowded.
We boarded on time and headed down to the jet bridge.
On my
previous flight to Hong Kong, we were forced to walk down the jet bridge stairs
and walk back up another flight of stairs to board the aircraft.
The official reason was the jet bridge was broken “due to maintenance”
but I suspected it was because Cebu Pacific didn’t want to pay the airport a
jet bridge usage fee. Fortunately this time we were allowed to board directly
onto the plane. Upon boarding, I was greeted with American pop music blaring
from the speakers, which was an interesting touch.
The aircraft is set up in a standard 3-3 all economy seating
configuration, and featured the new recaro slim line seats.
The aircraft looked
almost brand new and looked well maintained. Seats featured a 29 inch pitch,
which is a bit tight. However, they do recline unlike seats on other low cost
carriers.
Advertising is minimal and the only noticeable ad is on the back of
the seat in front of you.
Overall for a low cost carrier, Cebu Pacific has an
excellent hard product on its A320s.
Since I was flying on a night flight and would arrive in
Jakarta around midnight, I decided to try the beef steak, which cost a
reasonable 350 pesos ($7.50).
Surprisingly, the beef was quite tender and the
dish was filling and delicious. If you’re on a budget, you can get a cup of hot
noodles for around 120 pesos ($2.50 USD), which seemed to be a big hit on the plane.
The only thing that is a bit off putting is the constant
announcements they make to sell various items, which can be a bit annoying if
you’re a light sleeper. Best you bring your headphones to drown out the noise.
Overall, I enjoyed my flight on Cebu Pacific. Hard product
was superb for a low cost carrier. Food and snacks are reasonably price, and my
beef steak was very good. Service was excellent and better than most of my
domestic flights in the US. Couple with the fact they fly from Terminal 3, and
I wouldn’t hesitate to fly Cebu Pacific again internationally if the fares are
reasonably priced.
Intro: Chasing in the Solar Eclipse in Indonesia
Every couple of years, Mother Nature
showcases one of the most beautiful events in the sky, the total solar eclipse.
A total solar eclipse happens when the moon goes between the sun and Earth and
fully blocks the sun. The result is a
breathtaking display as the sky darkens and you can see nearby stars and
planets in our solar system. Seeing a
solar eclipse has always been one of the items on my bucket list.
Total solar eclipses are quite rare and it
usually occur around once a year in some part of the world. On March 9, 2016, a total solar eclipse was
set to happen in South East Asia. While
most of Asia could see a partial eclipse, the total solar eclipse can only be
seen in a few select areas in Indonesia.
Since I was currently living in the Philippines, I figured this will be
one of the best times to witness this phenomenon.
How
I booked the trip
Viewing the total solar eclipse will be
tricky as most populous cities in Indonesia won’t be able to see it. In fact, only a handful of cities will have
the a view of the total solar eclipse.
Of all those cities, the biggest by far is Palu, a middle sized city
located in central part of Indonesia.
This town with a population of around 300,000 was set to be transformed
into the capital of the 2016 total solar eclipse. With high global demand from solar eclipse
enthusiasts, getting a room will not be easy.
In fact, hotel rooms in Palu and other cities in Central Indonesia were
fully booked by mid 2014.
Luckily, in Palu there happened to be a
Mercure hotel, which is part of the French chain Accor Hotels. As an Accor
platinum member I was entitled in theory to a guaranteed room as long as I
booked the rate within 48 hours. In practice the experience varies, as some
properties will ignore the benefit completely, while others will have extremely
high “regular rates” that make taking advantage of the benefit astronomically
expensive.
Since hotels have been sold out since 2014
due to the solar eclipse, I decided to contact the Mercure Palu directly.
Surprisingly, not only did they honour the benefit, but the rate charged was
extremely reasonable given the high demand!
Palu is a remote city and as a result is
only being served by domestic airlines including the national carrier Garuda
Indonesia which is part of the Sky Team Alliance. This meant you could use
miles from other Sky Team Alliance partners including Delta and Air France. In fact Flying Blue, Air France’s frequent
flyer program, a transfer partner of American Express quoted only 10,000 miles
one way between South East Asia.
Unfortunately Air France applies fuel surcharges for award redemptions. Not only that, I would have to fly the long
way around as there were no direct Sky Team flights from Manila to
Jakarta.
I decided to save my points and booked more
direct flights using cash. My final
flight itinerary included flights on Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and Lion
Air. The latter two being low cost
carriers.
Highest sign up bonus ever for the Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express!
Big news today as American Express is offering for a limited time 35,000 Starwood points upon completing minimum spend for both the personal and business versions of the Starwood Preferred Guest Card. This is a 40% increase from its normal offer of 25,000 Starwood points.
Starwood Preferred guest points are among the most valuable points currencies out there since they transfer into multiple airline partners, including Alaska Airlines, which can redeemed for flights on Emirates First Class. Starwood Points typically transfer at a ratio of 1 point to 1 mile. However, Starwood gives a 5000 miles bonus for every transfer of 20,000 points. This means if you apply for both the business and personal card, you would enough points for a one way ticket on Emirates First Class from the United States to Dubai after completing your minimum spend!
The limited increased sign up bonus will last until the end of March. With Marriott hotels merging with Starwood in the near future, I highly recommend applying for this card if you haven’t already before the card is discontinued.
British Avios Miles Increase for North American Flights
The British Avios award program is one of my favorite niche programs for one-way redemption for short flights within the US. All major US carriers typically require 12,500 miles for economy flights within the United States. However, since British Airways uses a distance based formula, you could save a considerable amount of miles by using British Avios.
In addition, British Airways doesn’t charge a close in booking fee and you can cancel your British Airways Avios tickets for free for the first 24 hours.
Unfortunately, this month British Airways has increased the amount of miles for the short flights between 0 to 650 miles within North America from 4500 Avios to 7500 Avios. All other mileage redemption remain the same.
We have updated our database to reflect the higher amount of miles needed.
Overall, while it’s not ideal that the number of Avios have increased, 7500 avios for a last minute flight can sometimes be an extremely valuable redemption.
Välkomna TV4 Viewers!
Hej TV4 viewers! I hope you enjoyed my brief little segment
on how to travel on business class using miles. We are planning to launch our
Swedish version of TopMiles in mid 2016, but in the meantime here are my brief
thoughts on the programs within Sweden.
First, the bad news: Unlike American credit cards where sign
up bonuses frequently reach tens of thousands of points, if not an occasionally
100,000 sign up bonus, Swedish credit cards offer a comparatively very
minuscule sign up bonus.
The good news is, if you spend a decent amount of money on
credit cards, you can still earn a relatively healthy amount of frequent flyer
miles.
SAS Eurobonus
The main frequent flyer program for Swedes is the Eurobonus
program by SAS, a star alliance program. Unfortunately, Eurobonus awards cost a
substantial amount of miles, and they usually include a hefty “award fuel
surcharge”. However, the award costs to North America are quite reasonable,
with business class being 110,000 miles, which is comparable to other Star Alliance
partners.
To earn Eurobonus points you can go through two partners: AMEX and Coop MedMera Mercard.
If you spend over 12,500 SEK a month, I highly recommend either
the AMEX EuroBonus Premium Card or AMEX Eurobonus Elite Card. Both offer a 50%
miles redemption once a year for up to two passengers, provided you meet the
minimum spend of 150,000 SEK per year. This is an AMAZING deal, and turns a
poor value miles chart into one that is quite reasonable, if not a good value
compared to other star alliance partners.
If you are a lower spender, the Coop MedMera Mercard is an
option. Instead of directly earning EuroBonus points, you earn MedMera points
which can be exchanged into EuroBonus points. You can find the details here,
but essentially you earn around 1 Europoint for each 5 SEK being spent. In
addition, it’s a MasterCard which means more merchant availability for you to
put your spend on. Finally, the annual fee is a very reasonable 249 SEK per
year.
Other Frequent Flyer
Programs
If you are not looking to earn SAS Eurobonus miles, you are
pretty much limited to American Express Platinum and Gold cards, which earn
membership reward points. Membership Rewards Points in Sweden can be
transferred to airlines such as British Airways, which has very generous
mileage costs for short flights within Europe. Short flights such as Stockholm
to Helsinki can cost as low as only 4000 British Avios. You can read a quick
guide on the British Avios program here.
In addition, you can earn SPG points, although the transfer
rate is pretty poor, at a rate of 25 reward points per SPG point. SPG points
transfer to numerous valuable airline partners, including Alaska & American
Airlines.
There are two main cards that earn Membership Rewards the
AMEX Gold & Platinum Card. The Gold MR card has a 1500 SEK annual fee and
earns 1 reward point for each 1 SEK spent.
The Amex Platinum comes with a slew of benefits and earns
1.5 reward points for each 1 SEK spent. However, the annual fee is an eye
popping 7000 SEK. So unless you are using significant spend, I’d recommend
getting the gold.
Current Hot Deal
If you are looking for a cheap economy flight within Europe,
currently there is an extremely lucrative deal involving PointsHound, an American
company that awards bonus air miles for each hotel stay
Currently PointsHound is running a special promotion awarding
10,000 FinnAir bonus points on your first booking on top of what you originally
would receive when booking the hotel, which is almost enough to get a one way
flight in Economy within Northern Europe on FinnAir, which costs 12,000 FinnAir
points.
After successfully signing up for your PointsHound account,
you then activate the hidden offer by clicking here.
Simply enter the hotels you want to stay at and hit search.
The bonus points should immediately appear in the search result.
Book a hotel room that will earn you at least 12,000 points,
earning you enough points for a free flight within Northern Europe!
In Conclusion
The points offers in Sweden are not as lucrative as those
found in the United States, but with proper planning you can easily earn enough
miles for a round trip ticket in Business Class using your Eurobonus points.
Stay tuned for our Scandinavian launch in mid-2016!
Welcome Today Tonight Viewers!
A warm welcome to the viewers of the Today Tonight show and
from across Australia! I really enjoyed filming my segment, and I hope you
found my advice useful.
We are currently working on creating an accurate database of
all the different cards and airline programs that Australians can use to redeem
their frequent flier miles for almost free travel. Our target launch date is sometime in March.
In the meantime, I’ve would like to briefly share my brief
thoughts on the Australia frequent flyer and credit card programs.
Qantas Points
The Qantas frequent flyer program is quite weak, especially
when compared to its Asian and US counterparts. Almost all routes require more
miles, and on top of that Qantas charges high fuel charges that can easily run
up to a couple hundred dollars. For first class award flights, you could
find yourself having a “fuel surcharge” fee of over $1000 roundtrip.
However, there are some decent miles redemptions you can use
your Qantas points on, most notably to fly on Emirates First Class. The taxes
and fuel surcharges are also quite reasonable, especially when compared to
flights on Qantas.
A first class trip one way to New York on Emirates would
cost you 192,000 Qantas points and a couple hundred dollars in fuel surcharge.
One the biggest pros of Qantas points is that it
partners with most banks and many retail stores in Australia. However, two
cards stand out with relatively high sign up bonuses:
The Qantas American Express Premium card is currently the most valuable card if you’re
looking to stash up on Qantas points. For a limited time, it has a huge 82,500
point sign up bonus.
In addition the NAB Qantas Premium Reward Card has a 60,000 point sign up bonus and lower annual
fee.
Virgin Australia Velocity
Compared to Qantas, Virgin Australia has a better
rewards program, but still a relatively weak one compared to other
international frequent flier programs.
They charge less amount of miles for domestic awards and slightly
less fuel surcharges. So if you are
planning on using your miles for solely domestic flights, I highly recommend
you stick with Virgin.
It partners with various airlines including Etihad airways, which boasts the biggest first class seat in the sky, the
Etihad Apartments. Not only that, the amount of miles needed is quite
reasonable, costing around 187,000 mile to New York via Abu Dhabi. That is over
24 hours of flying in the amazing luxury! If you prefer to save your miles, it
is only 125,000 miles in business class.
If flying to the US / Middle East isn’t your ideal option,
you can also transfer your velocity frequent flyer points into Singapore
Krisflyer miles, which has a very generous award chart and stopover rules.
However, the transfer ratio is 1.35 velocity points for every
Krisflyer mile, so make sure you can find available award space before
transferring your miles
The NAB Virgin
Australia Premium Reward Card currently
has a 60,000 mile sign up bonus after spending $1500
In addition, both the Citi Signature and Prestige card can transfer into Velocity Frequent Flyer miles, at a rate of
0.66 point per mile.
Other Frequent Flyer
Programs
Like the United States, there are a couple major financial institutions
that offer cards that earn bank points which can be converted to different
airline programs, including Krisflyer from Singapore Airlines, and Cathay
Pacific’s Asia Miles. These programs usually charge a lower amount of miles
needed and substantially less fuel surcharge.
Fly the Singapore Suites using Krisflyer miles
We will be uploading comprehensive guides to each bank’s
programs when we launch in March, but here’s a quick rundown of each bank program
and its transfer partners.
CitiBank
Citibank recently went through a bit of a small devaluation,
in which now for every 3 citi points, you receive only 2 Singapore Krisflyer
miles or velocity points. However, it is one of the best bank points to have in
Australia, since they do partner with Singapore Airlines Krisflyer and Cathay
Pacific Asia Miles, along with a variety of other airline partners.
The Citi Prestige
Visa Infinite card comes with a real hefty $700 fee. However, it has priority pass
lounge access, which is great if you usually fly in economy internationally.
The Plaza Premium Lounge in Hong Kong – A Priority Pass
Lounge
In addition it earns 2x citi points on domestic spend and 3x
citi points on international spend, effectively meaning you earn 1.5 Krisflyer
and 1 Cathay Pacific miles per dollar spent
However, if you don’t need lounge access abroad the Citi
Signature card is more than adequate, earning 1.5x points on domestic spend and
3x points on international spend, which equals 1 Krisflyer mile and 0.66 Cathay
Pacific mile per dollar spent.
American Express
Like its American counterpart, American Express in Australia
offers a very competitive frequent flyer program that has numerous airline
partners, including those typically not found in other major bank programs in
Australia. American Express points typically transfer at a ratio of 1:1 to
different programs including Singapore airlines, Virgin Australia, Cathay
Pacific, and unique among Australian programs, SPG points, although at a ratio
of 2 AMEX points for every 1 SPG point.
SPG points are among
my favorite type of miles currency, which can be used for some really unique redemption
since they partner with so many airlines. These include American Airlines and
Alaska Airlines.
At the high end, you have the AMEX Platinum Card which
offers a whopping 100,000 MR points upon sign up. However, the card also comes
with a extraordinary $1250 annual fee.
On the more basic end, AMEX has a no-fee rewards card that
allows you to earn 1 AMEX points per dollar spent. However, there is no sign up
bonus.
The main drawback for American Express in Australia is the
relative gap of a “middle card” that has a decent sign up bonus and a low
annual fee. In addition, some retailers ask for a higher credit card surcharge
whenever you use AMEX.
ANZ
Rounding out the top three is the ANZ reward program. Like
Citi and American Express, ANZ points are a flexible type of miles currency that
can be used on a variety of partners including Virgin Australia, Singapore
Airlines, and Cathay pacific air asia miles.
The most valuable of these cards is the ANZ Black Reward
card, which earns 2 points per dollar spent domestically and 3 points abroad
While the current bonus of 75,000 seems like a stellar deal,
ANZ does charge more miles to transfer to airline partners, with the rate
typically being 2 or 3 ANZ points per airline
mile.
Transfer partners include Velocity Frequent Flier, Singapore
Krisflyer, and Cathay Pacific Asia miles.
So that’s the quick rundown into the major frequent flyer
programs and airlines. There are other reward programs such as Westpac that we
haven’t covered, but typically they don’t offer any kind of significant sign up
bonus.
Stay tuned for our
March launch!
Last Chance: Free Hilton Diamond Status until 2017 via status match
For a few weeks now, Hilton has been offering complimentary status matches to their top tier elite status, Hilton Diamond through email.
Usually to earn Hilton Diamond Status you would need to stay 40 nights a year, not a small amount, especially if you don’t travel on business frequently. This represents a fantastic opportunity to be a top tier elite elite member in one of the better hotel loyalty programs.
Hilton Diamond Benefits Include:
Guaranteed room if you book at least 48 hours before arrival
Complimentary Breakfast
Complimentary Executive Lounge Access
Room Upgrades, with an occasional upgrade to a suite
Rooms I have been upgraded at the Hilton through elite status include:
Suite with direct beach access at the Hilton Mauritius
Centennial Suite at the Conrad Singapore
If you didn’t feel like sending an email, the good news is that Hilton has launched a dedicated status match page that allows you to easily submit a status match.
Simply send in a screenshot of your current hotel account showing your elite status, along with a picture of your Hotel’s elite card and Hilton should status match within a few days.
But How do I get the Hilton Diamond status with no stays?
The good news is Hilton currently is offering status matches with almost all major US hotel programs including IHG, Marriott, SPG, Hyatt, and even Choice Hotels.
If you have the IHG Rewards Club card, you would automatically receive platinum status, which can be status matched into Hilton Diamond. However, since the status match program is ending soon, I wouldn’t recommend applying for the card solely for the status match, as you have to wait a couple of days for your account to updated to platinum.
If you do have elite status, you want to go to the website now and submit your qualifications as soon as possible, as the status match program ends in less than three days, on January 11th!
How to book Etihad First Apartment for only $104 using American Airlines Miles
The following is a rough guide on how to book the Etihad Apartment with miles. If you are completely new to miles or if the guide sounds like jargon to you, I highly suggest you start here.
The Etihad Apartment is currently the indisputable king of first class products. Each “apartment” consists of a separate seat / bed combination, and all first class passengers receive a complimentary in flight shower.
With at least 50% more space than its closest competitor, there is no question that Etihad truly re-imagined how flying should be.
With the retail cost of flying in The Apartment reaching over $10,000, it is frequently flown by the ultra-rich and major celebrities.
Fortunately, you don’t need to be Nicole Kidman to be able to fly in the Etihad Suites. Etihad is an airline partner of American Airlines, which means you can redeem your American Airlines miles for travel on the Etihad Apartment!
How many miles will the Etihad Apartment cost me?
Although American Airlines recently devalued its award chart, the amount of miles needed is still quite reasonable for the amazing first class experience you will get in return.
To fly on the Etihad Apartment, you will need to book a flight on Etihad’s A380. Unlike Emirates, Etihad flies the A380 only on a few select routes.
Here is the current list of flights that currently use the A380:
Miles needed are for
one way flights
New York – Abu Dhabi (115,000 miles)
Sydney – Abu Dhabi (100,000 miles)
London – Abu Dhabi (62,500 miles)
Mumbai – Abu Dhabi (40,000 miles)
I don’t want to fly
to Abu Dhabi, can I fly to another destination?
Yes! You don’t have to end or begin your trip in Abu Dhabi. For the same amount of miles, you can fly to any country within the same region as Abu Dhabi. The full list of countries can be found here.
Currently, the best free “add on” flight from Abu Dhabi is to the Maldives. You can also fly onward to Mumbai in the A380, which means you can experience The Apartment on two separate flights!
Credit Cards that
earn AA miles
Starwood Rewards currently has two credit cards, the Starwood Preferred American Express Card and the Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card, both of which offer 25,000 miles upon meeting minimum spend. These miles can be converted to American miles.
Since Starwood offers a bonus 5,000 miles whenever you transfer 20,000 miles, you’re effectively earning 34,000 American miles for each card, as long as you spend at least $5,000 on each card.
By applying for both the SPG Personal & Business card alone, your already have more then half the miles needed for a flight from New York to Abu Dhabi!
AMEX – Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card from American Express
Current Offer: Earn 25,000 AMEX Starwood Miles after you spend $ 3,000 in purchases within 3 months of account opening.
Annual Fee: $ 95, waived the first year.
Foreign transaction fees: none
Card bonuses:
Citibank, the main bank partner of American Airlines, currently has three personal cards and one business card that earn AAdvantage miles.
Just apply and meet the minimum spend for both the business and personal version of the AA Platinum card. However, I’d advise you to wait until another increased sign up bonus is offered. One of the major benefits of the AA Citi Platinum Card is a 10% rebate whenever you book any AA award up to 10,000 miles a year.
Keep in mind that while you do need to have a business to apply for a business card, you may qualify if you have any sort of income stream that doesn’t fit the traditional mold of a business.
If you don’t have your own business, you’ll have to apply for either the AA Gold Card or the AA Executive Platinum Card, which provides complimentary access to all AA lounges. Please note as of August 28th, 2016 you will only be able to get a sign up bonus once every 24 months per card product.
Once you have enough miles, you can start to search for award space and book your flight.
How to book Award Space on Etihad
Step 1
Go to the Etihad homepage. Click on Etihad Guest (along the top of the homepage).
Step 2
Under Book flights with Miles, click Book Now.
Step 3
Once you’re on the search page, just enter your origin and destination, travel dates, and desired class of service.
Step 4
The results page will show you different levels of availability. You will see “GuestSeat” and “OpenSeat” availability. Look for Guest First award space.
So for first class you need Guest First availability, for business class you need Guest Business availability, and for economy class you need Guest Economy availability.
If you want to search for available flights across a wide range of dates, the best you can do is click at the “scrolling” calendar along the top of the page. Mileage costs are displayed, so you can easily see whether there’s saver space available for each date.
Step 5
Write down the available flights that fit your schedule. You will need to reference them later.
The agent will probably ask for details such as your name, departure and arrival cities, and the dates that you want to travel.
Once the agent confirms your details, you can continue with the script.
You:
First, I would like to fly from [START CITY] to [CONNECTING CITY] on [DATE OF 1st Flight] at [TIME OF 1st Flight]. Flight number [FLIGHT NUMBER] in [CABIN CLASS].
You:
I would then want to continue by adding the flight [CONNECTING CITY] to [CONNECTING CITY] on [DATE OF 2nd Flight] at [TIME OF 2nd Flight]. Flight number [FLIGHT NUMBER 2] in [CABIN CLASS].
You:
Finally, I would like to end with a flight from [CONNECTING CITY] to [FINAL CITY] on [Date OF Last Flight] at [TIME OF Last Flight] in [CABIN CLASS].
If you have more cities, extend the script as needed.
The agent will then proceed to calculate the number of miles you need for your whole trip. He may put you on hold for a bit. When the agent returns, he will give you the amount of miles needed for your trip. Make sure the total amount of miles is correct.
If the number of miles is correct, you may give the agent your payment details for any small taxes & fees due.
Congratulations! Start packing your bags, for your trip from ___ to ___ is officially booked!
If you find award space on Etihad.com but the agent claims to not be able to see the space, you may need to call the Australian call center instead.
Review: Cathay Pacific First Class – Hong Kong to Manila
I left the Pier and headed to my flight. The gate was actually quite far from the lounge and I made it aboard just in time.
I was again flying on the Boeing 777, so the cabin was the same as my last flight from Chicago to Hong Kong, with just six seats in first class.
This time I was seated in 2K and was I offered a glass of champagne. For short flights, Cathay Pacific doesn’t serve Krug, and instead I was given a glass of Amour de Deutz, which retails at around $140 a bottle. Still it was a very nice champagne for such a short trip!
The sun was setting with the last rays of sunlight hugging the mountains looking over the Hong Kong airport.
Soon it was time to take off, and the mood lighting was turned on as night fell.
Shortly after takeoff, hot nuts were served and drink orders were taken. Instead of champagne, I decided to go with a nice glass of Johnny Blue, which came with a bit too much ice.
Since the flight time was only around 90 minutes, almost right after serving my drinks, the flight attendant took my dinner order. Even with the short flight time, Cathay pacific had an extensive menu to choose from.
I started with the parma ham with mozzarella cheese, which was fantastic. Once again, the presentation was excellent and even came with a “Thank you for flying with us” note!
My main course was a typical Chinese dish: wok-fried prawns and fried rice. The prawns had a bit too much sauce but besides that the dish was quite good and filling, especially for just a 90 minute flight.
I finished off my meal with a chocolate caramel mousse cake.
Overall, the meal was fantastic. I was pleasantly surprised on the vast amount food that was being served on such a short flight. The meal service took almost an hour, and by the time my table was cleared, our plane began our final descent in Manila.
We landed at Terminal 3, the newest terminal of the notorious Manila airport. The APEC conference was held the week before, so the entire terminal was well kept and Christmas lights hanged everywhere.
I arrived home around 90 minutes later and promptly fell asleep; having drank and ate a little too much.
As far as short flights goes, this is probably one of the best ones I’ve experienced yet. The flight attendants were extremely busy trying to serve everything quickly, but whenever I need their help, they were prompt and willing to serve.
Overall I was very impressed with the food and service on this flight. The flight attendants were understandably rushed as they had to complete a full meal service within a short time frame, but were friendly and attentive to my needs.
Djerba is a place of contrasts, where as you find tourist hotels filled with Europeans sun bathing on the beach, to conservative old town, where you’ll find most women are covered and minarets dotting the skyline.
Before heading to Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, I already
had spent one night an appropriately named one star hotel, where hot water was
scarce and the room was quite dirty. On the plus side, there was running air
conditioning and the courtyard was beautiful.
I’ve always been a casual Star Wars fan, as in I watched all the movies a couple time and enjoyed the movie, but I wasn’t a particularly die hard fan.
However, since I was in Djerba, I knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the real life sets where the original Star Wars movies were shot.
Unfortunately, there is no real easy way to this yourself. Public transport is not reliable, and renting a car in Tunisia is quite the hassle. I decided to suck it up and go with a private tour operator.
We went back and forth and eventually agreed on a private tour that would see the following star wars landmarks along with other local cultural sites:
Anakin Skywalker’s Home
Slave Quarters exteriors from Episode 1
Lars Homestead (Luke’s home)
Toshi Station
Ben’s Hermitage (House of Obi-Wan Kenobi)
Mos Esley Cantina
My flight landed in Djerba at around 8:30 am, my guide quickly greeted me and we were on our way.
The first thing we had to do is take a ferry that separates Djerba Island from the mainland. There was a long line, and it was easy to see why. The ferry’s were quite small and could only fit a few cars at a time.
Actually anything with wheels was allowed on board; It was quite odd to see a bus full of passengers who didn’t get out on the ferry.
We then headed straight into the mountainous dessert, the roads were well paved and occasionally you see a local with his donkey walking on the side of the road.
Our first stop was a traditional Tunisian house occupied by a Berber family. The houses are all underground to keep cool during the hot days and you can easily see where Lucas got his inspiration for Luke’s home.
Our next stop was the famous Lars Homestead, where the scenes inside Luke’s house were shot.
It has actually been converted to a hotel complete with all sorts of star wars memorabilia and pictures from the actual set when it was filming.
I then toured around the courtyard.
And then the famous dining room
Finally, I toured the sleeping quarters. You can actually lie down where Skywalker slept!
To stay at the hotel, it is actually quite cheap, although it is a bit rough, so I’d probably do a day trip rather than stay overnight.
We then drove through the mountainside, passing by various Berber villages that looked like they’ve been there for many generations.
We finally made it to our next stop, Ksar Hedada, where a couple shots from the Phantom Menace were filmed. However, the area has been turned into a hotel, but it was still nice to take a look at some more unique Berber building styles.
We then headed to a Berber village to have an early dinner. Unfortunately, the host family was not there, so we ended up taking a few photos and leaving early.
We then headed to Ksar Medenine, where Anakin Skywalker’s home was located. An interesting fact was that there were people actually living inside most of those rooms.
It was getting dark and we headed back to Djerba, but stopping at a small salt flat first to watch the sunset.
I had some minor complications with my guide, and the next day the owner of the tour company came to apologize and gave me a tour of all the Star Wars sites in Djerba.
Our first stop was Toshi Station, which now had a loudspeaker attached to its roof
We then went to Obi Wan Kenobi’s house, which was currently being used to store building materials
Our final stop was the exterior of the famous Mos Eisley Cantina.
Unfortunately it seems to have fallen into disarray, with the inside filled a bunch of building materials.
The tour operator dropped me off and then I had a lazy day at the pool before flying back to Poland.
Overall, I really did enjoy my Star Wars Tour, especially my visit to the Lars homestead. The only drawback is the amount of driving you would do daily. I’d say at least 80% of the tour was driving from one place to another.
HOW TO GET THERE:
Many European charter airlines fly to Djerba from Europe, you may be able to score a deal by waiting till the last minute. Quite frequently they sell their last tickets at a loss.
There are no airlines with frequent flier programs that fly to Djerba, you will need to instead fly to Tunis first and then book a separate ticket to Djerba.
The cheapest miles redemption would be via British Avios and could cost between 24,500 to over 40,000 miles each way depending on which US city you leave from. (Avios is a distance base mileage award program).
Alternatively, you can redeem 37,500 miles American Airline miles or 40,000 United MileagePlus miles each way.
You then will need to take a quick 1 hour flight on TunisAir (the national airline of Tunisia). Make sure you book tickets directly on their website, as if you search via Kayak you will be charged a higher price.
My recommendation would be to fly to Europe on an award ticket and then wait for a last minute flight deal. Polish charter companies are quite notorious for having very cheap last minute tickets (make sure to use google translate).
