re: Credit Card Rewards and Points Discussion

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I've decided to make arrival as pleasant as possible.

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Gotcha. Not having to deal with them getting all frazzled is worth a few extra bucks.

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So you think if I get there Friday afternoon he can have the clothes to me before I fly out Sunday night?

ETA: I'm getting pretty pumped about ole Raja here. Good chance I keep ordering after my visit. Maybe I'll have him ship the stuff to the US regardless. Don't want to carry a suit jacket and such the whole time.

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I'm not sure, but you can always stop and ask. I did 3 fittings. The first one took about 45 minutes and the last two probably took 10-15 minutes. They delivered to my hotel room when completed. It's a cool experience and efficient. He offers you a gin & tonic or beer. He discuses your clothing style preference/weather/use etc and then you pick out fabrics. The nice thing is that once you get your measurements done, you can pick out a suit design you like and the fabric(he sent me all the fabrics/designs snail mail for free when I asked to make another order from US) and they'll make it and ship it to US for ~$60.

Suit/3-4 shirts/tie runs $400-$700 depending on fabric. They do nice work and use high quality fabric.

I won't buy another suit off the rack.

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I think the last thing I need is a dtac sim so I can hail ubers. DTAC has a nifty prepurchase arrangement with airport pickup.

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I pre-ordered mine on Amazon last time. It was about $3 more at that time than to buy direct IIRC, but I didn't have to stop for it.

If y'alls nights are out of whack, Soi 11 bars off Sukhumvit were always full of Ex-pats and locals out 12-6.

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good street food market.

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China town was cool.

We got breakfast/lunch twice on a road called Duang Phithak Rd which is across from Soi 1 on Sukhumvit. Dozens of food stalls. Never saw it on a blog or anything, but stumbled across it and there were endless options. We usually sat down for dinner somewhere.
LINK
This place was good and the name is worthy of a stop for a picture.

Actually, we had dinner at Above 11, as was mentioned above, one night, which was good albeit expensive for Thai standards.

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I usually paid about $10-12USD for full body hour and left $3-$5 tip. We got one every day.

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I would get a 2 hr massage at least twice a week at this local spot downstairs from my gf's (now wife) apartment for the 6 months I lived there

She's from E. Europe and doesn't like Thai massage so she never went but part of me coming to visit was to always get a massage

300 baht and would always leave at least 100 baht tip. My last visit to get a massage, the girl I usually got gave me a little bottle of tiger balm as a goodbye present. I gave her 300 baht tip and she gave me a big hug. I miss having massages all the time. Looking into getting a real good massage chair.

Haven't been to Shanghai yet, sorry, but with that name you can't go wrong with Grandmother!

FYI: I successfully loaded a OV to Serve at Rite Aid today.

So, I just Booked my flights home for my Kuala Lumpur/Vietnam trip next fall and figured I'd share.

After going through the flight schedule I put together after many...many British Airways searches, I finally called AA to book it. I went trough the whole itinerary with the chatty AA agent, and she put me on hold. She came back about 4-5 minutes later to inform me that this ticket was not bookable because Japan Airlines awards on AA are no longer bookable until 60 days before flight. She gave me this whole spiel about how Japan Airlines is looking to reduce their award space with AA due to trying to maximize revenue on paid flights. Ok...ok. I'm thinking BS the whole time since I haven't read this anywhere, but who knows, maybe this is real.

So, I do what any points junky should do. HUCA

I called right back and was on the phone with another friendly agent. I was booked and had a record locator in less than 5 minutes .

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Do you have your Vietnam and KL tourist stops already planned or is that still open for changes?

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Not a plan. We just chose that for our next stop. Think we're going to do Hanoi and surrounding areas for 3 days and Halong bay cruise for a night.

Yeah I agree. My preliminary research has like an 8 hr bus trip to from Hanoi to make the trip for Halong bay, but I can tell you I'm not real keen on that idea. I've gotta do some research to find a more efficient route. But, my research has been pretty non existent to this point. You know lining up flights is the priority, and then scheduling in between. Stopping in Bangkok again for that trip to see Raja to pick up another suit. Going to try out Qatar business class from BKK to HAN since they fly their premium international cabin on that route for hauling cargo apparently. 9k Avios for one way biz class.

Just approved for Amex Gold Delta SkyMiles. 50k bonus miles offer after $1k spend in first 3 months and $50 statement credit after Delta purchase. $95 annual fee waived first year. Taking the family to Disney World in Feb so plan on buying our 3 airline tickets on the card to get the statement credit and saving a little money on the bag fees. Anyone have any other advice?