Author Archives: Tonei Glavinic

About Tonei Glavinic

Tonei Glavinic is an Alaskan travel expert, educator, social justice advocate, and digital nomad currently based in Mexico City. Find them on Twitter @tonei.

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Warning: Opening a Bank of America Checking Account May Break Automatic Credit Card Payments

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Buenos dias everyone! A couple of months ago, I logged into my Bank of America account and was surprised to see that my Merrill+ Visa Signature Card had a past due balance. Since I have a lot of credit cards, I always set them up for automatic payments initiated by the credit card company – that way, they’re usually on the hook if something goes wrong with a payment. Upon further investigation, I discovered that my automatic payment for the end of October had been scheduled and then canceled without any explanation. I also noticed that the same thing had happened to my Bank of America Spirit Airlines World MasterCard.

A screenshot of a Bank of America eBill history, showing two "eBill-Initiated Payments" listed as canceled, and one manual payment in the middle marked as processed.

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Trip Report: ANA 767-300 Business Class NRT-HKG

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This is part two of my trip report for my ANA flights from Mexico City to Hong Kong – read the first part here.

My connecting flight to Hong Kong boarded promptly at 9:35am, and we even managed to push back a few minutes early.

Narita to Hong Kong

My onward connection to Hong Kong was on a 767-300 operated by Air Japan (an ANA subsidiary). This plane has a somewhat unusual 2-1-2 configuration in business, so I chose the middle seat in row 2 (someone warned me that people often use the row 1 bulkhead to move between the two aisles). The center seat has more storage than the others: a side console with a large storage compartment, as well as two smaller compartments for glasses and a water bottle. All the seats have a seatback pocket and a literature slot next to the footwell, plus generously sized tray tables, but there’s a lot more storage room and elbow room in the middle seat.

A photo of the back of an ANA business class seat, showing the TV screen and storage pockets.

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Planes, Trains, and More Planes, 2017 Edition: Asia for the Holidays

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Buenos dias everyone,

Like last year, I just left Mexico City for a long international trip over the holidays – this time to Asia instead of Europe. This time the trip wasn’t built around a mistake fare, but rather a desire to visit the Leshan Giant Buddha and the Chengdu Panda Base, both in western China.

I started planning the trip in mid-September, and found that Asiana Airlines had pretty good business class availability across the Pacific for the dates we were looking at. I tacked on United economy flights between Mexico City and LAX (though this resulted in an overnight layover in each direction, since United only has one flight per day between those two cities), and added a domestic Air China economy flight from Shanghai to Chengdu after a one-week stopover.

A world map centered over the Pacific Ocean showing the following flight routing in red: MEX-LAX-ICN-PVG, SHA-CTU

Map generated by gcmap.com

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Will you be at Aviation Geek Fest in Seattle this Weekend?

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Buenos dias everyone, I’d love to know if any of our readers are going to be at Aviation Geek Fest this weekend! This unique event is hosted by the Institute of Flight (best known for the Future of Flight Aviation Center and Boeing Tour) with support from Airline Reporter, and is billed as “the most important event for commercial aviation fans from around world.”

The author (wearing a hoodie with yellow, orange, red, and grey stripes) standing in front of an airplane tail. The tail is orange with a grey numeral 8 in the background and the numbers 747 in white in the foreground.

Tonei standing in front of a Boeing 747-8i tail at Aviation Geek Fest 2016

Some highlights of this year’s schedule include:

  • A Friday night social on the Strato Deck at the Future of Flight Aviation Center, overlooking the Paine Field flight line
  • VIP tours of Boeing’s Everett and Renton aircraft facilities, as well as one of several aerospace engineering companies (I’m going to be visiting Esterline)
  • Opportunities to explore the Future of Flight Aviation Center and the Museum of Flight
  • Box lunch aboard a vintage American Airlines 727

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Singapore Airlines Partner Award Chart for Alaska Airlines Flights (Sweet Spots to Hawaii, Canada & Mexico)

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Buenos dias everyone. As first reported by Scott at Travel Codex, Singapore Airlines’s Krisflyer loyalty program has released a partner award chart for flights on Alaska Airlines. It seems confusing at first, but once you understand the full picture, it makes more sense.

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Alaska’s route map is split into five zones:

  • Zone 1: West Coast
  • Zone 2: Mountain West and Canada
  • Zone 3: Midwest
  • Zone 4: East Coast, Southeast, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Mexico
  • Zone 5: Alaska and Hawaii

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