Birders need a wide variety of good lenses to get those stunning “Nat Geo” style shots. While you do need a lot of patience and practice to get your photographyskills to professional level, having the best possible lenses helps a lot. This video by Canon shows just a few of their lenses but is really interesting. How would you like to carry that huge 800mm one around?
Out of the countries classified as “Central Asia”, the ones that offer the best birding are India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. This is one area you have to carefully check how your airline’s program defines Central Asia, sometimes Sri Lanka is put into South-East Asia. If you are married to or involved with a non-birding partner, this is a great region to plan a trip to as they will find plenty to do while you are off chasing birds. Unfortunately, being so far from everywhere it can be very expensive to get there whether you use miles or cash. Let’s look at a few options using the top 8 frequent flyer programs for eco-tourists.
Central Asia Map
AMERICAN AADVANTAGE
For most people, joining American Airline’s AAdvantage will be the best option. They have quite a few credit card options to quickly build your miles stash and a few partners such as E-Rewards and various hotels where you can transfer points in. The region is called “Indian Subcontinent and Middle East” on this chart and includes Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Maldives, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan.
Please note that Sri Lanka is in South-East Asia for award purposes so you would do better to use Avios for routes between India and Sri Lanka.
Airlines which serve this area include British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas with Malaysian Airlines, Sri Lankan Airlines and Qatar Airways joining very soon.
These figures are one-way so double if you want a round trip. The nice thing about AAdvantage is the flexibility, you may choose to go one way in economy and one way in business, or do an open jaw where you fly into Kathmandu (KTM) for example and out of Mumbai (BOM).
USA and Canada: Each way is 45,000 economy; 67,500 business; 90,000 first. You can use British Airways, Air Berlin, Finnair, Iberia and Etihad but there are no stopovers allowed.
UK and Europe: Each way is 20,000 economy; 30,000 business; 40,000 first. You can use British Airways, Etihad or (coming soon) SriLankan Airlines; or use Finnair, Air Berlin or Iberia to get to Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong or anywhere Qantas flies.
Australia and New Zealand: Each way is 30,000 economy; 45,000 business; 60,000 first. You can use Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Malaysian.
QANTAS
For Aussies who have easy access to Qantas points via their employer or Everyday Rewards, it’s worth checking out QF’s awards to Central Asia. Use their points calculator as the awards are distance based, not by country. The awards look expensive compared to AA, UA and US but if you got your points for free, might as well enjoy them! Here is an example of what you could expect from one way in economy from Sydney to Mumbai.
AVIOS (BRITISH AIRWAYS AND IBERIA)
Later this year, Sri Lankan Airlines will join One World, which opens up bargain redemptions for local short routes. In the examples below, the awards will range from 4500 Avios to 10,000 Avios. Compare the distance traveled with the screenshot of the Avios distance chart below.
No matter where you live, the two best programs to use in Star Alliance are United and US Airways. Both have their pros and cons. With United, you can book partner awards online, book one-way awards and get lots of miles via several Chase credit cards; but if you can’t get these cards it can be hard to get miles in United Mileage Plus. With US Airways, the major drawbacks are you have to book round-trips and you can’t book online, you have to call them. The advantage with US Airways is that they offer frequent “Buy miles, get 100% bonus free” promos and in the past, they had the wonderful Grand Slam promos where it was possible to do partner transactions and with careful planning you could get about 120,000 miles for $400-600 incremental cost. The US Airways Grand Slam hasn’t been seen since Sept-Nov 2011, unfortunately they didn’t do it in 2012. Depending on where you live, Avianca/Taca Lifemiles could be useful too, but it is hard to use their booking engine for complicated routings so I suggest saving them for USA-Central/South America where they offer better value and ease of booking.
US AIRWAYS (round-trip only) Region is South & Central Asia which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Chagos, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.
USA and Canada: Economy 80,000; Business 120,000; First 160,000. You can use United, Air Canada, Air New Zealand (hard to get) or sometimes take the “scenic route” via Asia using Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Asiana or ANA (All Nippon Airlines). US has recently started enforcing MPM (maximum permitted miles) so some Asian routings may not be acceptable.
UK and Europe: Economy 70,000, Business 90,000; First 110,000. Most people try to get routings using Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish Airlines. Some airlines do not give US Airways business or first class awards such as Singapore, Lufthansa and Swiss.
Australia and New Zealand: Economy 70,000, Business 90,000; First 120,000. You can fly on Singapore, Thai and Air New Zealand.
UNITED AIRLINES (can book one-way or round trip.
The award chart is too big to copy paste here so please follow this link to see the whole chart.
USA and Canada: (each way) Economy 40,000; Business 60,000; First 80,000. You can use United, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Turkish, LOT, Egypt Air or sometimes take the “scenic route” via Asia using Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, Asiana or ANA (All Nippon Airlines). You can easily see the routings via their online award booking engine.
UK and Europe: (each way) Economy 30,000, Business 50,000; First 60,000. Most people try to get routings using Singapore, Thai, Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish Airlines. You can easily see the routings on their online award booking engine but be careful if you are looking at business or first class awards as sometimes they offer mixed class awards and the long-haul section could be in economy with a short sector in business or first.
Australia and New Zealand: Economy 30,000, Business 45,000; First 60,000. You can fly on Singapore, Thai and Air New Zealand.
Here’s an example of London to Mumbai, as you can see they quote both the miles and taxes and the business class award are “mixed class” and if you hover over the fare, you can see which flight is in which class.
LHR – BOM
You can see how much cheaper it is to fly from Brussels due to the very high UK departure taxes.
These are just a few examples, please feel free to ask questions in the comments.
If you need ideas on how to acquire frequent flyer miles, please see the Resources tab and Miles and Points tab. which I will update with new offers for free or cheap miles.
Hat tip for the Indian airfare deals goes to Live From A Lounge, a travel blogger based in India who has first hand knowledge of what’s happening there. He has a coupon code that can be used on Clear Trip so please refer to his blog.
When I was there in Sept 2011, I used Clear Trip to make my airfare bookings as it is otherwise difficult for non-Indians to book online. The problem I had was that they require an Indian mobile phone # which most tourists don’t have. Over the next week I will be focusing on Kerala as a birding destination and showing you how to get there cheaply on miles and points and which eco-lodges to stay in.
India is once of my favourite places to visit, rich in both wildlife and culture! It’s a great place to go if you have a non-birding spouse since there is so much to do and see there and it’s also pretty easy on the budget. I’m planning a trip back there in 2015 as there are some other birding hotspots I missed the first time like Wayanand Sanctuary and SAI Sanctuary (these will be covered in more detail in a separate post).
Kochi aka Cochin (COK) is the airport you need to fly to and once you are there, it’s very easy to get to other places in Kerala. You won’t be able to fly direct to Kochi using Star Alliance, but once Qatar and Sri Lankan are in One World, that will be an option. So you will need to fly to one of the main international airports such as Mumbai or Delhi and get a domestic connection to Kochi. I will cover how to get to India/Central Asia on miles tomorrow.
Kochi flights
I’ve personally flown on Spice Jet (KTM-DEL), IndiGo (BOM-COK) and Kingfisher (COK-BLR) which is unfortunately out of business. I was happy with all three airlines I traveled on, they all gave good service and arrived on time. There isn’t really a lot to choose between them so I would check the airfares on Clear Trip and see who has the best fare and the most convenient schedule. Here’s a sampling on a random date next month from Mumbai to Kochi.
BOM-COK
Plan to arrive in COK before 2pm so you have time to get from the airport to the sanctuary and get settled in before dark.
Other posts of interest:
Hornbill Camp Review (coming soon)
The latest bad news is all over FlyerTalk and the travel blogosphere – Hilton is the latest hotel chain to devalue their points. This isn’t a chain I paid much attention to, I only joined it for the US Grand Slam hits a few years ago. Other chains were easier to earn points in and what I earned in Hilton came mostly from E-Rewards and Topguest (until my account and my husband’s got “Celested” last year).
So are hotel chains worth it? It’s getting harder to earn points for leisure travelers with fewer promos on offer. The only deals that are even worth it are the credit cards that give a free night or generous anniversary point bonus. Eco-lodges where I can see wild birds is my #1 priority and they need to be booked either direct with the lodge or sometimes via online TA’s such as Expedia, Travelocity and Hotels.com which you may need to do to use a credit card. You can’t get them with points, need cash! True, we still need accommodation at gateway cities and hotel points can come in handy for that.
For non-eco-trips such as big cities or beach resorts hotels points are useful but Priceline and Hotwire could also be an option or Wotif for Aussies. Fortunately for me, I still have a decent supply of points in Club Carlson and Priority Club and have a shiny new SPG Amex so we will be pretty well set for the next few years.
Moving forward, this is my strategy which will work better for people who can get USA credit cards and don’t have other issues such as travel for work and getting elite status. I will still keep chasing airline miles but for accommodation, I can see a shifting of focus to cash-back cards and promos to help pay for eco-lodges in my future.
1. CLUB CARLSON – they have properties in some good areas for eco-tourists such as Panama, India, Puerto Rico and others. We did last year’s promo for the Big Night Giveaway and my new Club Carlson visa gives a free award night with redemption of 2 or more nights and 25k annual bonus.
2. PRIORITY CLUB – their best deal is the Pointbreaks but it’s luck of the draw if they will have one at a hotel you are planning to stay at and I am not the sort who will go somewhere JUST because there is a Pointbreak there. The Chase Visa gives an annual free night and with my previously earned stash, we’re pretty well fixed.
3. SPG – All points will come from either the SPG Amex or can be transferred in from my Aussie Amex. This is a very flexible program because if you can’t find a hotel to spend your points on, you can always transfer them to an airline at 20,000 SPG = 25,000 airline miles.
4. CHOICE – good value in Europe, Australia is a bit pricey. I have a good stash from last year’s Discover America program but not planning to chase more points here. When they are gone, goodbye!
5. WYNDHAM – just had a devaluation, I personally don’t find much value in their hotel rewards and you have to call to book international awards which is a pita. This program is only useful if they have a good promo (can do phantom stays) and then I would transfer the points to an airline for 8000 Wyndham = 3200 airline.
6. HYATT – nothing wrong with this program and they have great hotels, they are just more expensive for me than Club Carlson and Priority Club. Business travelers seem to really love Hyatt so your needs may be different. I did use some Chase Ultimate Rewards to book Hyatt Regency Maui for later this year because my main chains don’t serve Maui or in SPG’s case, they didn’t have cash & points.
7. MARRIOTT – nice hotels but just not good value for redemptions and hard to get points.
8. HILTON – again, nice hotels but just not good value for redemptions and hard to get points
9. BEST WESTERN – good coverage and reasonably priced for cash but points redemptions not good. I’d stay at a BW but use a portal like UR, Hotels.com or similar and not bother accruing to the BW program.
I’ve been blogging about Puerto Rico this past week, so since we are in the “neighborhood” lets’ check out Jamaica! There are 28 endemic species, 2 of which are parrots. There are some really beautiful bird species here and Jamaica is one of the most popular birding destinations in the Caribbean. Take some time out to count down these 28 species.
This is my new weekly series in which I will introduce a professional photographer who specializes in bird/wildlife photography. I hope that you will be inspired by their work!
Michael Snedic has been an enthusiastic naturalist and lover of wildlife since he was very young. It wasn’t until his early thirties, however, that he decided to take up photography. By using a camera, he was able to “freeze” specific moments in nature forever and share these moments with others, through photos.
Michael is one of Australia’s most accomplished and published nature photographers. He is a feature writer on nature photography and wildlife for various magazines. These include regular features on nature photography for Australian Photography and Wildlife Australia , as well as articles in Australian Geographic and the world-famous BBC Wildlife Magazine, the world’s largest selling wildlife magazine.
I was lucky enough to take a workshop with him sponsored by the Parrot Society of Australia last year and Michael is one of those rare individuals who not only has great skill but knows how to teach it. I took the photo of him below at the October 2012 workshop.
MIchael Snedic teaching photography workshop
As always, with this feature I will link to his gallery to protect his copyright.
The Puerto Rican Tody is a tody endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico. Despite is scientific name, Todus mexicanus, it is endemic to Puerto Rico. It is commonly known locally as “San Pedrito” (“Little Saint Peter”). They are an attractive little bird and commonly found in forested regions around Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rican Tody
El Yunque rainforest is a good place to see them. They are very small with an average body length of 11 cm and weight of 5 to 6 g. Although they look like they are related to hummingbirds, they are actually closer related to the kingfisher family. More information about Puerto Rican Todies here.
The common coquí or coquí (Eleutherodactylus coqui) is a frog native to Puerto Rico belonging to the Eleutherodactylus genus of the Eleutherodactylidae family. The species is named for the loud call the males make at night. This sound serves two purposes. ‘CO’ serves to repel males and establish territory while the ‘QUI’ serves to attract females.[3] Since the auditory systems of males and females respond preferentially to different notes of the male call, this is an example of a sex difference in a sensory system. The common coquí is a very important aspect of Puerto Rican culture and it has become an unofficial territorial symbol of Puerto Rico.
Since they are more famous for their sound rather than their appearance, you really do need to spend at least one night in a rainforest lodge like the ones in El Yunque just to have the experience of listening them sing.
And one more!
AA US Merger
It’s all over the main news channels and the travel blogosphere, AA and US have announced their imminent merger on Valentine’s Day no less! FlyerTalk and other travel blogs are buzzing madly with speculation on what this all means for them. Both airlines are on my list of top 8 airlines for eco-travelers. So far, all we know officially from AA in regards to the frequent flyer programs:
Enjoy a more rewarding travel experience with American Airlines AAdvantage® and US Airways Dividend Miles.
At this time, American and US Airways will remain separate companies and each company will maintain its current loyalty program. Your AAdvantage miles are secure and existing miles will continue to be honored. Likewise, your elite qualifying miles and your elite status, including lifetime status granted under the Million MilerSM are secure and remain intact. In addition, you will continue to earn miles through existing AAdvantage participating companies, including the Citi®/ AAdvantage credit cards and will be able to redeem those miles for the same great awards – flights, upgrades, car rentals and hotels, just to name a few.
You will continue to have options for travel and benefits both domestically and internationally through our continued membership in the oneworld® Alliance. As they do today, our oneworld® partners will offer you access to a range of destinations, airline choices, and mileage earning and redemption opportunities.
You can continue to book, track and manage flights and your AAdvantage account on AA.com.
Ultimately, the combined company is expected to offer members more opportunities to earn and burn miles from an expanded global network of routes and partnerships, unmatched redemption options — including flights, hotels, car rentals, vacation packages, one-way awards and lounge memberships – and much more.
And from the US Airways site:
Enjoy a more rewarding travel experience with US Airways Dividend Miles® and American Airlines AAdvantage®. Both programs are among the most popular loyalty programs in the world and will continue to offer best-in-class elite programs, unmatched redemption options and more ways to earn miles from an expanded global network of routes and partnerships.
Until the merger is complete, US Airways and American Airlines will remain separate companies and each company will maintain its current loyalty programs (US Airways – Dividend Miles and American Airlines – AAdvantage). Existing miles will be honored, and there will be no impact to your US Airways MasterCard® or US Airways Visa® card. You can continue to earn and redeem mileage for travel awards with us and our Star Alliance partners. You can also continue to book, track and manage flights on usairways.com.
It’s going to be tough to assess the effect on eco-travelers because both alliances have their strengths. Right away, I can see that people traveling between North America and the South Pacific are going to have to fork out more miles in the AA program. These awards currently cost 75k in Y and 125k in J using AAdvantage vs 80k in Y and 110k in J on US Airways. If a trip to Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Cook Islands and other Pacific Islands is on your wish list and you want to travel in business class, you might want to consider bringing it forward to take advantage of the bargains on US Airways. Economy travelers will find AA’s award cheaper.
Once US Airways leaves Star Alliance for One World, you won’t be able to access some airports like Rarotonga. If you have a trip planned and had earmarked US miles to pay for it, check to see if it will be accessible using One World carriers. Star Alliance/US Airways also had an edge on awards from North America to Africa, North-east Asia and Central Asia.
Americans will probably be better off with United since there are several credit cards that can be used to either direct sweep to UA or transfer via Ultimate Rewards. If you are not an American and can’t get the Chase credit cards, first check what kind of credit cards you CAN get. Chances are, you may be able to transfer them to another Star Alliance partner such as Thai, Singapore, Lufthansa, ANA, Asiana or Avianca-Taca.
If you can’t get any credit cards, Avianca-Taca LifeMiles will be the main source of buying miles cheaply to redeem on Star Alliance carriers. They currently have a share miles 100% bonus promo until the end of Feb but you must have been a member prior to the promo being released. People who want premium cabin awards may be frustrated if they can’t find the same cabin class all the way through. You can’t mix classes such as Y from MCI-LAX and J from LAX-BKK for example. If you only want an economy award, you’d be fine with LifeMiles.
Assuming you don’t have other issues such as elite benefits, hub airports and upgrade certificates, the change can be positive for most eco-travelers. One World does cover most of the places we want to go. LAN and new partner TAM (soon to be One-World) have South America pretty well covered and can even get you directly from Australia to South America without having to transit the USA. Qantas can get you to anywhere in Australia, several places in New Zealand and many Pacific Islands. New partner Malaysian and original One-World member Cathay Pacific can get you between Europe and Asia/Pacific. Qatar and Sri Lankan are joining soon. AA also has non-alliance partners of interest such as Air Tahiti Nui, Air Pacific and Etihad. PLUS, once the miles are merged, you will be able to use your hard-earned US miles for one-way awards!
The merger puts the last nail in the coffin of the US Grand Slam promo that netted some of us huge amounts of miles at a very low cost between 2008-2011. They didn’t have it last year but we could only hope for 2013 – well hope no more!
US has traditionally had 100% bonus miles on buying miles several times a year. AA has been more conservative with only 30-50% bonus on buying miles and they have it tiered so if you only need a few to top up to an award level, it could be as low as 10% bonus. If you want to top up your US account now, there is a targeted promo to US Mastercard holders for 100% bonus and 50% bonus to everyone else.
If you want the US Mastercard, better get it now. The current best offer is this one. The Chairman’s offer which had the 10,000 anniversary bonus miles was pulled today. We don’t know if this card will be churnable going forward so will have to monitor the FlyerTalk thread for new data.
If you have upcoming hotel bookings and/or car rentals you plan on crediting to an airline, check the offers on both AA and US for the best deal.
Sharebuilder is currently offering 2500 US miles for new accounts. Most of us already did this one for the last Grand Slam in 2011 but if you haven’t done it yet, might as well grab some cheap miles. Use the portal from the US page.
The likely timeline for full integration has been posted by several people, this one on FlyerTalk sounds pretty logical to me. Star Alliance awards will be more expensive on United Mileage Plus or Avianca-Taca LifeMiles than they are in US Dividend Miles. Size up your travel plans and see if it’s worth doing them sooner rather than later or if it would work better in your favour to wait until the phase where they let you move miles back and forth between the two programs for a few months. Miles To The Wild will be keeping you updated with any new developments as they are released.
This is a nifty little trick I learned on FlyerTalk in this thread. Hat-tip goes to turkeyRIOO for showing me how to change the frequent flier number in my Avios booked award ticket from LAX to OGG on AA. When I booked it a few months ago, I didn’t really care which frequent flier number showed up as I don’t have elite status on any airlines. I was able to book seats on AA.com and that was enough.
Just a couple weeks ago, I got a Citi AAdvantage Amex which comes with nice little benefits like priority boarding and one free bag for me and also for my husband who is booked on the same PNR but to access the benefits, you must have your AAdvantage number in the booking. I was able to pull it up on AA using “Find A Reservation” but the frequent flier field had my BA number in it and it was greyed out so I couldn’t change it.
I could have called AA to change it but with no elite status, I usually end up on hold for 30-40 minutes, but the Finnair trick worked like a charm. The details are in the FlyerTalk thread referenced by turkeyRIOO.
It’s quite simple, just go to Finnair.com, enter your name and BA record locator. You will see a link to update your details. Click on this, enter your AAdvantage number and done! Then go back to AA.com and you should see you Advantage number in your profile under the reservation.