Singapore Airlines and Air China now bookable on Continental's award booking engine

I was looking around Continental's website today trying to figure out whether there's still Saver award ticketa going back to Asia this month. I am not expecting any surprise. The best I was hoping to get was a coach seat on Asiana or All Nippon Airways. But my search yielded something really interesting:

It turns out that Continental's award search engine can now show availability in Singapore Airlines and Air China!

I did some dummy search and this picture shows how amazing the routings are from San Francisco to Shanghai:

SQ 1 and SQ 832 will be worth every mile spent!

And search SFO to SIN, SQ's A380 shows bookable.

Search NRT to FRA, you will find NH's 787 also shows availability.

Well, I hope the merged United will keep this great feature.

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United Airlines open house: Family Day 2011

Earlier this month, I mentioned that I would attend the 6th annual United Family Day Open House in San Francisco. It turns out to be a great event! 

United and Continental parked four planes, one A320 in new United livery, another United A320 retro-jet, a Continental Boeing 737-900ER retro-jet and a Boeing 777-200 in the tulip livery. They also had a Boeing 747-400 in new livery making a low pass fly-by during the open house.

Here are some pictures:

The plane pull took place at about 1:30 p.m. and a group of Flyertalkers pulled this A320.

ANA departing for Narita

Retro-jets were the stars!

United 747 fly-by! Wooooooosh! And there it goes! Too fast and I wasn't able to zoom in!

Beautiful day!

In 2012, United and Continental will become one company!

Retro-jets!

The military also flew some of their front-line fighter jets to the show. There was the Blue Angels' F/A-18s, Fat Albert, and a couple of F-15s. 

These are the killers!

So damn cool.

And the Blue Angels!

Ready for the Fleet Week!

And the Army brought their work horse, UH-60 Black Hawk.

Beautiful baby

And the tulip color. Not much days left for this design.

A beauty

Later in the after noon, I checked out their engine testing facility.

Amazing!

For those who weren't able to make it this year, let me tell you, it's a plane freak's "wet dream" comes true. So, look sharp, when registration on Flyertalk.com opens up again next September! 

Again, I was able to make it, thanks to the generosity from United Airlines to the frequent flyer community. I hope this event gets better each year.

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United "A Million Reasons to Go to Las Vegas" Sweepstakes

Here's another sweepstakes offer from United. 

According to their website:

• Grand prize winner will receive 250,000 MileagePlus award miles and a 3-night Las Vegas vacation package, including a first-class flight and hotel stay
• 2 winners will receive 100,000 MileagePlus award miles and a 3-night flight and hotel Las Vegas vacation
• 2 winners will receive 100,000 MileagePlus award miles
• 5 winners will receive 70,000 MileagePlus award miles

 I just did it. Why wait? Do it now! To join the sweepstakes, register now through this link and simply enter your MileagePlus number or booking a Las Vegas vacation package from United Vacations by Nov 7, 2011.

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Enter to win United Cruises' 1,000,000 mile sweepstakes

This doesn't seem to be a targeted promotion. 

Though I generally don't believe in those sweepstakes, I still join them each and every time. The recent Cathay Pacific $100 ORD-HKG sweepstakes in July had been one of them. I didn't win but in their Terms and Conditions, Cathay Pacific wrote that they will publish a list of all the sweepstakes winner. However, I cannot find any such list anywhere on their website. Maybe you can help me?

Anyways, don't take those sweepstakes too seriously, but they are worth trying.

For those who have not signed up with United Cruises before, do it now via this link. But even if you had signed up with United Cruises, just enter your email and zip code there before Dec. 31 will also get you into the sweepstakes. So, it's easy as hell. Just do it and see if you can win!

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This weekend: United Family Day Open House 2011 and San Francisco Fleet Week

This weekend I'll be attending the 6th annual United Family Day Open House at United Airlines Maintenance Center in San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

The event will be held on Sunday, October 9th from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. I was very fortunate to be able to snatch a ticket when registration opened up on September 21. I am so excited, as it is the first time I am going to attend such a cool event!

According to an announcement made by the organizer earlier on Flyertalk.com, there will be lots of activities and exhibits, including a display of United aircraft, classic airplanes and smaller civil aircraft. Employees will be offering guided tours of one of United’s wide body aircraft, the maintenance facility and a close up look at many aircraft engines.

From what was reported from last year's United Family Day, there will be food, music and plane pull. The event will probably also feature the Blue Angels, who is participating in this year's Fleet Week in San Francisco.

Apart from that, frequent flyers from all over the nation has voluntarily organized a pre-United Family Day Gathering at United Airlines' Red Carpet Club in the International Terminal.

But, for me, I will not join the pre-party at SFO this year because I am here in the Bay Area already and getting in by purchasing a fully refundable ticket adds a lot of hassle. To make the day even better, I plan to visit San Francisco's Fleet Week for a ship tour in the morning. Some of the Navy's state-of-the-art warships, such as USS Antietam and USS Milius, are open to public for free. Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson will not be open to visitors.

It was rainy these days. Let's just hope Sunday will be a good day with sun, a fun crowd and many beautiful planes and ships!

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