My LAX ground experience with Hainan Airlines started before I even got to the airport. Hainan offers complimentary chauffeur service to business class passengers booked on revenue fares.
Continue reading: Review: Hainan Airlines LAX Limo, Check-In, And Lounge
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
So you tipped this limo driver $20 (interesting how you pointed that out), but a Uber driver you're too cheap to tip. Interesting.
Why would you tip an Uber driver? It is a high volume low margin operation that relies on the convenience of not having cash to begin with.
Re-read the Uber post. Lucky says he DOES tip uber drivers. Practice your reading comprehension skills before unleashing the nasty.
He also tipped $10 to the agent that checked him in and handled his baggage, and $5 to the one who scanned his boarding pass. They make less money than Uber drivers and provided him with services.
The cab driver really couldn't pronounce/read a 6 letter word? Even if it's not pronounced phonetically, who-nani can never be compared to 'Hainan'. Aah, Americans.
Btw, it was cool of you to show restraint in commenting about the grammar in the limo email. Looks like the Indians taught you a thing or two about cultural sensitivity.
It is unnecessary to tip in such situations at all, and $20 is totally excessive.
If you can afford it, why not spread the wealth and joy? Depending on length of journey, 25-50 bucks for a limo driver (or what passes for a limo these days) is quite adequate and cash here and there for the hotels, check in agents, baggage agents, bus drivers, etc. are just nice gestures to show one's appreciation towards them. I always tip Uber drivers and the chartered taxi drivers and commend Lucky for doing the same. In some cases, I also send gifts to certain FA teams if they provided exceptional service on flights. Some chocolates and a bottle of champagne isn't a dent in the pocket for me, but a warm "thank you so much for taking care of us" could suffice as well.
Jeez. Let the guy tip when he wants. It's a review on an airline I haven't even heard of until a few months ago, and I scroll down to the comment section to see yet another argument on tipping? Push yourselves over to some forum that's not clogging this review with irrelevant arguments. He tipped, and that is that.
Great first installment. On the topic of the lounge being crowded, not only are they contracting out to others, accepting Priority Pass (which some, but not all AC lounges do - LGA does, for instance) but looking at that board, AC itself had 9 flights coming up in the next few hours. At least some of those are 767s - LAX-YYZ is a big volume route, not to mention YUL and YVR. And, they are all full codeshares with UA so that's a lot of potential access holders on all those flights! Compare that to, say, EK or KE - or even VS for that matter - with a dedicated lounge for 2-ish flights a day and a handful of customers and it's no surprise. Also, as opposed to US carriers, if you're flying AC in J you get lounge access so that means even more users. That said, I'll take any AC lounge over 99% of US carrier lounges any day. Though compared to most ex-North America lounges, they are nothing special. More that US carrier lounges are generally abysmal...
@ Chris -- It *is* necessary, unless you wouldn't tip a server in a restaurant, or a normal driver. I wrote about this a while ago:
https://onemileatatime.com/tip-airline-chauffeur/
For these airline provided chauffeur services, tip isn't included. So in the US the expectation is that you tip when you use a car service (the exception is Uber). So not sure what's unnecessary about it, or would you usually not tip in the US if you were to order a non-Uber car service?
R class isn't eligible for the limo anymore 🙁
http://www.hainanairlines.com/US/US/businessclass
Scroll to the bottom of the page.
@ Laurel -- That page is outdated. See this page, which was updated as of January 2016:
http://www.hainanairlines.com/HUPortal/dyn/portal/DisplayPage?COUNTRY_SITE=US&SITE=CBHZCBHZ&LANGUAGE=US&PAGE=BUGS
Did you refer the gate agent to your blog so that she can find out whether it was worth going to Changsa or not?
"There were flights to Mexico City, Maui, Del Bajio, Guadalajara, Changsha, and Zacatecas leaving within a couple of hours. It wasn’t your typical Monday morning frequent flyer crowd, that’s for sure."
- This feels rather classist, if not racist.