My "Best" And "Worst" Travel Of 2013

Best flight: EWR-SIN on Singapore Airlines (18h40minutes), proud to have survived the then-longest flight
Best hotel: Park Hyatt Shanghai (had a superior room on the 83rd floor!) or Le Meridien Bangkok, excellent service and best breakfast ever.

Best: 5 nights at Park Hyatt Maldives.Looking forward to return

I'm going to be honest: I've had some really bumpy flights recently and more than once I thought to myself, "Ben didn't die in that flight so I probably won't die on this one." I've been wondering how flying has been for you since that horrific experience.

I surely did not fly as many miles as you (only 80kmiles in my case), but here it goes my list:

Best flights:
1) Asiana First Suite Class ICN to JFK
2) Thai Business class A380 FRA to BKK
3) Cathay Business class YVR to JFK

Best Hotels:
1) Park Hyatt Itanbul for 2 nights. I agree with you that it is an amazing property
2) Ritz-Carlton San Juan. Though not Flawless, I really like the location
3) Aydinli Cave House hotel in Goreme. No, this is not a 5 star hotel, it is actually a B&B that we stayed for 3 nights while in Cappadocia that we will remember for years to come.
4) The Privilege Floor Siem Reap. First thought about staying at the Park Hyatt, but ended up chosing this property because of the 24hours driver we would have for us. Amazing and attentive service, very good food and reasonable prices. Highly recommended.

Travel highlight of the year: FRA-ORD on the LH 747-400 in F. (Thanks to PointPros.) LH FCT in FRA! A separate seat and bed on the upper deck of a 747! Only four other passengers in F so great service. Almost as good as it gets unless you go private.

And here I felt sorry for my daughter and husband who had to lay over in Istanbul while flying Turkish Airlines Business class, while the rest of us flew Swiss Air out of Nairobi. Turns out they got the better end of the deal and did indeed say the Business Class lounge in Istanbul was amazing.

totally agree about LAN. if you don't speak spanish, the service is awful and pretty much super rude. the hard product is decent and the food is quite tasty tho is it is not a total loss. plus i like their amenity kits as well.

oh, and my travel highlight was the same as one of yours... SIN-DXB in Emirates F on A380 and then the awesome lounge... really loved it.

Then there was your RJ flight...

Flight - Cathay Pacific First Class NY-HKG-BKK

Best hotel of the year - tie!
1. Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok with ridiculous upgrade to massive suite (really an apartment)

2. Club Suite at the Ritz Carlton Hong Kong. Absolutely perfect!

Singapore Suites class from JFK-SIN, including a double bed suite on the JFK to FRA leg as there was only one other passenger. After spending several days in Vietnam and Cambodia, I returned SIN-EWR on SQ 21, as this was a "bucket list" flight for me.

Hmm...my best trip this year was either a 40-minute flight from DCA-JFK on an American Eagle ERJ145 with service provided by a flight attendant who seemed to hate life, or that time I won a FREE TRIP TO FINLAND WITH YOU. 😛

Best flight: ORD-ICN in Asiana Business Class (with the return ICN-ORD a close 2nd)

Best hotels: Conrad Seoul; getting upgraded to massively large suite at the Embassy Suites in Washington DC

My best stay? W Koh Samui.

I forgot when your flight with Carolyn and Ms. Peggy was, but surely the American JFK - LHR service was worse than LAN?

Best trip ever: LAN from Miami to Quito, Ecuador and Aero Gal to the Galápagos Islands. The service was great. It was the most amazing trip and Celebrity cruise I've been on.

Worst flight:
SWISS First Class BKK-ZRH. Worst thatvway that I burned 85.000 valuable Lufthansa upgrade miles for realky nothing, as the service was mediocre business class at its best...

It was great learning about these through reading last year! I'll get to experience a few of them myself this year.

(Not really aspirational but got good value for points at the Doubletree Fort Shelby in Detroit, MI)

Memorable because it was my first redemption ever, got my friends to respect my hobby (elite status and lowered price of hotel), and also because it was cheaper to redeem AFTER the big Hilton devaluation.

Best flight:
ANA First JFK-NRT (first flight in F in my entire life)

Best lounge:
Singapore Airlines The Private Room

This year will be a blast with LH F 744 from NRT-FRA and FRA-JFK, OZ F Suites ICN-JFK, SQ 388 Suites LAX-NRT-SIN-MEL, QF F 388 SYD-HKG and CX F HKG-JFK!

First of all, thank you very much for providing such a wealth of information and being so helpful to everyone (in comments and in Ask Lucky).

I managed to sneak in a trip on LX F (ZRH-ORD) before they limited F awards to upper-tier members. Fortunately, unlike #17, all F passengers were treated well.

Best hotel experience was getting upgraded to top-floor junior suite that faced Opera House at Hotel Bristol in Vienna (and this was as a regular SPG Platinum without using SNA).

Suddenly, after visiting GOL Smiles Lounge, the Concorde lounge seems sooooo much better. Right Lucky?

The THY Lounge in Istanbul has been remodeled snd extended with one more floor; I'd suggest that you'd (or anyone else) go for the second floor because everyone stays on the first...