Introduction: Journey To Kazakhstan

The flight from Vancouver to Seoul is KE 72, not KE 82. I flew it in February when it was still on one of the 777-200s.

Ben, just some input. I usually enjoy your reports and insights but I don't think it's a good writing when you keep repeating things all over i.e. first two paragraph. I feel like reading it for million times and that doesn't put an impression of fresh content. Then again, maybe it's just me.

I look forward to reading about how you are now able to travel on United, as you were previously banned.

Did you pay UA the ~$4k they asked for?

Hurry hurry hurry with the trip report! Been salivating to see photos of Air Astana and Korean Air 747-8. Hurry hurry hurry!!! 🙂

I paid for the ticket using my Citi Prestige® Card, so I’d earn triple points on the purchase plus get great travel protection.

Have you done or can you do a review of the travel protection benefits offered by various credit cards?

I noticed, for example, that the weather cancellation protection covers all pre-paid non-refundable travel expenses. Does that mean if my flight is canceled 12 hours before departure and the hotel has a 3 day cancellation policy that I don't get a refund of the penalty they would charge me for a no-show?

Excited to read and comment on this trip. I was in Astana in February and going back in November (not the warmest months) for work. Will be fun to compare experiences on similar flights and the same hotels.

Ben, thank you so much for reviewing those airlines! These days on most travel blogs all you read is 1st class trip reports, so getting original content is really great.

I have a question, that I hope you can answer: I noticed that for those really huge trips you take, you basically take flights back to back, and as you said in another post, it is really exhausting and your health probably takes the toll.
Since you are self employed and live on your own schedule, is there a particular reason why you are doing it that way? For instance, what would prevent you to stay a few days in each place, especially the ones you never visited and take it easy? I'm just wondering if this is a deliberate choice of yours, or if there are other reasons (such as award availability for instance).
Cheers 🙂 .

I actually had a bad experience with travel protection on Citi Prestige:

I was flying out of LGB and a plane became disabled on the runway, causing 10+ hour delays at the airport (they have only one runway).

I called Citi, and they said because the issue was due to irregular airport operations, there was absolutely nothing they could do -- wouldn't pay for change fees, wouldn't re-book me, wouldn't reimburse me for my ticket (which I didn't end up using), wouldn't pay for hotels or other expenses, etc.

I'm not sure if a card like Amex Plat or CSR would have been any better (anyone know?), but it stuck me as a pretty poor experience given the love the Prestige gets

@Dan - Don't hold your breath. If Lucky wanted to post about it, he probably would have already. I guess he still could but that would be pointless, wouldn't it? If he's flying on an airline, he's obviously not banned from it. As for conspiracy theories (there must have been some backroom dealing going on!) feel free to go to town if that makes the thought of Lucky on United easier to swallow. Seriously, you only need to read a few reports about some really bad behavior that got passengers banned for life from whatever airline to realize that using United's policies against itself is way down on the list.

@Ben - Totally random comment...

Would I be correct in thinking you've got some master spreadsheet tracking all your travel for the past several years? It would be cool if you could somehow (and hopefully, without massive manual inputting) map every city pair segment you've flown. It would not only be a visual feast of travel, but it might really highlight some glaring holes in your globetrotting, and thus inspire you to fill those gaps with new flights (for example, Andean SA, lots of Africa, middle asia, etc.) Just a thought.

2 things.

Isn't it 80k Skypass miles from North America to Seoul, not 70k. Also, why didn't you redeem 70k Aeroplan instead of 87k Lifemiles.

Remember that you can claim a reimbursement of your UK APD charge since you'll be transiting here for less than 24 hours.

I've done it a couple times by submitting the inbound itinerary to the outbound carrier! Think I learned this from a post of yours several years ago.