EVA Air Archives - Tagging Miles

How I almost missed flying EVA Air’s Hello Kitty Plane

July 31, 2017 By Trevor Leave a Comment

Last week, I had the opportunity to fly EVA Air’s Hello Kitty plane, unfortunately I was very close to missing that opportunity. You see, a friend and I were booked on a 10pm United flight out of Washington-Dulles, which was scheduled to arrive just before 11pm into Chicago-O’Hare. Check-in for our Hello Kitty flight was supposed to close at 11:30, so that didn’t leave a whole lot of time. But that is what United’s award booking engine kicked out, so we figured we were well within Minimum Connect Time (MCT).

Weather Delay in Chicago left us grounded in Washington

Our United flight boarded roughly on time, and the captain announced that he was trying to get out before the FAA issued any ground stops; we hustled. Correction: most of us that understood what that meant, hustled. We even left the gate a minute early! but, unfortunately we were stuck with a ground stop at Dulles.

I have to say, what happened next reminded me of why I used to enjoy flying United. The captain came out and started inviting kids from economy to see the cockpit. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo, but, I did tweet about the matter:

As the children were getting to visit the cockpit, I was sending a map to my cohort for this Hello Kitty flight. We already had an idea of the gate that we would arrive at (B2), so I sent him the map from the Hemisphere’s Magazine, letting him know which way we would need to run.

The above depiction shows where we arrived, an the path we had to run, catching the train roughly at the TSA PreCheck area, then sweating the entire train ride until we arrived at Terminal 5. I’m not the most athletic person, but I will tell you, I ran full bore with my favorite spinner carry-on (which was operating as a normal 2 wheel suitcase given the speed I was going). There are few times that I actually walk up or down escalators, but I was doing them 2 steps at a time. I wanted this flight.

Luckily, when we arrived at Terminal 5, while it looked like a desolate area, there were 2 EVA Air employees, and one was empowered to radio to the most empowered to see if they could check us in. The fact that we were flying business class and had no luggage definitely helped. Ultimately, the fact that EVA Air’s David had stuck around on the landside, was truly the reason we made this flight. He was truly awesome, and even after he got us checked in, he escorted us through security and right to the plain. I truly hope EVA Air knows how great a team member they have with him, because he pretty much made our trip.

Review: EVA Air 777-300ER Houston to Taipei

March 27, 2017 By Trevor 3 Comments

Weekend in Taipei: Introduction
Review: Eva Air 777-300ER Houston to Taipei
Review: Grand Hyatt Taipei
Weekend in Taipei: Touring Taipei
Weekend in Taipei: Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport
Review: Cathay Pacific Taipei to Hong Kong
Review: Cathay Pacific Hong Kong to Chicago
Weekend in Taipei: Conclusion

We had a couple of positioning flights to make it to Houston for our EVA Air 777-300ER flight, and it was totally worth it. There was a slight bit of disappointment, because someone–me–misread the Hello Kitty schedule, and so my wife was just a wee bit disappointed. But alas, this was one of our longer flights, and it was excellent.

Immediately upon boarding I was impressed. The cabin, while a bit gray, was immaculate, and well apportioned. The seat is very similar, but not quite the same as the seat on the American Airlines 777-300ER and Cathay Pacific 777-300ER.

The seat had a pillow on it, and soon I received a Rimowa Amenity kit.

Shortly after we were presented with a pre-departure glass of Krug, a hot towel, and of course, a piece of chocolate:

Because on this after midnight departure, I was exhausted, I had kindly asked the flight attendants if I might enjoy my wonderful steak after a bit of a snooze. They happily complied, so once we got to 10,000 feet–maybe a bit more–I dashed to the lavatory, changed into my pajamas, while the kind flight attendants made my seat into a bed, and dashed right back and dove into bed.

I have to say, I was quite impressed with the quality of the EVA Airways duvet. It was on par or better than the Lufthansa First Class duvet.

After a bit of a snooze, I did wake up, probably about mid-flight, and had my full meal:

For an entree, I enjoyed the steak that I had “pre-reserved” (aka, I told the flight attendants that I’d like them to set aside a steak)

To finish off, I had some fruit:

Then it was back to sleep, since this was like a 15 hour flight. It was actually really relaxing. Then when I woke up again, I had some tea and apple juice.

Then, I had a fruit dish, with some yogurt:

And then there was the main entree for breakfast, pancakes!

I have to say, the pancakes were wonderful. I realize the challenges that airlines have in ensuring food is fresh, flavorful and not overly dry, and this dish was wonderful.

Soon after breakfast we landed, but upon disembarking, I was impressed to see some of the wonderful artwork on the plane, like this:

Soon thereafter we were welcomed to Taiwan, with, unfortunately, a long customs line.

Final Thoughts on EVA Air 777-300ER Business Class

I booked this flights with rather high expectations. Admittedly, I was expecting Hello Kitty, but, that was my own goof. I still had high expectations, and I have to say that the crew exceeded them. Everything about this flight was awesome, except for one slight thing about the seat. I don’t have photos to document the difference, but there was about an inch by 3-5 inch difference in the knee room, due to a different approach to how EVA did their tray table. Everything else was great. The attention to detail, the food, the beverages, the Inflight Entertainment (IFE), everything. In short, in a single flight EVA Air became my favorite Asian airline for Business class.

Have you flown EVA Air? What do you think?

Weekend in Taipei: Introduction

December 12, 2016 By Trevor 2 Comments

Weekend in Taipei: Introduction
Review: Eva Air 777-300ER Houston to Taipei
Review: Grand Hyatt Taipei
Weekend in Taipei: Touring Taipei
Weekend in Taipei: Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport
Review: Cathay Pacific Taipei to Hong Kong
Review: Cathay Pacific Hong Kong to Chicago
Weekend in Taipei: Conclusion

To set the stage, I was yearning to get on a plane. It was the end of October, and I hadn’t been on a true long haul flight since the end of July. The end of July! I was getting stircrazy. Searching the British Airways Search tool, Searching United.com, Searching ExpertFlyer, searching for flights someplace that we could do a reasonable visit of in no more than 2 days off of work.

I was originally looking to go to Cambodia, but the flights just didn’t want to line up. I also really, really wanted to fly EVA Air. So, rather than make things complicated—as I am known to do—I decided to go the simple path. EVA Air is one of Taiwan’s more widely known airlines, they are a Star Alliance member, which meant I could redeem some Ultimate Rewards points via United, or Membership Rewards points via Aeroplan, or nearly any transferrable currency via Singapore KrisFlyer.

My next concern was where to stay. Despite the World of Hyatt news, this frequent leisure traveler is determined to requalify Diamond and become a Globalist—I think I’m going to put that on my business card. So, my next concern was that the Grand Hyatt Taipei was rumored to be haunted. How appropriate that we were staying there over Halloween weekend!

A quick turn to the Oracle of Twitter allayed my concerns.

Next, I needed to get home. A week earlier, my wife had jumped at the chance to fly Cathay Pacific First Class, we had done that last year and very much enjoyed it. Alas, that space was phantom, but, I ended up finding space in the 4 days between when we booked Business Class, and left. I only found 1 seat though, and ExpertFlyer was showing F2 (and went down to F1, meaning Cathay Pacific was only selling 1 seat in First Class). I put my wife up in First and accepted my likely fate in Business Class.

Alas, the day before we were due to leave, I took to twitter on my T-Mobile Apple iPhone 6, and low and behold, the American Air team was awesome, just proving that if you don’t ask, you don’t know.

Overall, the trip was a great weekend, if only 50 hours on the ground in Taipei, it was well worth the miles, and proved to be a very memorable trip.

EVA Air to add 2 more Hello Kitty Routes

April 29, 2015 By Trevor Leave a Comment

For those of you who haven’t gotten to ride on the Hello Kitty planes (I sure haven’t), here is your chance to do it. EVA Air is adding additional routes with the timeless Hello Kitty livery! But wait, there’s more! Not just do you get to enjoy how cool the outside of the plane looks even better from the inside, with Hello Kitty pillows, Hello Kitty stamped butter, and last but certainly not least. Hello Kitty Toilet Paper.

New Routes include 3 flights weekly from Houston (IAH) to Taipei (TPE)–BR52 and BR51)-, and from Taipei (TPE) to Singapore (SIN)–BR215 and BR216.

Now, if only ANA could embrace this level of detail with their upcoming R2-D2 Star Wars Livery! I’m thinking they could have an R2-D2 like in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (like the one below) bringing drinks up and down the aisle, perhaps some R2-D2 inspired toilet paper, and instead of the multiple people speaking the announcements, they could all be done by C-3PO.

And look – R2-D2 is already in ANA’s colors! Photo from here.