Air Travel

Nancy Tan of Fresno, California, wrote, “I would be very interested in reading comparisons of airlines’ frequent-flyer-mileage programs from travelers who are members of more than one airline’s loyalty program.”

During a visit to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, in January-February 2017, my husband and I used the services of Ketavi Tours (Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Mexico; phone +52 [755] 55 9 30 23, ketavi.com) for airport transfers and a scenic tour to several of the beaches north of Zihuatanejo, including Playa Linda and Troncones.

The owner of Ketavi, Ulises Solano, was very responsive and wonderful to work with. I had emailed him our flight details about two months before our trip, and he greeted us inside the airport to help with our luggage.

My husband, Gerald Liedl, and I made a trip to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Oct. 5-15, 2016, with Kutrubes Travel (Boston, MA; 800/878-8566, www.kutrubestravel.com). 

For our private tour, we each paid $2,999 (plus airfare, which we arranged, ourselves, through United). The cost covered a car, driver and guide throughout, as well as hotels, all meals, transfers, entrance fees and even bottled water each day.

Food was abundant and tasty and served family-style, so we could eat as much as we wanted. 

I flew from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Los Angeles in business class on Qatar Airways in February 2016, purchasing the flight with American Airlines miles. I just had to write about it.

For sleeping, the seat on the Qatar flight reclined flat. The attendants provided both a mattress pad and a sparkling-white sheet along with two spotless and very comfortable pillows in cotton cases and a quilt wrapped in a white duvet. The cabin staff made up my bed, and after I had eight hours of sound sleep, they unmade it so the bedding would not be in my way.

The long-delayed Argyle International Airport (airport code, SVD), on the island of St. Vincent in St. Vincent & the Grenadines, received its first-ever flight on Feb. 14, almost nine years after airport construction began and five years behind scheduled completion. At press time, Caribbean Airlines and SunWing Airlines had flights scheduled to SVD. Visit www.svgiadc.com.

The British Airways ownership group IAG is introducing Level (www.flylevel.com), a new, budget long-haul airline based in Barcelona, Spain, with flights starting in June 2017. Level will initially fly from Barcelona to Oakland and Los Angeles in the US (with one-way flights starting at $149) as well as to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

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Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 495th issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine.