Fly with Asiana to Da Nang and Palau 2012. It seems I will have to learn Korean first to find out when I there is award travel available. I really wish Asiana makes it more simple to search online for English speaking people too.
Not widely advertised, but great option for inexpensive first class RTW ticket ($6,900+).
Some rules thanks to Flyertalk user Glennaa11:
As requested, here are some of the Important Restrictions on the SQ RTW Fare.
Itinerary must include one travel via the Atlantic and one travel via the Pacific.
Travel TO/FROM the Southwest Pacific (Australia) is NOT permitted.
Travel must be in a continous Eastbound or Westbound Global direction.
NO backtracking is permitted.
NO City may be transitted more than once in the entire journey.
NOT valid for travel on any codeshare flights. (
Maximum ticket validity is 3 MONTHS ONLY.
Surcharges may apply for certain flights for BUSINESS CLASS travel on the the A380 / B77W / A345.
(NO surcharge applies for FIRST CLASS travel).
NO changes permitted on the first International Outbound Sector once ticketed.
Changes to other sectors requiring ticket reissuance will be permitted at a charge of USD25.00
Cancellations Before Departure for Refund / No Show – Charge is 25 PCT of the fare paid.
USD25.00 Service Fee applies for ticket issue / ticket reissue / refund.
Possible Singapore RTW routing examples:
| Address | 222 N. Sepulveda Blvd Suite 1600 El Segundo, CA 90245 USA |
| Office Hours | 0900-1700 Monday – Friday |
| Phone | +1 800 742 3333 (Reservations)
+1 310 647 1922 (Regional Office) |
Great option for RTW airline tickets. Reasonable price and decent online planning tool.
You can fly with: Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
29,000 miles RTW with option to buy extra miles
Prices: Business class RTW trip – UK£ 4795 = 7 405.8775 U.S. dollars (as of December 2010)
Starting from London or Manchester
http://www.thegreatescapade.com/
Example of the trip:
Another example
There are import/custom duties and there’s the vat.
You almost always pay VAT. Custom taxes only over certain values.
There are two limit values in europe.
First is of 22 euro. If the total is under 22 euro you have not to pay any custom dutie tax and no VAT. You have to consider the total of the goods plus shipping quote.
Second one is 150 euro (this one was 45 euro till a pair of years ago). Under a total of 150 euro you only have to pay VAT. 150 euro limit is calculated on merchandise value without shipping fee.
Vat is paid instead on the total of merchandise plus shipping. So vat is applied on shipping fee too!
Over 150 euro you both pay custom taxes and VAT. Both are applied on the total sum, including shipping fee.
That should be the same in all Europe.
Both VAT and Import Duties are depending on kind of merchandise and european destination country.
VAT is average 20%. It is smaller on books or food etc.
Castom taxes depends and have to be verified at national custom office.
So:
MERCHANDISE+SHIPPING TOTAL:
< 22 euro (including shipping fee): NO CUSTOM TAXES AND NO VAT
22 to 150 euro: ONLY VAT APPLIED
> 150 euro: BOTH VAT AND CUSTOM TAXES APPLIED
I just got an email from someone asking to check the authenticity of this email:
From: Mahala Aldaz [mailto:aldaznv2bl@hotmail.com]
Sent: 20 April 2010 07:30
To: …
Subject: j.positionHello,
It’s Sami Virtanen, Eastbiz corporation HR manager. We found your
email in the database of applicants for a job.If you are not in search of a job, and not interested in extra earnings,
ignore this letter please and I’m sorry for concern. If you need a job,
you have good chances to work in our company.We are searching for:
- Support Representative.Eastbiz Corporation presents various types of delivery services which
are available for people from all over the world. You can become a part
of our team and earn reasonable money for a plain job. We offer a personal
service such as parcels and small packages delivery, so we need assistants
from different countries.Get in touch with us and join our company. Send your CV via E-MAIL: sami@eastbiz.eu
Best regards,
Sami Virtanen,
HR manager
Be careful it is some kind of scam. Eastbiz Corporation (Shipito.com) didn’t post such ad. Scammers use legitimate company so people doing research on Google feel that it is legitimate.
It is kind of crazy doing a business with thousands of customers. Even if you try to do the best job possible there will be always some issues. Multiply the issues by number of customers. And it gets soon overwhelming.
Assume that the business is going pretty well. Every day only one person from one thousand customers is not happy. Then consider you have 10 or 20 thousand customers. So you get 10-20 complains to deal with each day. And it gets suddenly very hard. Especially if some of the complainers are not very reasonable and complain about everything. You feel like crap, because every day there are complaints to deal with. Wake up in the morning and deal with complaints.
Most of the people will not say a word if they are simply happy. I think it is normal. You get a good service and you keep quiet. Therefore it is really nice to get a nice compliment from time to time. These are the moments you realize that there is a majority of people who are quite happy with what you do. And that keeps you motivated to do even better service.
And I am very happy about it!.
When internet started it brought a great promise. Finally people will be share information. We will know from each other what companies do good service. We will learn who is doing bad service. We will be able to write reviews and freely exchange information.
Then came companies and realized that bad reviews really hurt them. Instead of improving their service they hired marketing people who started to write good reviews about them. Or even worse they are hiring people to write bad reviews about competition.
I know that for sure because of the false reviews written about Shipito. Why I know they are false? Because the facts don’t match. They reflect the business model of competition. The prices are wrong or they claim Shipito charging credit cards of people without them knowing it. That is impossible with Shipito technical set up (doesn’t save credit card info).
At first I was really frustrated. Anyone can write any lie about my company and there is nothing I can do about it. I don’t mind if real customer criticize our business. That is OK. Because we do mistakes. But I hate when someone just makes up a story without even trying to use our service. Worse is if the review was written by competition. I think this is really screwing up the good what internet brought to us. I was really afraid that customers will look at the review and immediately believe what they see. But I am noticing that people are not stupid! This really makes me happy. They don’t believe everything they read. So there is a chance. I am incredibly happy there are people who are able to see through all the smooke.
Like here on Yahoo Answers someone was writing false review again. But suddenly someone name Jerry responded and put the light on what is going on.
He didn’t write that we are the best. He even pointed how to see who is the most popular and it is not our company based on the graph he posted. What is important he was able to realize what is a false review and how to find real information.
What can you do if someone is writing false complaints about your company?
I honestly don’t know, but it really bothers me. There are people who write false reviews and now false complaints against Shipito. The said part is they never even been our customers. They never tried our service. They have a basic information about service wrong. It is basically just lies with the goal to damage our company.
Like this complain on ComplaintsBoard.com:
Shipito / Shipito.com Complaints – CREDIT CARD FRAUD !!! STAY AWAY FROM SHIPITO !!!
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CREDIT CARD FRAUD !!! STAY AWAY FROM SHIPITO !!!
Complaint Rating:
 Company information:
Shipito 2972 Columbia St., Torrance, CA 90503, USA Torrance, California United States www.shipito.comShipito are thieves and criminal, pure and simple. AVOID THEM AT ALL COST !!! Shipito.com in Torrance, California enticed my fiancée into a monthly membership for $25 and then added an assisted purchase service for which she paid separately $8.50 (plus cost of purchase, sales tax, shipping) and on top of that, they charged 10% commission from the purchase cost, but that wasn’t enough… these Shipito scamers charged another 5% pretending to be Visa fees. When she had to order more items, they kept charging her card for every item they received. She called and cancelled the membership and even paid for an additional month that she didn’t use due to their questionable calculations. Despite this, she continued to be billed $25 a month because of the credit card information that the Shipito scammers got from her membership during registration, which did not cover any assisted purchases. When challenged on these fraudulent charges, the individual introduced as the senior manager explained that the membership was just like buying a car. If you decide to keep it in the garage, you still have to pay for it. When I explained that according to my own understanding of California and Federal law, Shipito has a right to claim money they feel they may be owed but do not have the right to abuse credit card information or make charges against an account which the owner of that account has clearly stated they do not authorize. Since my fiancee cancelled by email, and has confirmation of the cancellation and since Shipito confirms that the cancellation was due to her stopping the service, they are wrong on two accounts. Firstly, they are charging without authorization citing a membership agreement they have confirmed is closed and secondly as the car analogy is ridiculous since a car is a physical item you own and Shipito is claiming that they should still be paid for existing even though there is no way they could ever provide the services they want to charge for. One of their useless staff ended our conversation saying that given the economy, they couldn’t afford to let anybody cancel their membership and so, by the direction of his boss, whom handles these issues. I tried to contact them by email about this problems several times with no response. When pressed for the details, they kept sending me to their FAQ page .. Their flustered explanation was to say that the agreement would be in force as long as Shipito decided it was in force, an answer I found rather extraordinary. I told them that I didn’t think that the California or Federal courts would not be sympathetic to that interpretation, to which they outright scoffed and would continue to charge whatever they thought was a proper fee. Shipito.com has gone beyond mere predatory contract practices and is engaging in outright criminal activity. Do not trust these people with your credit card information as they have proven that they will take credit card info from one agreement and use it to charge for another one. Further, the only cancellation policy they can clearly define is not even existing. On a personal note, the most annoying aspect of this is that these people arrogantly show you that they will continue to submit credit card charges for which they know they do not have legal authorization to charge (if by no other means in that they themselves confirmed the original membership cancellation) for services they fully admit they are incapable of providing in any reasonable manner. Shipito are thieves and criminal, pure and simple. AVOID THEM AT ALL COST !!! |
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This really bothers me. I don’t mind handling issues from real customers. But what do I do with outright lies? It is great that Internet gives power to customers to voice concerns, but what about false complains on anonymous websites?
Why I know that review is false?
Shipito never ever saves any customer credit cards! We have no technical ability to charge customer cards. This is basically not possible with our system.
Customer must come to our website and submit new payment. Otherwise it is not possible to pay for virtual mailbox fee. In case customer doesn’t have any deposit on his/her account and doesn’t submit a new payment only one thing happens. His/her Virtual mailbox plan is switched to Individual Packages plan. Individual packages have no monthly fee. So that is all what happens. There is no contract. Nothing like buying a car or other bullshit someone wrote in the article.
Why are we doing it like this?
The main reason is security reasons. We don’t want to save credit cards due to the security reasons. We don’t want customers credit card information to be compromised. And the best security is not to save it at all.
The rest of the facts in the article is also incorrect. But I just wanted to focus on the main fact that the person who wrote this knows nothing about our service! Couldn’t even try it.
Update: Another false complaint on Ripoff Reports.
Interesting article about Ripoff Reports, lawsuits, etc.
We are still getting phone calls from victims. Also getting phone calls from banks where victims try to cash their checks written by our company (Eastbiz Corporation). These checks are false! Do not cash them and do not fall for this scam. That is the main reason I am posting the info on this blog.
It looks there are several different offers scammers are using. Here is another one. Recruitment of models! It looks like this offer was targeted to customers in California.
—-—— Forwarded message ———-
From: Ben Gross <recruit.gqonline@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 10:50 AM
Subject: JOB DETAILSDear Model,
We are happy to inform you that you are one of the few people chosen out of the screening exercise performed for us by Model Mayhem,you have got the physical Requirement we need for our GQ Magazine [www.gq-magazine.co.uk] update for February 19th-21ST 2010 issue, We here by decided as a committee to offer you this pay Fashion job I will be very happy if you could send me more pictureS. My client wants to update her Catalog with her New Year release Fashion outfits and I’m interested in you for the professional shooting no nudity, fetish, bondage, escort and other adult content stuff. So if you are
interested you can get back to me. we will be responsible for your transport, feeding and accommodation allowance through out the photo shoot, the invitation letter would be mailed to you, all make up will be taken care of in the studio.
You have the opportunity to bring along an Escort which we would handle the expenses along with your own just for you to feel comfortable through out the
shoot…JOB DETAILS :
You have 7 different Fashion outfits to cover, which would be provided by our client on the day of the shooting and the shoot is just for 3 days and you will be paid $1,650 for the whole project, the Job is Urgent so you are to get back to us as soon as possible so that I can arrange on how to get you the part payment. You would be paid the initial payment of $500 to guarantee your participation in the shoot, as part of our working policy and ethics of our company, we give part payment to any client before we proceed with any job and balance immediately after the work.
As i told you earlier this project is very urgent will be taking care of your payment, accommodation and other expenses. The payment would be mailed directly to you alongside with your cloth allowance, shoes and costume fee for the shoot.
As soon as you get the payment, you will take out your $500 and send the remaining balance to the wardrobe stylist, including your shoe and cloths size.
If you are interested kindly get back to us with your details as follows:MODEL INFORMATION
1. Name on check:
_____________________________________________
2. Complete Mailing Address:
_____________________________________________
3 City:
_____________________________________________
4.State:
_____________________________________________
5.Zip Code:
_____________________________________________
6. Phone#:Stage name :
Height :
Weight :
Age :
Years of experience :
Measurements :
Dress Size :
Shoe Size :
Skin Color :
Hair Color :
__________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
I here by represent and warrant that the above information is true and correct.The names listed above include my present name and every name that I have ever used including my maiden name, alias, nickname,professional or stage name.JOB TIME DURATION :
You have different Fashion outfits to cover in a couple of 1hours 30minute taking picture for the shoot. This will take just a
day job of 1hours 30minutes from 4:30pm to 6:00pm.Shoot dates are February 19th-21st 2010WARNING AWARENESS:
The company has went on agreement with the LOCAL AUTHORITY of the United State Of America just to make sure there is no illegal business moving around and that you will follow the instructions giving to you after the payment issued out.
BEN
From: Ben Gross <recruit.gqonline@gmail.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 5, 2010 07:51:22 GMT+00:00
Subject: CONFIRMATION
HelloThanks so much for the info you have supplied,and once again,congratulations on your new job.I want to assure you that everything would work out fine as planned.Kindly get back to me to reconfirm your interest in the job.The shoots would be taking place by 4.30PM of the said dates
You would be recieving a payment for 2500USD in either US checks or money orders.Once you receive the payment,you are expected to cash them at your bank,after which,you deduct 500USD being your nitial payment to guarantee your participation in the shoot,and then send the remaining balance to the wardrobe stylist via western union money transfer so that she can take care of your attires and fashion outfits.I hope this is clear.Get back to me with a confirmation that everything is clear and fine with you.As soon as i receive a confirmation from you,i would let you know when the payment is sent,and when you are expected to receive the payment.I look forward to your email.Once again,congratulations
Regards
Ben
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Ben Gross <recruit.gqonline@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 11:48 AM
Subject: WESTERN UNION INFORMATIONHello
How you doing today? Good to read from you and great to know the payment arrived in the mail finally? As you know the dates of the shoots are getting closer and we have less time on ourside as well.As you know your portfolio has been created for the event and the dates of the shoot still remains the same as mentioned yesterday FEBRUARY 19TH- FEBRARY 21ST 2010, as regards the payment you will be deducting the sum of 500usd and the rest of the funds is to be forwarded via western union Money Transfer this morning from a western union outlet close to you, so do cash the check into your bank and withdraw the rest of the funds and get the transfer done today as mentioned, ( i hope all is clear)
PLEASE KINDLY GET THIS DONE TODAY AND SEND THE REST OF THE FORWARDS TO THE STYLIST VIA WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER
THIS IS THE INFORMATIONS
Receivers name..SARAH Kavanaugh
city…london
country..england UK
Test Question…For who?
Answer…..For Sarah
As soon as you get the transfer completed,kindly get back to me with the details below
Senders Full Name
senders Full Address
The Money Transfer Control NUmber[10 digits]
The exact amount sent via western union money transfer after deducting the transfer charges
I would await to read from you later today
BEN
