As I mentioned previously, when my wife and our younger daughter go to Poland together this summer, I’ll be headed off on my own adventure. While I have all the flights booked except for one (which I’ll explain below), I needed to figure out my hotel stays.

Depending on the time spent in the location and whether I will be there for breakfast played into my decision for each city. If I wanted late checkout and free breakfast, it made sense to try and stay at a Hyatt property so that I could make use of my Globalist benefits (and help me earn some qualifying nights to requalify for Globalist next year.) I also had an expiring Hyatt free night certificate and some other credits or benefits that I could use to offset the cost or add some luxury.

After I fly from Chicago to Dubai in Emirates Gamechanger First Class, I’ll arrive around 7pm. This is where my trip could go in a couple of directions. There’s currently no First Class award space on the two daily A380 flights to Bangkok with First Class, one at 2:50am and one at 9:40am. My first choice would be the 9:40am flight so that I could get a few hours to see Dubai and then a decent night’s sleep. If I have to power through to the 2:50am flight, I could do it with hopefully adding on a nap in the lounge on my layover. Thanks to Emirates’ recent policy changes, I have a flight booked on this route on a later date which I will just change to the one I need when it hopefully becomes available.

Assuming I could get on the 9:40am flight, I’ve booked a refundable hotel reservation in Dubai at the Kempinski Grand Avenue, which is pricey at around $300 per night. I booked this through the Delta Stays portal so that I could use a $150 credit from a Delta American Express card to offset some of the cost and receive Delta MQDs toward requalifying for Platinum status for next year as Delta is currently running a limited time promo where hotels and car rentals booked through the portal for certain dates earn MQDs (in addition to SkyMiles). Besides earning some more MQDs than at a cheaper hotel, this property is directly connected to the Dubai Mall, which could help me avoid being outside in the scorching Dubai summer heat. My plan would be to walk around the Dubai Mall to get in some steps and get some views of the nearby Burj Khalifa and fountains before getting some rest and getting back to the airport fairly early for my flight to Bangkok. If I can’t get on the 9:40am flight and I’m stuck with the 2:50am flight, I will just stay at the First Class Lounge for my layover.

One wrinkle could be that I may not get on either flight the next morning and have to wait until the following day. I have enough slack built into the schedule that I could extend my time in Dubai by a day without messing up all of my return flights from Bangkok. In this case, I will need at least one breakfast in Dubai so a Hyatt property could be an option for a two-night stay, but the Hyatt locations in Dubai don’t look all that great for a short summer stay. A better option might be an Accor property like the Sofitel Downtown Dubai (also close to the Dubai Mall) as I have Accor Platinum status (thanks to a status match from Bilt) and I would get lounge access and could use upgrade certificates from the status match that would otherwise expire this year.

If for some reason, I can’t get an award ticket to Bangkok on Emirates for either day (which is unlikely based on the current seat maps), there are a few places in Europe I could fly to on an Emirates A380 and still get back to the Middle East for my Etihad Apartments flight at the end of the week. I’ll cross that bridge if it becomes an issue.

Assuming I get to Bangkok, I have the Grand Hyatt booked for two nights as I will likely make good use of the lounge and breakfast benefits as well as late checkout because my Qatar Airways First Class flight leaves Bangkok at 8pm. I currently have one night booked with a Category 1-4 Free Night Certificate and the other booked with points. If I end up only needing one night, I will just use the Free Night Certificate as it expires in August.

When I first put this plan together, I had thought about spending the night at the Al Safwa Lounge in Qatar on my way home, but realized there was a risk of not getting one of the few first-come first-served sleeping rooms available in the lounge which would make for an uncomfortable night. Instead, I canceled and rebooked my Qatar First Class flights. I am still flying from Bangkok to Doha arriving at 10:45pm, but then getting a hotel in Doha for the night before flying out at 6:35pm the next evening to Dubai. I was thinking about staying somewhere a bit more luxurious like the brand-new Andaz, but in the end, I could not pass up the Hyatt Regency near the airport for 5,000 Hyatt points. It still looks very nice and will be easy to get to and from the airport as there’s a frequent shuttle.

For my day in Doha, I have booked an 8am desert safari which includes a 4×4 dune ride, an ATV ride, a camel ride, sandboarding and a visit to the inland sea, all on a 5 hour tour. I should be able to get back to the hotel around 1pm, shower off the sand, catch a nap and head to the airport around 4pm to visit the Al Safwa lounge before flying to Dubai (as I could not get a late enough flight to Abu Dhabi to come up on the award search). I assumed I would have to make my own way from Dubai airport to Abu Dhabi airport for my Etihad Apartments flight that night, but then I realized that Etihad offers a chauffeur service for first class award tickets booked through their own program. I will have a driver pick me up at Dubai airport and drop me at Abu Dhabi airport around 10pm, well in time for my 2:20am flight to Toronto.

As it turns out, I expect to only have the first and last night of my trip spent in the air. The rest of the week should have me in hotels catching up on rest (or possibly wide awake with jetlag). I hope to get the final flight booked soon, but at least I have several options to make sure I catch that Emirates A380.

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