JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Denpasar Airport, Bali. Photo by voyager on panoramio.

A few months ago we were invited to appear at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia in October. We said yes. We haven’t been to a literary festival in ages and worried that the presence of so many literary types in the same space would make us combust.

So we wangled an invitation to the Palanca Awards night, where we did not burst into flame. (We stopped joining the Palanca Awards in the late 90s—quit while you’re ahead, before the judges realize their mistake.) However we noticed halfway through the dinner at the Pen that there was a tag sticking out of our dress at knee level. Only then did we realize that our dress was inside out. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere. The moral of the story is, black knit (bamboo rayon is excellent) dresses are brilliant if you dress without consulting a mirror. Of course, we spent the rest of the evening accosting random people and saying, “This dress is inside-out!” Never waste a conversation piece.)

Where were we? Right, the Ubud festival. The UWRF invites a few dozen writers from all over the world. The festival covers accommodations, meals, entertainment, spas, massages, and requests the embassies of the writers’ home countries to help cover airfare. The festival wrote to the Philippine embassy in Jakarta, which didn’t reject the request, but didn’t reply either. As time was running out, the UWRF asked if we could buy our own air ticket. A reasonable question, Indonesia being quite near Manila.

It occurred to us that we’ve been quietly collecting mileage in our Philippine Airlines Mabuhay Miles account for years. We’ve flown PAL many times in recent years—they have direct flights to regional destinations plus Melbourne and Sydney (Please bring back the New York flights pleeeease) and we like their 777s with the beds. In fact we’ve been flying PAL since we were a baby and according to family legend we once pooped during a flight and stank up the cabin so badly that the pilot had to treat it like a chemical gas attack (which it was) and make an unscheduled landing so the plane could be aired out. (The story is in one of the Twisted books—it happened while we were teething but before we were exorcised in the probinsya for having imaginary friends.) In short, we had Mabuhay Miles.

We knew we had 40,000+ miles, which we planned to use for a trip to Tokyo in the fall/winter. Well thanks to PAL’s very generous mileage program, those miles are enough for round-trip tickets to Bali (20,000 miles) and to Tokyo (Also 20,000 miles. On our other mileage card 20,000 only gets you as far as Hong Kong. Periodically Mabuhay Miles offers reduced redemption rates—last February round-trip coach tickets to Bangkok, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh, Jakarta, Nagoya, Osaka, Shanghai, Singapore were going for just 10,000 miles.)

Redeeming the miles is easy—you fill out a form online, then you claim your ticket and pay the taxes (not a small amount, but much less than the fare) at the nearest PAL office. We turned up at the Pasay Road, Makati office on a Tuesday just before noon, and we were out of there in half an hour. Thanks, Mabuhay Miles.

On September 12 PAL and BPI MasterCard invited the media to dinner at Lolo Dad’s Brasserie to announce their new partnership: Real Thrills Rewards points on your MasterCard can now be converted to Mabuhay Miles. 5 points equals 1 mile. You can redeem your air miles for at least 5,000 points (1,000 miles); if you need more miles for a ticket you may add increments of 5 points. Principal and supplementary cardholders eligible. There’s also an ePrepaid MasterCard for buying PAL tickets online.

Incidentally, today is the last day of the PAL-BPI buy 1, take 1 promo. You can book your first ticket at the PAL website, at the nearest PAL ticketing office, or at (02)8558888, pay with BPI MasterCard or ePrepaid MasterCard, and get the second ticket for Zero pesos. Travel period for regional destinations is until 10 December 2012.