Hi! Welcome to The Alviator. Whether you’ve been following us for the last few years or you just found us today, I’m so grateful that you’re checking out our blog. We’re an aviation, airline lounge, hotel review and consultancy site, with 340+ reviews that we’ve posted over the last 10 years.
Up until last night, this blog was called Young Travelers of Hong Kong. However, today we’re moving to a new domain and getting a new name, reflecting changes that have happened in our lives, as well as the general direction that this site is headed. Here’s an introduction to this site, whether you’re new entirely, or have followed along with our previous chapters.
1. What is The Alviator?
The Alviator is a reviews and guides site for airline products and miles and points, specialising in detailed reviews of premium and low-cost air travel for the value-savvy traveller. Our goal is to help travellers maximise their budget, whatever it is, by stretching travellers’ budget using miles and points, as well as finding the best premium cabin products most worth spending points and cash on.
We’re most familiar with the Europe-Asia longhaul market, and the respective shorthaul markets on the two continents. I’ve never been to Africa or South America (I’m hoping for that to change soon), and I’ve only flown to North America a few times. I’m obviously hoping to build up my expertise of the market over the next few years (and visit these destinations), and will share my travels on this site.
We also review airline lounges and hotels, hoping that we can help travellers make choices that make their time travelling more enjoyable.
2. Who’s on the team?
My name is Alvin, and I currently work in operations management. I lived in Hong Kong up until September 2019, and I’ve lived in London ever since, visiting my family every few months on a variety of itineraries. I knew I probably wouldn’t work in aviation to keep some much-needed work-life separation, though my understanding of airports and airlines has definitely founded my love for operations.
When I was in seventh grade, I was introduced to the world of premium airline travel by my friend Jason. Having already really enjoyed some of the ins-and-outs of aviation at this point (as a very STEM-oriented kid, I loved looking at departures boards and seeing different flight numbers), I decided to start writing a blog, which was called Hong Kong Airline News at that point. In 2014 I ran out of free media storage space on the site, didn’t know what to do, and decided the smartest thing to do was to start a new blog, Young Travelers of Hong Kong. (If you’re a 14-year-old running into a similar situation, please email me for help, and do NOT do what I did.)
Unlike Hong Kong Airline News, Young Travelers of Hong Kong did grow a fair bit, and I also got to travel more often as I grew older. Before I knew it I was jetting back and forth between home and university (okay, except during COVID), I landed jobs in London, I got my first rewards credit card, and I found myself based here.
From young aviation nutter to…legally-allowed-to-drink corporate aviation nutter
Also on the team is Jason himself (now working in Toronto – more posts from him here). I’d also like to extend thank yous to Ethan and Mallesh, who have been pivotal to the growth of content on this blog as well.
We’re a BoardingArea blog, which means that the wonderful team at BoardingArea hosts our site, provides us back-end support in any and all forms, and gives us a platform to reach more travellers trying to maximise the value of their time, money, and miles.
3. Why we rebranded
We rebranded for a couple of reasons:
- As noted above, none of the team lives in Hong Kong anymore, and our content generally isn’t locationally based there either
- We’ve also started streamlining our content: as our main content pillars, I’m trying to find the best business class and premium economy products between Europe and Asia, as well as the best way to travel low-cost within Europe
- While we’re still very young as fresh college/university graduates, the name “Young Travelers” wasn’t particularly timeless, and was also spelt wrong for half of our readership
The rebranding follows my Instagram handle @thealviator, which I’ve held for a few years ago (thanks Josh Cahill for the name!).
Young Travel(l)er, but not of Hong Kong
3. The Alviator’s aims and goals
At The Alviator, we’re planning to write about all things miles, points, and travel that we come across and find interesting, though we’ve got some main goals, each tied to a certain “category” of post on our blog (expect to see most posts come under these categories). We want to help our readers:
- Understand different business class products flying between Europe and Asia, and the best-value way to obtain tickets
- Find the world’s best premium economy class through our reviews, particularly between Europe and Asia
- Find their favourite way to travel (premium and low-cost) within Europe and within Asia
- Maximise time at airports with the best (and worst) airport lounges
- Find best-value travel options on a bespoke basis with our new (free) consulting service Alvia, which I’ll write a separate post on: we recognise that the value of any single airline product is based on a price point that highly fluctuates depending on season, so we’d like to help individual travellers with their itineraries and budget as well
We want to let you know the best airline and airport experiences, and go through the worst ones so you don’t have to
I’m trying to keep up with a regular posting routine of 3-4 posts a week, though I can’t promise more as I don’t blog full-time. If you’d like to support the blog or join the team in any way, we don’t currently have any vacancies, though please do reach out if you’d like to cooperate in the future!
4. Reach out to me and make yourself at home here!
Do make yourself at home with the content that’s on this blog, such as our reviews, guides, and more! I’d love you to subscribe and leave comments on our reviews and posts as well, and we’re working on a newsletter for regular readers to come in the future.
Hopefully I’ve made clear that I’m open to any and all feedback, so please do get in touch.
I did NOT introduce you to the world of premium travel, Alvin.
Jason and I have a complicated relationship