I’m a bit late to the party, but Jetblue is having a 20% off sale on flights between 5/1 and 6/13 booked today.

As an additional perk to those of us flying home on American, they gave us access to the International First Class lounge at LAX.

American gave us a tour of their newly opened Flagship check-in area at LAX.  While normally reserved for Concierge Key members and passengers traveling in international or transcontinental, 3-cabin first class, they permitted us to come back to use the check-in area for our flights home from LAX (if, of course, we were traveling on American).

The main perk of this area?  They drop you off at the very head of the TSA name checking line.  Consider my experience the week prior at LAX:  I waited 20 minutes to get my boarding pass and ID checked and then spent 20 seconds in the actual screening process thanks to TSA Pre.

For our third night, OWMD stayed at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza.

Earlier in the day while we were at the Museum of Flight, I had noticed suite availability and attempted to confirm an upgrade.  I was told to call back later, and so I did… on the bus to the hotel from LAX.  At check-in, I was given a Century Suite.  At 700 square feet, it’s larger than my Manhattan studio.

Having had a few hours to kill between breakfast and my timeslot to visit the Flagship Check-in area at LAX, I chose to take the tour of the hotel they offered.

American’s dispatchers routed our flight from Seattle to Los Angeles down the coast.  Had we not had a slight mechanical delay, we would have been able to better appreciate the scenery they had planned for us.

As part of our Boeing tour, we got to visit the Boeing Customer Experience Center.  Since the aircraft interior mockups were not especially realistic–Boeing found whatever seats they could and stuck them inside, I actually found the faux advertising posters in the lobby to be more interesting.

For our second night, oneworld MegaDo stayed at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue.  Shortly before the festivities started, I managed to confirm a suite upgrade using one of my four soon-to-be-expiring certificates that I received with my Hyatt Diamond status during StarMegaDo3.  I received a small, but comfortable one bedroom corner suite.

…passengers swim.  In the weeks leading up to OWMD, there was an auction to participate in a water evacuation while at the AA training facility.  Having had the luxury of watching from dry land, I’m pretty sure I never want to have to bail out of an aircraft somewhere in the North Atlantic.

oneworld MegaDo started off in Dallas, where we stayed at the Hyatt Regency.  Having taken an early flight in on US Airways, I was glad that they were able to find me a room.

The weather made for a very bleak day at DFW.

While the type of crowd that the MegaDos attracts tends to be more focused on points than food amenities, the Hyatt delivered an apple, pear, and bottle of water as the diamond amenity.

Prior to receiving the “Crazy Water” information card, I hadn’t appreciated the number of types of water that I could have.

As I was approaching the gate, the agents were starting to start their boarding calls, so I hastily snapped off a few pictures of the plane.

United 933
Frankfurt (FRA) - Washington Dulles (IAD)
Monday, January 16th
Depart: 5:56PM
Arrive: 8:18PM
Duration: 8 hours, 22 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 777-222 (N780UA)
Seat: 30H (Economy Class)

The gate agents started boarding by calling “all elites” so I joined the boarding scrum near the podium.  One of the agents was standing near the line checking boarding passes and directed me towards a large mass of people across the walk way:  “Your boarding group is over there.”  I looked confused, so he explained that they were “currently boarding first class, business class, and 1Ks,” and that I, as a Premier should go and wait.  In one of my few Do You Know Who I Am moments while traveling, I pointed to the rather prominent “1K” printed right in the middle of my boarding pass and walked to the gate to board.

At this point, it’s worth noting something about the layout of United’s boarding passes.  For 1Ks, there’s a “1K” printed in the dead center of the boarding pass and the words “Premier Executive 1K” under the passenger’s name.  While I was waiting, the agent came running over having realized his error, profusely apologizing for having only read the word “Premier” on my boarding pass.  It’s a good thing that the boarding order was being enforced; it’s just unfortunate that I, as someone who doesn’t probably look like an especially frequent flyer (except for those 103k EQM on United and 34k EQM on American last year), was misjudged.

Coach was fairly empty and I was able to console myself with an entire row of three seats to myself to compensate for the lost exit row seat after we had an equipment swap from old-to-new config.

At the back of the center Economy Plus section are six seats dedicated to crew rest with extra legroom and footrests.  (During flight, they pull the curtains in the back of the section around the area for improved darkness.)  With the empty flight, other passengers began eying the crew rest seats to be rebuffed by the crew.

We had a roughly hour delay at the gate waiting for mechanics to fix our air conditioning units before we pushed back.

With few international arrivals at that hour, the customs lines in the midfield concourse were not especially bad, but with Global Entry, I was through in about two minutes.

I had quite a bit of time to kill at the Frankfurt Airport.  I first visited the Lufthansa Senator lounge, finding it to be quite crowded when I first arrived.  (A number of passengers, including myself, had to wait a few minutes for a seat to open up.)  I then exited the Schengen area of the airport to visit the Tower Lounge.

The views of the airport are quite stunning.

In the distance, the tail of N780UA is hiding behind the terminal pier.

Compared to the Senator lounge with its never ending supply of soft pretzels, this lounge had a much more extensive snack selection.  (Unfortunately, most of my pictures of the food and drink selection have gone missing in action in the month since this trip happened.)

With a few minutes before boarding was to commence, I scurried to the other end of the pier to my gate so I could take a few pictures of the plane before departure.

Rather than give a full trip report for my short hop from Dublin to Frankfurt on Lufthansa, I’m going to let a single picture do the talking.

While waiting for my Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, I took the time to stop by the bmi Diamond Club.

The food selection was identical to the fare offered in the London Room at Heathrow.

About 15 minutes before boarding was to start, I also stopped by the Dublin Airport Authority-run Anna Livia lounge across the hallway using my PriorityPass card that I got with my Amex Platinum card.  I didn’t have the chance to take any pictures.  As far as lounges go, it was quite small compared to the Diamond Club.

For my night in Dublin, I came across a 65 Euro room at the Radisson Blu.  Rather conveniently, Club Carlson announced their triple points promotion within a few hours of my booking.

Having only managed to catch a few hours of sleep at the Sheraton London Heathrow from when I checked in to when I had to be out in back to catch the bus to the airport (having been advised by the front desk clerks to get to the airport about 1.5 hours earlier than I needed to be), I was quite happy that I was able to check in right away.

In terms of my priorities for a hotel room, I’ve found a new one:  Blackout curtains.  Since I had only managed a few hours of sleep at the Sheraton London Heathrow from when I checked in to when I thought I had to head to the airport, I was dead tired.  Thankfully, I was able to make the room pitch black and catch a quick nap before heading into Dublin.

British Midlands operates two lounges at Heathrow, the Great British Lounge for international passengers and the London Room for “domestic” passengers.  Thanks to the common travel area between the UK and Ireland, flights to the Republic of Ireland are considered “domestic.”

Security was quick and painless and, quite unexpectedly, only had walk through metal detectors at the checkpoint.

At 7AM, the lounge was almost completely empty.

I was mildly expecting a more breakfast orientated food selection considering it was 7AM, but evidently hard liquor, pretzels, and potato chips make for strong alternatives.

At this juncture, it’s worth noting something about Star Alliance lounge access on this trip.  While I had access to the arrivals lounge by virtue of traveling in the business class cabin, my visits to the London Room and the lounges of Dublin and Frankfurt were due to having Star Alliance Gold status from United (by being at least a 1P).  In stark contrast to United’s Clubs which just need to see an international boarding pass, bmi and Lufthansa are sticklers for the Star Alliance lounge rules and require that they see the passenger’s elite card.

Knowing these rules, I brought my 1K card with.  During my conversations with the Dulles United Club agents who had just been trained on the legacy Continental systems, it seems cards will be needed to visit United Clubs on international itineraries.  It’s just another change United elites will “like” from this merger.

Since I had an early morning flight to Dublin, I decided that I would stay near the airport.  Initially, I was considering rooms with roughly 100USD/night rates as I just needed a bed and a shower.

Having accumulated a large stockpile of SPG points from the Starwood Amex last summer (30k for $4.5k in 3 months), ordinary spending, and Starwood stays, I noticed that the Sheraton London Heathrow is a Category 2 hotel.  For weekend stays, Cat 2 hotels are only 3k points per night, giving me a 3.3cpp valuation for my redemption while offering the added flexibility that a prepaid, nonrefundable rate would not have had.

My main annoyance with the hotel is that they do not run their own shuttle and instead rely on the Hotel Hoppa bus service which runs a few pounds each way.  Further, since I had not picked up any cash at an ATM, I had to wait inside at the information desk to pay with a credit card.  The customer in front of me had no hotel room for the night and patiently listened to the agent sell him on all the great benefits of the London Heathrow Hilton (for roughly 160 pounds per night).  The guy agreed and stepped off to get some cash.  Rather than service me after I stated I just needed a bus ticket, he reminding me that the guy was coming back (yeah, right…).  Eventually, the other clerk told him to just take care of the line of waiting customers rather than hope that the guy would come back.

The front lobby is undergoing maintenance, so the bus drops off and picks up passengers at the back of the hotel.

When I came to the desk, I thought it was incredibly well designed to have three types of outlets.

Unfortunately, the US outlet was slightly out of spec and permitted my cables to float freely in the outlet without making electrical contact.  With my set of plug adapters, I reached a simple. albeit less than ideal solution.

To maximize my time in the city, I decided to visit the arrivals lounge and leave my roll on suitcase at the airport rather than stop at my hotel first.

Since UA924 arrives late in the morning (after 10AM), the lounge had only a few people in it and showers were readily available.

The lounge offers a few light breakfast options for those skipping breakfast on the plane in favor of additional sleep (like myself).

Overall, it’s a small lounge, but for a business traveler who just needs to take a shower, it doesn’t need to be especially comfortable for long term stays.  I’m somewhat curious to know just how full it gets in the early morning.

When I was booking this trip in late December, I was able to find business class upgrade space on United 924, the late evening redeye from Washington to London operated with a 777.  Unfortunately, the United 777 fleet is in a state of flux as they update the cabins:  Not all planes have received the new lie-flat business class yet and the forward cabins are smaller than the ones they are replacing.  Further, equipment swaps between the two 777 types can happen at any time.

At booking, I was in the old configuration 777.  For an upgrader, an equipment swap can be disastrous as one could fall from a confirmed business class seat to an undesirable middle seat in economy minus.

The day of my flight, I glanced at the mobile United site over lunch to figure out the nose number of the plane I would be on, from which I could back out the tail number.  The FlyerGuide wiki maintains a reasonably up-to-date page for the state of United’s fleet.  Given nose number 2481, I could determine that I was going to be on N781UA, which by January 12th, had the new business class.

I checked the full United site to figure out my new seat assignment, finding that I couldn’t see it online until I called an agent.  Fortunately, I was still in business class and had managed to get a rear facing aisle seat.  Having tried out the forward facing lie flat seats of United and Air New Zealand on my trip in December, I was looking forward to trying out the rear facing experience.

While my trip originated at New York Kennedy and I did choose to visit the United Club there, those details are written up in my December trip report.

United 924
Washington Dulles (IAD) – London (LHR)
Thursday, January 12th
Depart: 8:00PM
Arrive: 12:15PM
Duration: 7 hours, 13 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 777-222 (N781UA)
Seat: 7B (Business Class)

The flight show is an important part of any long-haul trip (especially when on an Embraer regional jet).

The menu read as follows:

Concerned for the potential worst of Skychefs, I had ordered a vegetarian meal.

As the main course:

For desert, I opted for the ice cream.

By this time, I realized we were about two and a half hours into the flight with a predicted early arrival to London due to strong winds so I began my attempt to get ever last moment of sleep that I could.  I skipped the breakfast but remained quasi-conscious as the sounds of the breakfast service kept me from falling back to sleep.  Needless to say, I’ve now concluded that meal service on transatlantic redeyes is a trap.

Passport control was quick, although the UK officer felt compelled to guess that my purpose of travel to Ireland was to “visit family” based on my red hair.

Nearly two weeks afterwards, I still haven’t started posting my photos from oneworld MegaDo (besides the Cathay Pacific 777 masthead for this blog).

At Dallas, American gave us some statistics about their customers (and us). As it turns out, some people are more insane than myself when it comes to frequent flying.

The American representative confirmed that those miles flown were entirely butt-in-seat.  To put those numbers in perspective, flying 1.033 million miles per year requires flying 2832 miles per day.  New York to San Francisco is only 2568 miles.

If constrained by flying only 271 segments per year, each flight needs to average 3814 miles.  New York to London is only 3451 miles.

As I approached United 1K status last year, I began to eye a possible uses of the 6 systemwide upgrades that I would receive for crossing the 100k mile mark.  Unlike American’s systemwide upgrades which work on any fare, United requires that travel be booked into the “W” fare bucket (or higher).

To quantify this a bit further, the cheapest round trip fare (without concern for validity dates, minimum stay restrictions, and so forth) on United for NYC-SYD is a “K” fare for $798 plus $620 in fuel surcharges.  The absolute cheapest “W” fare is $1698 plus $620 in fuel surcharges.  Given that confirmable upgrade space on United’s SFO/LAX-SYD routes is practically nonexistent, using a systemwide amounts to a $350 lottery ticket (each way) for a chance of sitting in business class on a United 747.

In December, I came across a fare sale from New York (and Newark) to Dublin, Ireland for $392 plus taxes roundtrip.  Even more importantly, W fares were only running $200 more (plus a small bit of additional tax as well) for the roundtrip.  I set off looking for a flight with a confirmable upgrade to business class around MLK weekend to Europe.  The routing rules on United’s fares for this route are quite generous, allowing one to connect in nearly any major European city in addition to connecting at a Lufthansa, Swiss, or bmi hub.

I came across United 924, Dulles to London Heathrow, allowing myself 22 hours to connect to a bmi flight onwards to Dublin.  Having noticed the early evening departures out of Frankfurt to Dulles operated by United, I arranged to fly from Dublin to Frankfurt for a 20 hour connection, allowing me to meet a friend for breakfast.

For those still following this itinerary, it looks like this when mapped out:

Having decided to tough out 9 hours of coach for my return flight, this itinerary cost $641.50 while earning 9433 EQM (18866 RDM; my miles for my bmi-operated LHR-DUB segment haven’t posted yet).  In contrast, a similar award ticket would run 50k miles to Europe (in business class) and 30k miles from Europe (in coach).  Factoring in the opportunity cost of not earning miles on an award ticket, this would yield a 0.649cpm valuation for using my miles.  Better redemption values can be found in domestic coach by comparison.

Singapore Airlines just sent me an email detailing the updates to their KrisFlyer program.

“Thank you for your continued support for Singapore Airlines. In our regular review to improve the KrisFlyer programme, we will be making revisions to the Singapore Airlines and SilkAir Award and Upgrade Award charts. We will also be extending Saver Award for First and Business Class to more flights as part of this upcoming revision. The changes to the Singapore Airlines and SilkAir Award and Upgrade Award charts will include adjustments to Saver, Standard and Full Award levels in selected cabin classes. Some destinations will be re-designated to different zones. These changes will be effective for redemption bookings from 1 March 2012 for flights departing 1 April 2012 onwards. For more details, please refer to the Revised Singapore Airlines and SilkAir Award and Upgrade Award Charts and Revised Star Alliance Award and Upgrade Award Charts. We appreciate your invaluable feedback and are pleased to announce that we will also be enhancing our seat award redemption offerings. Currently Saver Award is only available for selected First and Business Class flights. With this improvement, you will be able to redeem Saver Award for First and Business Class on most flights, including First and Business Class on our B777-300ER flights; and Business Class on our A380 and A340-500 flights. This will be available for redemption bookings from 8 March 2012, for flights departing 1 April 2012 onwards. To find out more, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions below. We hope that you will continue to enjoy the benefits of the KrisFlyer programme.  I would like to thank you once again for your support for Singapore Airlines and we look forward to welcoming you onboard our flight again soon.”

While I don’t have any KrisFlyer miles nor much in way of Amex Membership Rewards points to transfer, I have to wonder whether they’ll finally release some business class seats on the 777-300ER, A340, and A380 to partners for redemptions.

I got to LAX a bit early (1 hour, 45 minutes or so before departure) and made my way to the premium check-in line.  Since the flight was showing F0J0Y0, I volunteered to be bumped to a rather surprised service manager.  Am I the only 1K traveling in business class who has ever asked about being bumped?

I then made my way to the priority security line to enjoy my Freedom Grope.  (I’m now 8 for 8 in being “randomly” selected for the backscatter at the United LAX terminal in the past 11 months).  I had the (mis)fortune of facing the nonpriority line to notice two facts:  The nonpriority line was markedly shorter and the nonpriority line only seems to have walk-through metal detectors.

As I had about an hour and a half before departure, I visited the United Club where my old standbys awaited me:  Crackers, cheese, carrots with ranch dip, shortbread cookies, trail mix, pretzels, and yogurt-covered raisins.  At least it’s consistent?

An hour before departure, I headed to the gate next door to look into my chances of getting VDB’d where I got to kick off the start of my trainwreck of a p.s. flight.  It seems these days that misadventures in business class are the best first world problems I can muster.

United 912

Los Angeles (LAX) – New York Kennedy (JFK)

Monday, January 2nd

Depart: 11:49PM

Arrive: 7:44AM

Duration:  4 hours, 55 minutes

Aircraft: Boeing 757-222 (N512UA)

Seat: 9C (Business Class)

Row 9 is the stuff legends are made of.

With three agents at the gate, one was busy for 50 minutes “setting up the flight” to avoid passenger questions.  The other two stood around helplessly, talking between themselves.  When it came time to start boarding, the two agents both openly announced to the other gate agent and the passengers in earshot that they did not know the boarding order.  While United has made changes to its boarding order, it’s not especially complex.

I made my way to my seat and began noticing the differences between this flight and my normal experience on p.s.  Three flight attendants were gathered in the galley at door 2R talking amongst themselves rather than greeting passengers or taking jackets.  While my jacket was stuffed into my carry-on bag in the overhead, numerous passengers were sitting with jackets in their laps.  Given the conveniently placed handle on the right (and only right) side of business class in front of 9C that a flight attendant normally temporarily hangs bags on, I can only believe that taking jackets is the rule and not the exception.

About five minutes into boarding, I wandered up to the galley to get something to drink as I wasn’t going to be interested in my choices of water, orange juice, or faux champagne.  One of the flight attendants, annoyed that I had disturbed their conversation, retorted back that my “choices were those on the tray,” gesturing at the three beverages that were prepoured in the galley.  At this point, it’s worth noting that customized predeparture beverages have been available on United since September 1st.

I returned to my seat to be asked by a husband and wife split across 9A and 9D to change seats…  with their 13 year old son seated in 10D.  Going from an aisle seat with practically infinite legroom to a window seat is hardly a fair trade, especially when the son (nor technically the parents) was not exit row qualified.  Needless to say, 9B wasn’t enthusiastic about their offer either.

We had an initial 35 minute delay for pushback because the ground crew was still loading bags.  Having missed our slot for departure, our wheels up time was further delayed by another 15 minutes.   After take off, I opted for the cheese plate as a quick snack while checking up on the Internet before turning in for the night.

While the hard product was every bit as comfortable as it normally would be, the experience on this flight was far below my expectations on p.s. and lackluster even for a domestic flight.

For my stop in Vancouver, I was booked to have an approximately 5 hour long layover.  I went into Canada to visit the NEXUS office to finally complete my iris scan, obtain my properly branded Air Canada boarding pass (rather than the one I had from Air New Zealand), and then reentered the United States.  Amongst those activities, obtaining the boarding pass actually took the most time:  The manned stations were swapped and the automated kiosk required that I massage the screen with my finger tips for minutes at a time to get it to respond to button presses to print the boarding pass and to try to standby for the earlier flight to Los Angeles.

I then walked in search of the Maple Leaf Lounge so I could take a shower.  Having not studied a map of the concourse ahead of time, I wound up walking past it only to more carefully scan my surroundings for the entrance on my way back.

My chief priority was to take a shower after my flight from Auckland.  Fortunately, the lone  shower was unoccupied.

Unfamiliar with Air Canada’s meal policies, I made myself a small salad to tide myself over if there wasn’t a vegetarian meal on the earlier flight.

The lounge itself was reasonably empty.

When I approached the gate, I found that my standby had cleared.

Since I was seated in a bulkhead in business class, I had placed my laptop bag and camera in the overhead bin, forgetting that I would want to take a picture of the meal.  Amongst the choices of chicken, beef, and pasta as standard options.  I chose the pasta.  The meal came with cold (gasp) nuts to start, a roll, a salad with balsamic vinegar and oil dressing, and a small slice of chocolate cake.

Air Canada 554

Vancouver (YVR) – Los Angeles (LAX)

Saturday, December 31st

Depart: 3:21PM

Arrive: 5:52PM

Duration:  2 hours, 31 minutes

Aircraft: Embraer 190 (C-FMZU)

Seat: 1A (Business Class)

While I’m normally indifferent to in-flight entertainment options, a glitch in the air show map gave me a chuckle.