This review is a long time coming. In August our family went to Maui for a weeklong vacation and on our trip home we had the opportunity to fly Hawaiian Airlines First Class A330-200 from Maui’s OGG airport to San Jose, Ca. This was my first time flying Hawaiian up front on a “longhaul” trip. I was excited to try out their Aloha spirit and even happier to cap off a wonderful vacation with a hopefully wonderful flight home. Continue reading
Well this was a busy year on the travel front for me. I think my 160 segments is the most I’ve flown in on year, but I’d venture to guess the mileage total was about 25,ooo miles short of my all time high. Although, I don’t have accurate records to validate against. Here’s how things broke down The 2015 Edition. Continue reading
I don’t fly Delta a lot, but when I do I’m reminded about how much I like them. This year I only had 10 segments on them, all domestic, and overall I enjoyed my trips. This short 560 mile trip takes a little less than 2 hours.
This older 737-8 had four rows of 2-2 seating up front and 23 rows of 3-3 economy seating. Thankfully I was upgraded to First Class due to my Alaska Airline status (yes Virginia miracles still happen). Continue reading
I’ve flown Virgin America a handful of times from the Bay Area, but all of my flights have been to Las Vegas or San Diego and only in Coach. I was needing to head to Dallas and found a First Class fare $50 cheaper then any other airlines coach ticket, even Southwest!! Well what’s a person to do, fly in the back of the bus for more moolah or fly up front for less. Let’s think about it for maybe two seconds. I immediately bought my ticket to Dallas Love Field on Virgin America from SFO and away I went.
Let’s be honest I’ve been a bad blogger. In the past four months I’ve not posted much. I’d like to say I’ve been on vacation hanging out at all the great hotels of the world, flying seven star airlines and just relaxing with my family.
Only 40 segments and 50,988 miles flown between 8/1 and 10/30
Unfortunately, it’s been quite the contrary. I’ve been traveling like a beast since August 1st. In fact I’ve been out of town every week since. Yup that’s 13 straight weeks. With 10 of those weeks being out of town Monday returning Friday on the last flight of the night.
At least a few of those were family trips to Hawaii and Disneyland, but the majority were work related. Trust me, I’m not complaining. I’ve gotta eat and have a roof over my head, and without a job that’d be a little tough.
So I’ll do better and post a lot more than I have. So c’mon back I hope you missed me and are ready for a little adventure again.
I don’t fly Delta a lot but when I do I’m generally impressed with the ground service and service in the air. The staff I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with have generally been friendly and willing to help you out. During the summer I had a trip to Florida and it was actually cheaper to fly Delta in first then any other airlines in coach. Well that was a no brainer a transcon flight in first vs any other airline in coach. Giddy up.
Well everything went as planned on the first flight from Florida to Atlanta, not much to expect on a 1 hour flight. Once I got to Atlanta, I had about 54 minutes to transit terminals and make my connection to San Francisco. This was barley enough time to get terminal to terminal let alone stop and get food. My flight left at 9:59 PM from ATL, I knew they wouldn’t have a full meal but I was hoping for something. Well my idea of something and Delta’s were very different. The flight attendant came buy with a snack basket, from what I recall it was not more than Bischoff Cookies and chips, not even warm nuts. I thought ok, this sucks but I’ll make do with the options they sell in the back.
Customer Service From (We’re Sorry)
Well it looks like American Airlines Admirals Clubs will go cashless as of October 1st. I was at the St. Louis location this week and saw this sign in a couple different spots in the lounge. I can’t say I’m surprised, it’ll probably make reconciling nightly cash and monies from the bar and day passes way easier. I can’t imagine that the clubs bring in that much cash on a daily basis, and having to balance those funds has got to be a pain the butt.
In any event I’d call this a good thing it’s a minor change that I think most won’t notice. So make sure to bring your credit card to the lounge starting Thursday.
TRIP REPORT INDEX: AROUND THE WORLD IN FIRST ON THE A380
Sadly all good things must come to an end, scratch that, it would be nice if they didn’t. This was my last flight of my a380 around the world trip. And I was a little sad about it for sure. I had three count them three great flights on Singapore Airlines on their a380’s and one amazing flight thus far on Emirates and now I was about to embark from Dubai to Seoul.
After about a seven hour layover in Dubai in their glorious terminal three lounge I headed for the plane. When departing from T-3 in first class you have the opportunity of boarding from it. There are gates on the fourth level in the lounge, once your boarding pass is scanned you take an elevator down two levels and walk to your plane. The only other people on this level are other guests heading to their flights also in first. Once you make your way to your plane you board on the upper deck turn left and head to your seat. You know you’re living the good life!!
My coach for the next 8 1/2 hours
As part of my larger epic around the world trip spanning 6 countries and over 42,000 miles ,I had the opportunity to fly United in domestic first class from Boston to San Francisco and American Los Angeles to Boston. Since both carriers for the moment offer similar airplanes on the routes narrow body Boeings and Airbuses, I thought I’d do a comparison of the two airlines.
Now to be fair United will be utilizing their PS Transcon 757’s for a few months later this year on the BOS-LAX route which will definitely be a leg up on AA or anyone else for that matter, but for now they offer the same product, here’s a good write up on what UA will be doing if you’re interested (thanks to Rocky on Doublewides fly for the review).
Seat
Ok so this is not the best picture of the seat, but it is a GREAT picture of my beautiful daughter in an AA 737 first class seat.
TRIP REPORT INDEX: AROUND THE WORLD IN FIRST ON THE A380
Put on your sunglasses and strap on your seat belt folks, this is going to be a blingy post for sure. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of flying Emirates flagship First Class Suites on their Airbus A380 from San Francisco to Seoul connecting via Dubai. Yes this is the loooong way for sure, but I was in the midst of my quest for flying the a380 around the world and was on my second to last segment of completing my mission. Although this trip in and of itself was an RTW in that I was continuing on from Seoul to San Francisco later in the week, on the more conventional Pacific crossing. I’ll share those details in a future post.
A few weeks prior, I had started my journey in Seoul and connected to Singapore Airlines in Shanghai and made the circuitous journey back to Los Angeles on their a380’s via Singapore and Narita, Japan.
Check in
My trip started out with ease at the First Class check in desk at SFO, 2 ½ hours prior to departure. Continue reading
Exploring open roads without breaking the bank
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by Anna Trestain
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