Trip Reports - My First *A C/F Award Redemption (with LH F on B747-8i)

0. Introduction

0.1 Planning and Initial Itinerary

I've accrued quite a bit of UA miles over the past few years mostly from business trips, but haven't really tried to use them except for occasional upgrades because booking award flights on pre-merger (PM) UA website was quite painful.

That situation changed dramatically since the UA/CO merger process started. CO's website had an excellent *A award search and booking tool (which has been inherited to the combined UA's website and is arguably the best benefit of the merger for PMUA flyers) and we were able to instantly transfer our miles between the two programs before the combined program started. So I suddenly realized that there are far more opportunities to burn my miles for premium cabin on *A partners.

One of the interesting features of CO's (and current UA's) award chart was that you could fly between North America and East/Southeast Asia either directly across the Pacific or through Europe with the same amount of miles (one-way between NA and SE Asia costs 60K in biz and 70K in first). To make the most of my miles for my first redemption, I chose SE Asia as the destination via Europe both ways.

In December 2011, I decided that I should be able to take a few days off in June 2012 with as much information about my work schedule as I could get at that time and, after a few days of research on co.com, booked two one-way tickets to BKK:

Outbound (ver.1): C award (60K miles+tax/fee)

June M: LH401 (JFK-FRA) A380 C
June M+1: NH204 (FRA-HND) B787 Y
June M+2: TG677 (NRT-BKK) B777-300ER C


Inbound (ver.1): F award (70K miles+tax/fee)

June N: TG924 (BKK-MUC) B777-300ER F (overnight at MUC)
June N+1: UA903 (MUC-IAD) B777-200 F


where M and N are the dates of the first flights of inbound and outbound respectively (M+2<N).

All of these flights were relatively easy to book even for a novice like me, but I was pretty excited because it did include a few "firsts" for me such as first time on A380 and B787, first non-UA F and suite, and first time at TG's F lounge in BKK. Of course there were also a few segments I hoped to change to better options, including NH Y (change to C), UA F (which I had already done a few times, and there is a good chance of getting old config), and the missing IAD-PIT segment (none available at the time). I also needed to position myself to JFK for outbound but JFK is quite difficult to reach from PIT on *A carriers (connect in IAD or take a cab from LGA, neither of which is particularly appealing) so I just booked AA one-way on a separate
itinerary:

Positioning for Outbount (ver.1): Revenue ticket

June M: AA4314 (PIT-JFK) EMB145 Y



0.1 Things hadn't quite settled yet

Well, seven months is a long time and things do change. Late January 2012, TG changed the equipement of BKK-MUC to B744, which meant no F suites on this route any more. While TG's F on B744 looked fine, I really wanted to try the suite on B777-300ERs. I also discovered that LX F on ZRH-YUL is available on the same day as the UA F flight. So I put together a new itinerary for the inbound which was rather complex but did solve some of the above issues:

Inbound (ver.2): F award (70K miles+tax/fee)

June N: TG924 (BKK-FRA) B777-300ER F (overnight at FRA)
June N+1: LX1069 (FRA-ZRH) A320 C
June N+1: LX86 (ZRH-YUL) A330 F
June N+1: AC8657 (YUL-ORD) CRJ705 C
June N+1: UA230 (ORD-PIT) A319


as well as giving me access to LH's famous First Class Terminal (FCT) for the first time before the ZRH flight. Now THIS is getting really exciting!

Then several things happened on my side. First I got to experience some of the "firsts" before this trip: flew A380 with SQ, B787 on a NH domestic flight in Japan, and LX new F (through upgrade) along with a visit to FCT. I also joined the stream of UA refugees seeking AA status match (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileageplus-consolidated/1340221-aa-doing-free-ua-elite-status-matches-27-apr-2012-ltd-1k-gs.html) and got 30K EQM/EQP challenge to receive 8 SWUs, for which I needed a bit more AA miles in addition to the OW flights I had booked by the end of August. Furthermore in late May, it turned out that I would have to be in Vancouver for a couple of days until June M.

It took some work but I managed to find a solution to this constrained multi-variable equation.

On outbound, I dropped LH and NH segments and fly directly from YVR to NRT instead to connect to the TG flight to BKK. Luckily AC non-stop was available in C so the new itinerary looked like:

Outbound (ver.2): C award (60K miles+tax/fee)

June M+1: AC3 (YVR-NRT) 777-300ER C
June M+2: TG677 (NRT-BKK) 777-300ER C


which by coincidence ended up featuring two different herringbone-style C seats.

I then had to find a way to fly PIT-YVR on June M-2. Unfortunately I couldn't add this segment to the award because stopover is not allowed in one-way awards. Instead, I changed the PIT-JFK ticket on AA to this:

Positioning for Outbount (ver.2): Revenue ticket

June M-2: AA1001 (PIT-DFW) MD80 Y
June M-2: AA887 (DFW-YVR) B737-800 Y


The fare difference was surprisingly small (less than the change fee) considering that the distance is almost 5 times longer. There were also options to connect through ORD but I took the longer way to make sure that I can hit the SWU challenge.

Wondering how B747-8i comes into scene? Well finally she comes. On June M+1, while working in my hotel room before the AC flight to NRT, it occured to me that LH tends to release F award seats close to departure (usually 2 weeks out), and although it was only a few days before my inbound flights, there may still be some F seats available. I immediately suspended my work and started playing around with KVS tool. Imagine my excitement when I saw F availability on LH418 (FRA-IAD) with shiny "74H" in the a/c column! I called UA right away and the agent was able to confirm a seat on the new flight. However it took such a long time to manually reissue the ticket that the agent finally gave up after almost 2 hours and told me to call UA again if it doesn't ticket by June N... The agent did give me the LH confirmation number, which I used to secure 2K at LH's website. Fortunately the ticket eventually came through a day later while I was in BKK so all was set.

OK, I'm sure you guys are confused which flights I actually ended up with. Here's the final itinerary:

Positioning for Outbount (ver.2): Revenue ticket

June M-2: AA1001 (PIT-DFW) MD80 Y (Q)
June M-2: AA887 (DFW-YVR) B737-800 Y (Q)


Outbound (ver.2): C award (60K miles+tax/fee)

June M+1: AC3 (YVR-NRT) B777-300ER C (I)
June M+2: TG677 (NRT-BKK) B777-300ER C (I)


Inbound (ver.2): F award (70K miles+tax/fee)

June N: TG924 (BKK-FRA) B777-300ER F (O) (overnight at FRA)
June N+1: LH418 (FRA-IAD) B747-8i F (O)
June N+1: UA3440 (IAD-PIT) ERJ170 Y (XN)



0.2 Disclaimers (a.k.a. excuses)

This is my first TR, and to make things worse English is not my native language, so bear with me!
Despite the lengthy introduction, I'll keep my TR short by focusing on personal experience and impression because most of these products have been extensively covered in other TRs, including an in-depth report on the LH F hard product on B747-8i by LufthansaFlyer (http://boardingarea.com/blogs/lufthansaflyer/2012/06/05/lufthansas-747-8i-first-class-cabin-an-in-depth-look/).
I don't have the habit of carrying a camera on my trips, so I can assure that this TR will be entirely photo-less for those who find photos to be distracting :).


Anyway, I'll start off from LH F on 747-8i in the next post. Although it's one of the last flights I took on this trip, I figure it would be the most interesting flight for most people. I already have a first draft but let me know if you have anything you want me to write about. Stay tuned!

Wondering how B747-8i comes into scene? Well finally she comes. On June M+1, while working in my hotel room before the AC flight to NRT, it occured to me that LH tends to release F award seats close to departure (usually 2 weeks out), and although it was only a few days before my inbound flights, there may still be some F seats available. I immediately suspended my work and started playing around with KVS tool. Imagine my excitement when I saw F availability on LH418 (FRA-IAD) with shiny "74H" in the a/c column! I called UA right away and the agent was able to confirm a seat on the new flight.

Way to go! ^

1.1 Hilton Garden Inn Frankfurt Airport

I stayed at the new HGI after arriving from BKK the previous night. This is a nice alternative to the Sheraton especially considering the price which was almost 100EUR cheaper in my case. The walk is a bit longer, but hey, you will be/have been sitting in an airplane for a few hours so a few minutes of walk wouldn't hurt you. There is also a Hilton right next to HGI (actually they share the same building) if you want a fancier room but it probably costs as much as Sheraton.

I chose to stay close to the airport because I was originally planning to leave FRA at 9am on the LX flight to ZRH. I could have changed to a hotel in the city or even Mainz because the new LH flight doesn't leave until 1pm, but that didn't come to my mind (perhaps I was too excited to be able to get on 747-8i). In the end, it turned out to be a better choice to stick with HGI because the TG flight arrived around 9pm, 2 hours behind schedule, presumably due to the runway closure at BKK.


1.2 FCT and Heavy Ground Traffic at FRA

I finally checked out of HGI at 11am. I knew there is a first-class checkin counter in the terminal and used it for my previous LX F, but I didn't see much sense in stopping by only to be directed to walk over to FCT (besides, I was not going to check my bag). It would be nice if there was a fancy back path to FCT from the checkin counter but unfortunately that's not the case. So I checked in online in the morning and printed the boarding passes for FRA-IAD-PIT at the business center in HGI (free of charge), which might be rather unusual for a F passenger, and headed directly to FCT.

I entered FCT via an elevator from the ground floor and was greeted warmly by an attendant. After the world's most civilized security check (BKK was nice too for TG F passengers), I settled in the lounge area. In a couple of minutes, the attendant brought "proper" boarding passes and told me that he'll get me when they are ready for boarding.

FCT was quiet on a Saturday morning and the departure time quickly approached. Finally the attendant came to me at around 12:40pm, which I thought was a bit late for a 1pm departure. I took the elevator down and went through the world's most civilized passport control (same comments about BKK). I was then told that there will be three passengers on the same IAD flight, so I figured it's going to be a van. Shortly after that, a gentleman (let's call him P) came from upstairs and joined me. The driver got our bags and put them into the van. A couple of minutes later, another gentleman (let's call him Q) came down and joined us, and we were ready to go. Curiously the driver didn't take Q's rollaboard.

Three of us and the driver got into the van and took a quite long ride to our gate C14. The rather crowded vehicle traffic didn't help either but it is always fascinating to pass under those huge airplanes like B747-400, A340-600, and A380. It was already 10 minutes to 1pm when we finally reached the gate. Again the driver took only the bags of P and me and directed us towards the elevator and then to the aircraft door. As it turned out, Q was not in F so that might be the reason for the discrimination?


1.3 On Board B747-8i

Apparently general boarding hadn't commenced yet, so I got a bit worried about my connection at IAD because I only had 98 minutes there, but the excitement of F on a new aircraft preceded the concern.

P and I were escorted to the F cabin, and I was immediately amazed by the spaciousness and brightness. There are small overhead bins, but they looked so small that they didn't really reduce the ceiling height. I didn't have to put my rollaboard into the overhead bin for the reason I'll explain later, so these small bins were enough.

First some random observations about the hard product. Obviously a lot of these are already covered by LufthansaFlyer, but I believe there are a few points not mentioned there.

Seat arrangment: 2A and 2K are excellent seats for solo travelers. From 2K, you can't see the person in 2A because of the counter in front of 3D/G that FAs use for setting up drinks and glasses. You can sort of see the passenger in 1A but it's far away and obviously not facing each other. And other seats are simply not even in your eyesight. 1A and 1K are probably ok as well because the closet between them is pretty wide. Row 3 would be the best choice for couples.

Seat: The seat is very comfortable even in the takeoff/landing configuration. You do have to put on the shoulder strap like in UA's new F during takeoff and landing. Seat controls are in the armrest. The most common controls (reclining, footrest) are always visible and others are covered with a lid. It is somewhat difficult to figure out which button moves which part of the seat because the pictures on the buttons are not particularly intuitive. It would be easier to associate the buttons if there is a picture of the seat and the buttons are placed at their respective locations, like in some other seats.

Storage: There is plenty of storage. Two small compartments are in the armrest (opposite to the seat control), one of which houses the headset plug. Another large storage is in the ottoman. Furthermore, there is a huge wardrobe for each F passenger near the galley, marked by the seat number. I used this space for storing my jacket and rollaboard. The storage between 1A and 1K is for beddings, not for passenger use.

IFE: This is my first time on LH F so I can't compare, but apparently the new IFE system is a huge step up from the old one. Of course it's AVOD controlled by the handset stored in the armrest, as well as additional buttons always visible for basic adjustments like volume. I actually didn't pull out the controller at all because it's located very close to my comfortable hand position facing upwards, in contrast to many other systems where the controller may be in a weird place, often facing sideways and therefore it is difficult to push the buttons without taking it out (or unexpectedly pressing a button that you didn't want to). Another feature I liked was the two outside camera (pointing forward and downward) accessible any time during the flight. The movie selection was decent, but I somehow had hard time finding a movie that I wanted to watch (admittedly, I've been on three flights with AVOD in the past few days so many movies overlapped with their selections).

It does have some drwabacks though. The screen is not particularly big, especially considering its distance from the seat :). Also, the contrast is not great so it is somewhat hard to see the details if the lights are on or the window shades are open during the daytime. Increasing the brightness doesn't help much because it doesn't improve the contrast. I found UA's new display much clearer and easy to watch.

Window: The window shade is operated by a button below the window like on B787s. What is different is that it's only an actuated version of conventional sliding window shades with two different levels so you can't see the outside scenery when the shade is down, whereas on B787s you can still see outside even if the window is shaded.

Tables: There is a small side table in front of the armrest, which felt a bit too far forward especially when the seat is in takeoff/landing configuration. A huge tray table is stored even farther forward so you definitely have to stand up to pull it out. Perhaps LH F passengers are not supposed to do such thing themselves :). Once out, though, it easily slides for an amazingly long way up to your seat.

Did I cover everything? Just ask me if I missed anything...

Anyway, back to this particular flight.

The cabin was fairly full with 6 passengers (8 seats). No idea about the load in C or Y because I didn't see those passengers until I got on the mobile lounge at IAD :D! When I initially picked my seat (2K) a few days prior, only two seats (1K, 2A) had been taken. The situation hadn't changed when I checked in. When I boarded, however, there were already two F passengers chatting excitedly in 3A (one of them was in 3K during the flight). P took 2A and I settled in my seat, 2K. A lady in 1K showed up a few minutes later than us, and a gentleman in 1A showed up very close to departure. He wasn't in his seat for takeoff and landing so I guessed he was a pilot deadheading or on vacation and went up to the cockpit then (must be fun!).

Boarding from the gate area started shortly after we boarded. We finally left the gate around 1:30pm, but the captain announced that the flight time was going to be only 7 hours and 55 minutes so we should be arriving almost on time. The captain also mentioned the rather unusual reason for the delay: a catering truck had an accident on the way so they had to get a new truck. I kind of understood that after looking at the heavy traffic earlier!

I'm not going into the meal service because I suspect it's the same as other LH F flights. After the delicious first meal, I asked the FA to make the seat into bed mode and got solid four hours of sleep. The bed was certainly very comfortable, but the fact that I hadn't quite adjusted to Europe time probably helped as well.

We had a light snack around an hour before arrival. The weather around IAD was clear and I had a nice view of the airport from my window during descent towards the south and a 180-degree turn for runway 1R. The forward camera also showed nice view of 1R once we lined up. Despite the delay, we arrived at gate B45 five minutes ahead of schedule as promised.

1.4 Connection at IAD

While as a F passenger I was one of the first people to leave the plane, we had to wait about 20 minutes for the mobile lounge to fill up. Then we were taken to the immigration in C terminal. I just got approved for Global Entry a few weeks ago and this was the first time I actually used the kiosk. The immigration lines were not so long in general, but the GE lane was completely empty and I finished the immigration process in a minute. Without a checked luggage, I was at the security check for connection in no time.

The short UX flight to PIT was uneventful. The flight did have F cabin but didn't have any award space so I was in Y, which was not a big deal at all on a one-hour flight. A question to UA experts however is whether I should have been on the u/g waitlist as a PPlus card holder but I'd probably better ask at UA forum.

Well, thanks for reading! The next post will probably be on my first AA flights as an EXP...

I need pictures!

Sorry for the lack of pictures... That's probably why this thread isn't so popular? As a matter of fact, I wasn't planning to write a TR until I scored LH F when I was already on the road, so I was totally unprepared. Maybe next time...

2. AA PIT-DFW-YVR: First flights as EXP

2.1 Booking and Upgrade Process

As I mentioned before, I'm one of the UA 1Ks who got status matched to Executive Platinum (EXP) from AA (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileageplus-consolidated/1340221-aa-doing-free-ua-elite-status-matches-27-apr-2012-ltd-1k-gs.html). I flew PIT-DFW-NRT-LAX on paid C/F back in March as a GM but this was going to be my first set of flights as EXP. I initially booked PIT-JFK (single cabin) but had to change it to PIT-DFW-YVR and both segments had F cabin. So I was suddenly in the upgrade game.

Upgrade on PIT-DFW was easy. It didn't clear at the upgrade window for EXP (T-100 hours) but cleared around T-72 hours and I was automatically assigned an aisle seat in the last row of F, perhaps because of AA's FEBO (front even, back odd) policy for meal selection order. DFW-YVR was very tough with only 3 seats on sale in C when I booked the flights about 25 days out, which further decreased to 1 on the day before travel. So obviously it wasn't going to clear until the gate, if ever. More on that later.

A couple of things were new to me as a frequent UA flyer. I didn't receive an upgrade notification for PIT-DFW; I found that out by looking at my reservation myself wondering why my upgrade didn't clear with wide-open F cabin. Maybe my notification setting was not correct, but I did receive a schedule change notification for my previous PIT-JFK segment so that doesn't look likely. This is exactly the opposite of UA, who notifies me of upgrades but doesn't for (even sometimes critical) schedule changes.

Another thing is that there is no way for us to look at the upgrade waitlist and assess the possibility of upgrade. At UA, you know your place in the waitlist once you check in and compare that with the number of open seats (or watch yourself slide down the list). It would have been very useful in tough upgrade situations like my DFW-YVR flight. In constrast, at AA I can see that the upgrade was requested before the upgrade window. This used to be the case with old UA website but the current system doesn't show those information.


2.2 PIT-DFW

Anyway, fast forward to the date of travel. I arrived at PIT about 1.5 hours before the flight and checked my bag at the elite line within a couple of minutes. The security line was fairly long for mid-day on a weekday, but not too bad and left me some time to rest at US Airways Club. My United Club (UC) membership grants US Club access even when I'm flying non-*A airlines, which is a good deal at PIT because there is no Admirals Club (AC).

I boarded around the end of priority boarding so I was second to last F passenger to board. My seatmate was an extremely friendly dude from Dallas and we chatted a bit about travel and sport. The lunch (or maybe snack?) was a choice of barbecue chicken salad or cheese quesadilla and I chose the salad, which was ok. The a/c also had wifi, which I gladly took advantage of. I found it interesting that the FA and pilot kept calling the destination by the code "DFW" instead of Dallas. Maybe Dallas locals have no problem, but how many people can immediately associate "DFW" with Dallas airport?

The flight was fairly uneventful and we landed a few minutes ahead of schedule. However, gate arrival was delayed by about 10 minutes because departing aircrafts from nearby gates were blocking our way. That sounded like ground control's fault, not AA's.


2.3 AC@DFW and DFW-YVR

I had about 3 hours of layover at DFW so it was an excellent opportunity to use one of the AC passes I received when I got AA co-branded Citi credit card earlier this year. I used the lounge in March and I was quite impressed by the spaciousness and cleanliness. While the free food offering is about the same as UC, they also have decent paid food options.

The YVR flight still showed J1 according to EF, so I went to the gate a bit early because I wanted to buy my dinner if my upgrade didn't clear. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was #1 of 3 people on the upgrade waitlist. At UA, I would probably have been #8 of 40 on such a major route.

So I decided to hang around the gate area. A few minutes later, a gate agent called a name that sounded remotely like my name (my last name is not difficult to read but the real pronunciation is slightly different from the typical English way). I approached the podium and asked the agent, and sure enough he handed me a new C boarding pass. Unfortunately the seat was a bulkhead window but I was happy to grab the last C seat.

The aircraft was a 737-800 with new seats. The C seat was very comfortable, and apparently didn't intrude the space behind when reclined (not sure because I was in bulkhead). Bulkhead had more than enough legroom. I could get in and out without having the aisle person standing up.

Being an odd flight number again, meal order was taken from the back so I didn't have a choice but to take the pasta option. But it wasn't a bad choice at all---actually it was incredibly good and I really enjoyed the meal.

The flight arrived on time. The passport control was fairly empty and I reached the baggage claim area fairly quickly. Or so I thought... Actually my bag beat me! Don't know whether the bags are handled by AA or contractors at YVR, but in any case I was very impressed.