QuietLion
Jun 17, 02, 10:54 am
Susan Dalton
Our airport taxi arrived 15 minutes early for our 5:45 a.m. pickup but we didn’t so he cooled his heels while we finished packing for a two-day house-hunting excursion to Seattle. Alaska Airlines had thoughtfully comped us both to MVP Gold so we took advantage of the industry’s most generous elite program and used the fabulous web site to book cheap tickets with upgrade inventory available. A quick call to Alaska confirmed the upgrades and a web check-in the night before saved us from even the easy kiosk check-in at the airport.
We gave the driver a generous tip and headed straight for security at LAX Terminal 3. Hunnybear got caught with two personal items in addition to her Briggs & Riley so she put her purse inside the bag and then was allowed up. A ten-minute line stretched around the upper concourse so we flashed our MVP Gold cards and asked for the VIP line but it was not possible so we went to the back of the line and snaked our way to the front.
Just as we got to the point where the line split up into three screening machines, a middle-aged blonde in a blue business suit, looking kind of like a flight attendant but more expensive, zoomed up the escalator and cut right into a gap in the line for the leftmost screening machine. I waited for the security guard to direct her to the proper place but the guard was distracted so I said, “Excuse me, did you just cut in front of all of us?” She mumbled, “I just went up that escalator.” I said, “The end of the line is over there. We’ve all been waiting 10 minutes.” She ignored me.
Other passengers got into the act now: “I guess lines are for other people.” “She doesn’t do lines.” Finally, as the security guard caught another line-crasher in the act, Hunnybear said, “You might as well ask her too,” referring to the blue-suited transgressor. The other passengers chimed in, “That’s right.” The guard asked, “Do you work here?” just as blue-suit was next in line for the conveyor belt. She mumbled, “I just went up that escalator.” Bang! She was out of there on her ear and sent to the back of the class. Triumphant laughter rippled through the line as good triumphed over evil. “She’ll probably be sitting next to us,” I said to Hunnybear.
Security didn’t find anything so we headed for the gate and showed our web boarding passes. They checked our IDs, put First Class stickers on them, and told us boarding would be in five minutes. While we waited, who should show up but blue-suit. Sure enough, she was on our flight to Seattle and we were certain she would be in the First Class cabin. When boarding was announced, we waited for the sacrificial lamb to get searched and headed to the Jetway but blue-suit zoomed out of nowhere and beat us to the spot. This was a fair race, however, so we had no complaints about her beating us and we didn’t even point out to the agent that she had two personal items. Hunnybear and I settled into 2D and F on an antediluvian 737 with blue-suit right behind me in 3D.
Alaska still offered no preflight drink service other than the bottle of orange juice (water for later flights) waiting at each seat. We begged for a couple glasses of water and got them from the nice lady. We enjoyed our water and the provided Wall Street Journal as we heard all about blue-suit during a series of cell-phone calls. Her name was Susan Dalton and she worked for a money-management firm. She was very interested in getting the most recent 50-50 report. She gave out her cell number at least three times and we thought about writing it down and posting it on FlyerTalk but we decided she had suffered enough. Well, not quite. The moment we took off Hunnybear and I both reclined our seats to the max and left them there. Heh heh.
Breakfast was a choice of cereal or cheese-mushroom omelet. We both enjoyed the omelet, which came with fruit and ham, along with coffee. Weather was clear and we watched the beautiful scenery during the 2:12 flight. We landed on time at Sea-Tac and who should help me get my bag down from overhead but Susan Dalton. Sometimes you just get off on the wrong foot with people.
Avis had upgraded our reserved AMC Gremlin to a Grand Prix thanks to the President’s Club so we plunked our luggage into the spacious trunk and met with the real-estate agent referred by Lending Tree (3000 Continental miles for every $10,000 of purchase price) before checking into the hotel.
Our Priceline bid of $35/night had landed us the Hyatt Regency Bellevue thanks to www.biddingfortravel.com. (http://www.biddingfortravel.com.) I had never activated my Diamond membership that came with Centurion and I didn’t get it done in time so we ended up with a regular room on the Gold Passport floor. The room came with high-speed Internet for $9.95/day plus tax and had a nice view of downtown Bellevue. The most important feature of the Hyatt was a Tully’s Coffee located right outside the front door. Yum.
Big Mountains
We had booked our flight out of Seattle for the evening but we needed to change it to the morning so I called Alaska MVP and they switched it at no charge, complete with confirmed upgrades. I checked the TV for the hotel bill and they had charged us for four days of Internet, two for each of our laptops. A brief conversation with the front desk confirmed they had really intended to double-charge us because we had two computers but they removed two of the charges anyway. Bringing a router would solve the problem I supposed but I’d rather just keep arguing.
Hunnybear procured a pair of parting Tully’s and we drove the silver Grand Prix back to Sea-Tac. We had left plenty of time because the traffic but we didn’t even need to use the diamond lane. I forgot to buy gas so we got stuck for a $15 fuel charge making the total almost $50/day for the car rental, plus $16 valet parking charge at the Hyatt. I usually did better.
I had forgotten to attempt web checkin so we used the kiosk at the Avis return counter and got two pretty boarding passes after averring that no strangers had looked at our bags. MVP Golds got to cut the long line at Sea-Tac so we pulled a Susan Dalton and waltzed into the short screening line. They didn’t find anything and we breezed through like the old days. We had an hour till boarding so I joined the very crowded Alaska Board Room for $175 and we sat on a sofa and watched people watch Tiger Woods play golf as we sipped Canada Dry seltzer.
When it was time we wheeled our bags to gate D9 and boarded the MD-80 to Las Vegas. Once again we had 2D and F but this time Susan Dalton wasn’t there to entertain us. The crew on this flight was in Vegas party mode and joking around. Half-liter bottles of water waited at our seats along with the Wall Street Journal. We took off on time and one of the male flight attendants got on the speaker and pointed out the sights: clouds, but if we could see under them there would be big mountains.
Lunch on this flight was a choice of turkey sandwich or marinated grilled chicken with rice. As the steward made his way from the front of the plane taking orders, everybody ordered the chicken. When I also asked for the chicken, he turned to Hunnybear and said, “What would you like to drink with your turkey sandwich?” I offered the chicken to my beautiful bride but she insisted she’d rather have the turkey. The food arrived on linen-covered trays, mine with the usual prayer card but Hunnybear’s strangely missing it. I offered my prayer card to my beautiful bride but she insisted she’d rather have none. I got a generous serving of cold chicken and Hunnybear picked the turkey out of the sandwich.
We had the good turbulence on approach and landed on time in Las Vegas. We went the secret way to the Avis bus, which dropped us at a nice green Mitsubishi Diamante although this one had no leather or sunroof. It was already close to 100 degrees in Sin City and we looked forward to a relaxing weekend after the grueling house hunting.
The end.
------------------
I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com (http://www.liontales.com)
Our airport taxi arrived 15 minutes early for our 5:45 a.m. pickup but we didn’t so he cooled his heels while we finished packing for a two-day house-hunting excursion to Seattle. Alaska Airlines had thoughtfully comped us both to MVP Gold so we took advantage of the industry’s most generous elite program and used the fabulous web site to book cheap tickets with upgrade inventory available. A quick call to Alaska confirmed the upgrades and a web check-in the night before saved us from even the easy kiosk check-in at the airport.
We gave the driver a generous tip and headed straight for security at LAX Terminal 3. Hunnybear got caught with two personal items in addition to her Briggs & Riley so she put her purse inside the bag and then was allowed up. A ten-minute line stretched around the upper concourse so we flashed our MVP Gold cards and asked for the VIP line but it was not possible so we went to the back of the line and snaked our way to the front.
Just as we got to the point where the line split up into three screening machines, a middle-aged blonde in a blue business suit, looking kind of like a flight attendant but more expensive, zoomed up the escalator and cut right into a gap in the line for the leftmost screening machine. I waited for the security guard to direct her to the proper place but the guard was distracted so I said, “Excuse me, did you just cut in front of all of us?” She mumbled, “I just went up that escalator.” I said, “The end of the line is over there. We’ve all been waiting 10 minutes.” She ignored me.
Other passengers got into the act now: “I guess lines are for other people.” “She doesn’t do lines.” Finally, as the security guard caught another line-crasher in the act, Hunnybear said, “You might as well ask her too,” referring to the blue-suited transgressor. The other passengers chimed in, “That’s right.” The guard asked, “Do you work here?” just as blue-suit was next in line for the conveyor belt. She mumbled, “I just went up that escalator.” Bang! She was out of there on her ear and sent to the back of the class. Triumphant laughter rippled through the line as good triumphed over evil. “She’ll probably be sitting next to us,” I said to Hunnybear.
Security didn’t find anything so we headed for the gate and showed our web boarding passes. They checked our IDs, put First Class stickers on them, and told us boarding would be in five minutes. While we waited, who should show up but blue-suit. Sure enough, she was on our flight to Seattle and we were certain she would be in the First Class cabin. When boarding was announced, we waited for the sacrificial lamb to get searched and headed to the Jetway but blue-suit zoomed out of nowhere and beat us to the spot. This was a fair race, however, so we had no complaints about her beating us and we didn’t even point out to the agent that she had two personal items. Hunnybear and I settled into 2D and F on an antediluvian 737 with blue-suit right behind me in 3D.
Alaska still offered no preflight drink service other than the bottle of orange juice (water for later flights) waiting at each seat. We begged for a couple glasses of water and got them from the nice lady. We enjoyed our water and the provided Wall Street Journal as we heard all about blue-suit during a series of cell-phone calls. Her name was Susan Dalton and she worked for a money-management firm. She was very interested in getting the most recent 50-50 report. She gave out her cell number at least three times and we thought about writing it down and posting it on FlyerTalk but we decided she had suffered enough. Well, not quite. The moment we took off Hunnybear and I both reclined our seats to the max and left them there. Heh heh.
Breakfast was a choice of cereal or cheese-mushroom omelet. We both enjoyed the omelet, which came with fruit and ham, along with coffee. Weather was clear and we watched the beautiful scenery during the 2:12 flight. We landed on time at Sea-Tac and who should help me get my bag down from overhead but Susan Dalton. Sometimes you just get off on the wrong foot with people.
Avis had upgraded our reserved AMC Gremlin to a Grand Prix thanks to the President’s Club so we plunked our luggage into the spacious trunk and met with the real-estate agent referred by Lending Tree (3000 Continental miles for every $10,000 of purchase price) before checking into the hotel.
Our Priceline bid of $35/night had landed us the Hyatt Regency Bellevue thanks to www.biddingfortravel.com. (http://www.biddingfortravel.com.) I had never activated my Diamond membership that came with Centurion and I didn’t get it done in time so we ended up with a regular room on the Gold Passport floor. The room came with high-speed Internet for $9.95/day plus tax and had a nice view of downtown Bellevue. The most important feature of the Hyatt was a Tully’s Coffee located right outside the front door. Yum.
Big Mountains
We had booked our flight out of Seattle for the evening but we needed to change it to the morning so I called Alaska MVP and they switched it at no charge, complete with confirmed upgrades. I checked the TV for the hotel bill and they had charged us for four days of Internet, two for each of our laptops. A brief conversation with the front desk confirmed they had really intended to double-charge us because we had two computers but they removed two of the charges anyway. Bringing a router would solve the problem I supposed but I’d rather just keep arguing.
Hunnybear procured a pair of parting Tully’s and we drove the silver Grand Prix back to Sea-Tac. We had left plenty of time because the traffic but we didn’t even need to use the diamond lane. I forgot to buy gas so we got stuck for a $15 fuel charge making the total almost $50/day for the car rental, plus $16 valet parking charge at the Hyatt. I usually did better.
I had forgotten to attempt web checkin so we used the kiosk at the Avis return counter and got two pretty boarding passes after averring that no strangers had looked at our bags. MVP Golds got to cut the long line at Sea-Tac so we pulled a Susan Dalton and waltzed into the short screening line. They didn’t find anything and we breezed through like the old days. We had an hour till boarding so I joined the very crowded Alaska Board Room for $175 and we sat on a sofa and watched people watch Tiger Woods play golf as we sipped Canada Dry seltzer.
When it was time we wheeled our bags to gate D9 and boarded the MD-80 to Las Vegas. Once again we had 2D and F but this time Susan Dalton wasn’t there to entertain us. The crew on this flight was in Vegas party mode and joking around. Half-liter bottles of water waited at our seats along with the Wall Street Journal. We took off on time and one of the male flight attendants got on the speaker and pointed out the sights: clouds, but if we could see under them there would be big mountains.
Lunch on this flight was a choice of turkey sandwich or marinated grilled chicken with rice. As the steward made his way from the front of the plane taking orders, everybody ordered the chicken. When I also asked for the chicken, he turned to Hunnybear and said, “What would you like to drink with your turkey sandwich?” I offered the chicken to my beautiful bride but she insisted she’d rather have the turkey. The food arrived on linen-covered trays, mine with the usual prayer card but Hunnybear’s strangely missing it. I offered my prayer card to my beautiful bride but she insisted she’d rather have none. I got a generous serving of cold chicken and Hunnybear picked the turkey out of the sandwich.
We had the good turbulence on approach and landed on time in Las Vegas. We went the secret way to the Avis bus, which dropped us at a nice green Mitsubishi Diamante although this one had no leather or sunroof. It was already close to 100 degrees in Sin City and we looked forward to a relaxing weekend after the grueling house hunting.
The end.
------------------
I hope you enjoy my Lion Tales. For photos, past travelogues, subscriptions, and more, see www.liontales.com (http://www.liontales.com)