Trip Reports - FewMiles' mini-European tour a.k.a. All I wanted was to meet a bunch of FTers

... with advance apologies to chexfan for once again stealing his favourite title. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif

[ This space reserved for upcoming trip report ]

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Few,

So far I'm fascinated by this report. If everyone wrote trip reports this short; and to the point, we'd all be the better for it.
But since I'm an infrequent visitor to this forum, as we like to say in New York, "I should talk?"

Signed,
Can't sleep in HPN
Dan

Fantastic report, I loved the detail! Don't forget to let me know when you're coming to London so we can do a beer or two..(or three, or four, etc........)

777Brit, please see here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/002082.html). Can you make it tonight? i.e. in 90 minutes?

FewMiles..

Here goes nothing!

Summary

This trip report details FewMiles' journey
YEG-x/YYC-x/ORD-x/LHR-AMS-x/LHR-EDI-LGW-x/DFW-x/YYC-YEG. Apart from all the travel, the fun part for me on this trip was the opportunity to meet many FTers.

24Jun YEG-YYC WestJet 80

This was my first time on WestJet and I was flying WS both to try them out and to fly something other than Air Canada, which really in the end is the same reason. This flight can be summarised as simple, friendly, and efficient. For flights to Calgary, there was a dedicated check-in line. The whole process took less than a minute.

The Edmonton airport also has a dedicated security line for people flying to YYC. I was glad, because it cut down the process from about 15 minutes to less than 5. The North terminal (where WestJet's gates are)
was very crowded. The gate agents were busy, but were a cheery and friendly bunch. Boarding for my flight was called after a short wait.

The flight was quite packed and because I had requested a window seat, I was in the back few rows of the 737-200 and seated amongst a bunch of WS deadheading employees. On this very short flight, service consists of a snack and a drink (juices, soft drink, or tea/coffie). The flight was short and nothing much to note.

Calgary airport is undergoing expansion so it looks like WS will be getting some nice new space sometime, but of course this means a bit of a mess while they're doing their renovations. It took a long time to get
my bag back and in the end it was spit out on the next carousel over. Oh well, I had made it to Calgary, a oneworld city...

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Processing an upgrade, reissuing a ticket
YYC-ORD AA 1792

I had nearly three hours in Calgary so the first order of business was to head to the AA ticket counter to get an upgrade award proessed. (Thank you for the wonderful gift, SanDiego1K http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif ) The upgrades had already cleared but a ticket re-issue was also required. I therefore dropped my ticket off at the AA ATO. The agent told me that it could take her a long time so I went to grab lunch while she fought with the dinosaur better known as T-REX.

In the end, two agents had put close to two hours on the problem alas with no success. Because my check-in deadline was fast approaching, the ATO agent just checked me in and printed out my boarding passes in upgraded J. So off I went through US INS. It looks like new digs for them too.

I was horrified to see that the silliness known as random secondary "security" inspections has spread to Canada too. Apparently this is a US FAA regulation. Thanks to the many accounts I have read on FT, it was easy to avoid being the "random" target. Some poor woman got selected even though boarding had not been called yet. Her mistake was standing too close to the gate and the security "let me disassemble your whole bag" table.

Business class boarding was called and I took advantage of the fact that the security screener was still busy ("Ma'am, please remove your shoes.") and scooted into line to board.

The front cabin was completely full for today's flight. Coach was fairly full as well. Pre-departure drinks were served and I got my OJ in a plastic cup. After takeoff, service began with warmed nuts and a drink.

I noticed that the little bowl of nuts was not full to the brim and the missing volume was due to the lack of peanuts. (There's some thread on the AA forum discussing peanuts.) Hot towel service followed. Lunch was a choice of a cold chicken plate or a cold salmon plate and came with the usual accompanyments. This flight used to be a dinner service, not a lunch service. But maybe this is because the schedule shifts by an hour in the fall/winter time.

I slept for the rest of the flight, waking up just before we began our descent into Chicago. I am therefore completely unsure whether dessert was ever offered. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif Oh well. We landed and parked at gate H6 - super close to the Admiral's Club.

Meeting some FTers and
ORD-LHR AA 46

At the AC I went up and after walking once around the lounge, I was paged and so went back down to the reception desk where I found ElmhurstNick and Ken hAAmer waiting for me. We managed to find AnnaS shortly after. We four troublemakers had fun chatting for an hour before Ken and I had to go board our flights. I was about to get to see international business class for the first time ever while Ken was off to suffer through yet another flight in a UA First Suite.

Boarding was uneventful as I managed to avoid the inane security check once again. I made my way to my seat and to my disappointment, I had scored a pseudo window seat. (Note to self: avoid 11AJ on the 777.)

Fortunately, I still had enough to see outside. Biz class was completely full for this flight.

I settled into my seat which was nice and comfy, wide, and had tons of space in front of me. Of course it was, this was business class!

Hooray! Big seat, nice menu, neat little amenity kit, Bose noise cancelling headphones, hey this is really, really cool!! Can you tell that this was my first time in international business class?

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[This message has been edited by FewMiles (edited 07-15-2002).]

Nice report so far... keep em coming! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Have you found that security in Canada is the only place which make you turn on every single electronic device?

Thanks FewMiles, sorry to have missed you in Chicago . . .