bicoastal
Mar 29, 05, 2:33 am
After my last AA mileage run, I've come to wonder if all the hassles one goes through to get to the top top- tier of the AA Mileage program is actually worth it.
I'll give you a quick run down of my last mileage run. But first a little background.
I love flying and I love flying on AA since I was a kid. Actually it’s a love/hate relationship that I have, but I guess we all have such relations with most large companies nowadays.
Since I didn't requalify for PLT last year, so my status dropped to GLD. AA offered to renew PLT for $761 but I was going to get to PLT in a few months anyway, besides. I could use that $761 for a couple Europe trips soon so I thought I would be wasting my money. My goal was to get to Executive Platinum by October this year. I figured the best way to do this is do 10
Europe round trips, (or 8 Europes and two Japans) to get to EXP. I live in Los Angeles and have friends and relatives in London and Frankfurt so I could always drop in catch up and have dinner with them on a weekend. Each round trip gets me 10K. I shop for the best fares out there and have managed to get some good ones. I just did the last EUR05 promotion when they had 5K 10K and 15K bonus miles for every round trip flown on AA earlier in the year.
This 4th trip last weekend turned into a series of events akin to a mild nightmare. The routing was: JFK-LHR Friday night/arrive Sat morning. Have dinner with friends Saturday night, then Sunday morning on BA LHR-FRA connecting to AA71 to DFW connecting to LAX. I used this strange return routing because absolutely nothing was available back to the states from LHR or LGW. Not even LGW-RDU which I sometimes use as a last resort was totally sold out. I couldn't figure out why everything was packed.! It was spring break weekend in the US but have todays spring breakers become sophisticated enough to go to
London now? Perhaps.
There were over 50 seats open from Frankfurt and I managed to find an S/class seat so I opted for BA to FRA at 7:20am departure arriving at 1005, had about a two hour layover in Frankfurt so I would be able to check in for the AA flight to DFW.
One of my work colleagues is an EXP with gave me two VIP upgrade certificates for my birthday. I used one of the certificates
to upgrade the FRA-DFW longhaul and DFW-LAX flights home.
When I'm in London I usually stay at the London Paddington Hilton hotel. The rates are pretty good and I've begun to realize the staff knows me by name now. But the main reason I stay there is because the hotel is right in Paddington Station from where the Heathrow Express train leaves. from the hotel door to the train door is 3 mins. You get to Heathrow Airport in 15
mins I would usually run to the train 10 mins before its to depart and I'm at the check in counter at the airport in half hour. It’s like clockwork and I get the routine down perfectly. This Sunday morning, however, I got to the tracks at 0600 for a 0610 departure. A Heathrow express rep tells me that there had been track work during the night, and there will be no trains
for another 3 hours! She gives me a form to fill out for a refund for the return journey (I had bought a round trip trainticket at Heathrow when I arrived from LA) As compensation a bus service is being offered for free to the airport. Travel
time- 1 Hour!!!!
I know for a fact that BA would have certainly closed the flight by the time I got to the counter.
I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic, but this was when I thought I'd have a nervous breakdown. How can a well thought out plan like this grind to a halt so horribly? I stood there in the middle of freezing Paddington Station wondering what on earth I was going to do now. I know for a fact LHR and LGW was impossible to get out of for 3 days to anywhere in the US.
I walked up the stairs back to the hotel. Luckily I wasn't checked out of the computer because I just left my bill and key in in the drop box in the hotel lobby. I asked for my room key back and they were all too happy to oblige.
I called local AA res in London. CLOSED. It was only 630am "Office hours are from 830am to 5pm on Sundays" They do state though, that if this is an emergency you can call a specific 800 number, but "long distance charges will apply." I didn’t care. I just wanted to find a way home. I went downstairs into Paddington Station where a currency change clerk was setting
up to open. I bought a 5GBP phone card and went back to the room to call the number. The number rings through to Dallas
(oh,by the way, this number is a great number to use because you don’t get the normal spiel about "you can book your travel on
AA.com or press 1 for this and press 2 for that etc, you also don’t get the $5 fee or the "Please speak your AAdvantage number for the 14th time I still didn’t hear it" crap, it’s just "Thanks for calling AA all agents are busy please hold on-that’s it!) After about 2 mins I speak with a rep to see if I can
change my booking to travel out of LHR. She says everything is full out of London "Only thing I can offer is a business class ticket for $5784-plus a $200 reissue fee.
Oh Boy.
As she looks for other few alternatives, I quietly ask myself. Why am I here in London again?
Of course I don’t take that option. I hang up and fired up the old laptop that I was grateful to have carried. I never take it with me on mileage runs, but I was working on stuff that needed to be presented on Monday.
I log on to AA.com and find something. There is one flight leaving Sunday night at 530pm from Heathrow with a change in Chicago. I would arrive LAX at 1119pm. Price: $1238 one way. Yikes! I had no choice but to book it. But then something occurred to me. What if I turn this one way booking a round trip booking back to London? That way I can still use theLHR-FRA-DFW-LAX ticket and just pay the $200 reissue using the new return date of my choosing. After checking my calendar I choose a date for the return to LHR and reprice the itinerary. The price? $982.00.
Cool. A little more than I'm accustomed to paying and it was kinda breaking my mileage run budget but this was the best option
out there.
Of course there had to be another problem. That flight to Chicago? No seats on the seat chart. AA.com states I would have to wait until checkin. I had a solution. I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in a middle seat of 5 in the back,so I called AA in Dallas again to have them transfer the EVIP electronic upgrade.certificate from the Frankfurt booking into the Chicago booking. Surprisingly it wasn't a problem for them to do that. There
were heaps of seats in business class available and I was able to be confirmed right away and get a seat assignment which was 12G on this 777. Chicago-LAX had one F class seat in inventory but I wasn't able to be confirmed as A class is the proper booking class for these EVIP certificates. My seat from ORD-LAX was 15D but was waitlisted for an upgrade. No problem.
Knowing this would be a long day I actually managed to get back to bed.(its now about 10am) the hotel says it would be ok for late checkout at 2pm. (I love that hotel)
At 230pm I check out and head to the trains which have now resumed service.and get to Heathrow at 245pm. Heathrow was an incredible zoo! Dear God I haven't seen so may people there since the BA strike. AA's
main cabin checkin snaked around the stanchions and went out into the main walkway area there were about 3 people in front of me at the business class check-in line. I checkin and get my boarding pass. (be warned there is a 20GBP departure tax whenever you fly in business or first class on any airline from he UK, I didn’t know this earlier in the year and threw a fit the first time I had to pay because the agent didn't explain it to me properly- he had said "you just have to pay it-end of story".)
If you've been to Heathrow you know the airplanes are 30 miles away from the check in counter but I was there over 2hours before departure and had a lot of time before departure so I did some plane watching and hung out in the Admirals Club for a few hours.
Boarding was called from the Admirals Club 20 mins before departure and everyone stampeded out of there. It was funny to watch.
Got on board and sat in my seat and noticed something quite odd. Except for the empty middle seat next to me. seat nextto me in the middle three section, Business Class was packed! I shrugged it off and thought there might have been a cancellation and everyone was accommodated on this flight. We push back on time and take off like a bat out hell.(It was about 5mins from push back to take off)
mins later) I start a conversation with the lady in 12D who proceeds to tell me that she was so excited to be sitting inbusiness class and how cool and new this all was to her.
"You see, she leans as far across as she can across the empty middle seat"They upgraded me for free because they ran out of seats in economy"
"Huh?"? I say
"Yeah,in fact there were about 15 people in all they upgraded at the gate because when we checked in they gave us a boarding passes with no seat number on it and told us it would be sorted out at the gate, so we waited till the last minute and they upgraded us"
I Asked. "So you must be one of those elite high flyers with American eh?"
"Oh no. I've never been a member, I only signed up for a number last night" I've never flown American before. Isn't this so cool" she says.
I smiled politely and thought to myself, Oh well, What ya gonna do? Get upset? It didn't matter to me anymore. I was just glad to be going home. Had I know this was going to happen I would have left the certificate on the Frankfurt booking and negotiated an upgrade at check-in. But how was I to know?
Just about an hour before landing in Chicago a very petite lovely young British woman in 10J had a major smokers coughing fit that went on for about 10mins. If you couldn't see her from where you sat you would swear it was a very big boned 70-ish year old man. It was the type of cough that ended with that gut wrenching sound when the phlegm comes up to your mouth when you want to spit. It makes your stomach turn over when you hear it. I swear, everyone reached for their own mouths with both
hands to prevent themselves from throwing up. No one uttered a word except for the kid in sitting next to his father in 13D with his father in 13D go "Eeeeewwwwwwwww!!" and then burst out laughing. I felt my ice-cream coming back up my throat. The flight attendant who had been pouring coffee froze in disgust and walked over to very politely ask if she was ok and suggested perhaps using the lavatory might be a good idea.
Chicago was another drama. Landed at 630pm. No waiting at immigration I got to the gate. The agent didn't know what an EVIP certificate was. After some searching around my reservation he found it. First Class was now booked full but not everyone had checked in so he put me on the standby list anyway. (I thought London did that but apparently not) One thing about the EVIP certificates is that it is gives you a higher priority than those standing by on normal Electronic (sticker) upgrades. The only thing that trumps a GLD member using an EVIP is an EXP or PLT using an EVIP. Long story short I didn’t get the upgrade, which was ok. Since I was the last to board there was no space for the roll on bag in the overhead bin so walk
back to the door and have it gate checked.(I never check luggage) But I didn’t mind.
To my surprise I found out the next day from a friend who works in the Admirals Club when I had to do a one day trip to SFO. I had told her about my London trip and and my little crisis I had. Just in conversation she looked up my reservation and said. "Do you know that they had you
coded wrong on the standby list out of Chicago?.
"They had you prioritized as GLD with electronic upgrade stickers. Not EVIP. At closeout, there were 2 seats left in first A Platinum and Gold were upgraded ahead of you and if you did manage to get the upgrade, your Electronic stickers would have been deducted from your upgrade account.
So, I ask all of you who do mileage runs: with all the drama that can and will enfold in ones journey to the highly sought after EXPs-are we willing to deal with the battles that go with it? Perhaps it’s why the Executive Platinum card is black- to show the suffering and pain and dirt you have to drag yourself through to finally reach there. Perhaps is a card that helps
you build character on how to deal with stress.
With the money I've budgeted for MR's I could just buy a big screen TV, Buy some Art or better yet, just save it.Rumours of AA falling into a bankruptcy on the horizon doesn’t sit well with me either.
I'm starting to reconsider.
Bicoastal
I'll give you a quick run down of my last mileage run. But first a little background.
I love flying and I love flying on AA since I was a kid. Actually it’s a love/hate relationship that I have, but I guess we all have such relations with most large companies nowadays.
Since I didn't requalify for PLT last year, so my status dropped to GLD. AA offered to renew PLT for $761 but I was going to get to PLT in a few months anyway, besides. I could use that $761 for a couple Europe trips soon so I thought I would be wasting my money. My goal was to get to Executive Platinum by October this year. I figured the best way to do this is do 10
Europe round trips, (or 8 Europes and two Japans) to get to EXP. I live in Los Angeles and have friends and relatives in London and Frankfurt so I could always drop in catch up and have dinner with them on a weekend. Each round trip gets me 10K. I shop for the best fares out there and have managed to get some good ones. I just did the last EUR05 promotion when they had 5K 10K and 15K bonus miles for every round trip flown on AA earlier in the year.
This 4th trip last weekend turned into a series of events akin to a mild nightmare. The routing was: JFK-LHR Friday night/arrive Sat morning. Have dinner with friends Saturday night, then Sunday morning on BA LHR-FRA connecting to AA71 to DFW connecting to LAX. I used this strange return routing because absolutely nothing was available back to the states from LHR or LGW. Not even LGW-RDU which I sometimes use as a last resort was totally sold out. I couldn't figure out why everything was packed.! It was spring break weekend in the US but have todays spring breakers become sophisticated enough to go to
London now? Perhaps.
There were over 50 seats open from Frankfurt and I managed to find an S/class seat so I opted for BA to FRA at 7:20am departure arriving at 1005, had about a two hour layover in Frankfurt so I would be able to check in for the AA flight to DFW.
One of my work colleagues is an EXP with gave me two VIP upgrade certificates for my birthday. I used one of the certificates
to upgrade the FRA-DFW longhaul and DFW-LAX flights home.
When I'm in London I usually stay at the London Paddington Hilton hotel. The rates are pretty good and I've begun to realize the staff knows me by name now. But the main reason I stay there is because the hotel is right in Paddington Station from where the Heathrow Express train leaves. from the hotel door to the train door is 3 mins. You get to Heathrow Airport in 15
mins I would usually run to the train 10 mins before its to depart and I'm at the check in counter at the airport in half hour. It’s like clockwork and I get the routine down perfectly. This Sunday morning, however, I got to the tracks at 0600 for a 0610 departure. A Heathrow express rep tells me that there had been track work during the night, and there will be no trains
for another 3 hours! She gives me a form to fill out for a refund for the return journey (I had bought a round trip trainticket at Heathrow when I arrived from LA) As compensation a bus service is being offered for free to the airport. Travel
time- 1 Hour!!!!
I know for a fact that BA would have certainly closed the flight by the time I got to the counter.
I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic, but this was when I thought I'd have a nervous breakdown. How can a well thought out plan like this grind to a halt so horribly? I stood there in the middle of freezing Paddington Station wondering what on earth I was going to do now. I know for a fact LHR and LGW was impossible to get out of for 3 days to anywhere in the US.
I walked up the stairs back to the hotel. Luckily I wasn't checked out of the computer because I just left my bill and key in in the drop box in the hotel lobby. I asked for my room key back and they were all too happy to oblige.
I called local AA res in London. CLOSED. It was only 630am "Office hours are from 830am to 5pm on Sundays" They do state though, that if this is an emergency you can call a specific 800 number, but "long distance charges will apply." I didn’t care. I just wanted to find a way home. I went downstairs into Paddington Station where a currency change clerk was setting
up to open. I bought a 5GBP phone card and went back to the room to call the number. The number rings through to Dallas
(oh,by the way, this number is a great number to use because you don’t get the normal spiel about "you can book your travel on
AA.com or press 1 for this and press 2 for that etc, you also don’t get the $5 fee or the "Please speak your AAdvantage number for the 14th time I still didn’t hear it" crap, it’s just "Thanks for calling AA all agents are busy please hold on-that’s it!) After about 2 mins I speak with a rep to see if I can
change my booking to travel out of LHR. She says everything is full out of London "Only thing I can offer is a business class ticket for $5784-plus a $200 reissue fee.
Oh Boy.
As she looks for other few alternatives, I quietly ask myself. Why am I here in London again?
Of course I don’t take that option. I hang up and fired up the old laptop that I was grateful to have carried. I never take it with me on mileage runs, but I was working on stuff that needed to be presented on Monday.
I log on to AA.com and find something. There is one flight leaving Sunday night at 530pm from Heathrow with a change in Chicago. I would arrive LAX at 1119pm. Price: $1238 one way. Yikes! I had no choice but to book it. But then something occurred to me. What if I turn this one way booking a round trip booking back to London? That way I can still use theLHR-FRA-DFW-LAX ticket and just pay the $200 reissue using the new return date of my choosing. After checking my calendar I choose a date for the return to LHR and reprice the itinerary. The price? $982.00.
Cool. A little more than I'm accustomed to paying and it was kinda breaking my mileage run budget but this was the best option
out there.
Of course there had to be another problem. That flight to Chicago? No seats on the seat chart. AA.com states I would have to wait until checkin. I had a solution. I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in a middle seat of 5 in the back,so I called AA in Dallas again to have them transfer the EVIP electronic upgrade.certificate from the Frankfurt booking into the Chicago booking. Surprisingly it wasn't a problem for them to do that. There
were heaps of seats in business class available and I was able to be confirmed right away and get a seat assignment which was 12G on this 777. Chicago-LAX had one F class seat in inventory but I wasn't able to be confirmed as A class is the proper booking class for these EVIP certificates. My seat from ORD-LAX was 15D but was waitlisted for an upgrade. No problem.
Knowing this would be a long day I actually managed to get back to bed.(its now about 10am) the hotel says it would be ok for late checkout at 2pm. (I love that hotel)
At 230pm I check out and head to the trains which have now resumed service.and get to Heathrow at 245pm. Heathrow was an incredible zoo! Dear God I haven't seen so may people there since the BA strike. AA's
main cabin checkin snaked around the stanchions and went out into the main walkway area there were about 3 people in front of me at the business class check-in line. I checkin and get my boarding pass. (be warned there is a 20GBP departure tax whenever you fly in business or first class on any airline from he UK, I didn’t know this earlier in the year and threw a fit the first time I had to pay because the agent didn't explain it to me properly- he had said "you just have to pay it-end of story".)
If you've been to Heathrow you know the airplanes are 30 miles away from the check in counter but I was there over 2hours before departure and had a lot of time before departure so I did some plane watching and hung out in the Admirals Club for a few hours.
Boarding was called from the Admirals Club 20 mins before departure and everyone stampeded out of there. It was funny to watch.
Got on board and sat in my seat and noticed something quite odd. Except for the empty middle seat next to me. seat nextto me in the middle three section, Business Class was packed! I shrugged it off and thought there might have been a cancellation and everyone was accommodated on this flight. We push back on time and take off like a bat out hell.(It was about 5mins from push back to take off)
mins later) I start a conversation with the lady in 12D who proceeds to tell me that she was so excited to be sitting inbusiness class and how cool and new this all was to her.
"You see, she leans as far across as she can across the empty middle seat"They upgraded me for free because they ran out of seats in economy"
"Huh?"? I say
"Yeah,in fact there were about 15 people in all they upgraded at the gate because when we checked in they gave us a boarding passes with no seat number on it and told us it would be sorted out at the gate, so we waited till the last minute and they upgraded us"
I Asked. "So you must be one of those elite high flyers with American eh?"
"Oh no. I've never been a member, I only signed up for a number last night" I've never flown American before. Isn't this so cool" she says.
I smiled politely and thought to myself, Oh well, What ya gonna do? Get upset? It didn't matter to me anymore. I was just glad to be going home. Had I know this was going to happen I would have left the certificate on the Frankfurt booking and negotiated an upgrade at check-in. But how was I to know?
Just about an hour before landing in Chicago a very petite lovely young British woman in 10J had a major smokers coughing fit that went on for about 10mins. If you couldn't see her from where you sat you would swear it was a very big boned 70-ish year old man. It was the type of cough that ended with that gut wrenching sound when the phlegm comes up to your mouth when you want to spit. It makes your stomach turn over when you hear it. I swear, everyone reached for their own mouths with both
hands to prevent themselves from throwing up. No one uttered a word except for the kid in sitting next to his father in 13D with his father in 13D go "Eeeeewwwwwwwww!!" and then burst out laughing. I felt my ice-cream coming back up my throat. The flight attendant who had been pouring coffee froze in disgust and walked over to very politely ask if she was ok and suggested perhaps using the lavatory might be a good idea.
Chicago was another drama. Landed at 630pm. No waiting at immigration I got to the gate. The agent didn't know what an EVIP certificate was. After some searching around my reservation he found it. First Class was now booked full but not everyone had checked in so he put me on the standby list anyway. (I thought London did that but apparently not) One thing about the EVIP certificates is that it is gives you a higher priority than those standing by on normal Electronic (sticker) upgrades. The only thing that trumps a GLD member using an EVIP is an EXP or PLT using an EVIP. Long story short I didn’t get the upgrade, which was ok. Since I was the last to board there was no space for the roll on bag in the overhead bin so walk
back to the door and have it gate checked.(I never check luggage) But I didn’t mind.
To my surprise I found out the next day from a friend who works in the Admirals Club when I had to do a one day trip to SFO. I had told her about my London trip and and my little crisis I had. Just in conversation she looked up my reservation and said. "Do you know that they had you
coded wrong on the standby list out of Chicago?.
"They had you prioritized as GLD with electronic upgrade stickers. Not EVIP. At closeout, there were 2 seats left in first A Platinum and Gold were upgraded ahead of you and if you did manage to get the upgrade, your Electronic stickers would have been deducted from your upgrade account.
So, I ask all of you who do mileage runs: with all the drama that can and will enfold in ones journey to the highly sought after EXPs-are we willing to deal with the battles that go with it? Perhaps it’s why the Executive Platinum card is black- to show the suffering and pain and dirt you have to drag yourself through to finally reach there. Perhaps is a card that helps
you build character on how to deal with stress.
With the money I've budgeted for MR's I could just buy a big screen TV, Buy some Art or better yet, just save it.Rumours of AA falling into a bankruptcy on the horizon doesn’t sit well with me either.
I'm starting to reconsider.
Bicoastal