Wiirachay

Got jetlag? Body wants to go bed at 5p? Solution: Write a (long) trip report! My spring semester starts this Monday anyways.

Note that I have separate posts within this thread (with the appropriate headers) that discuss only about in-flight, if you care just to read that.

01/12/03

These early morning departures from Southeast Asian are getting more irritating by the year. Fortunately my relatives’ house that I was staying at is only a 10 minute drive away from Bangkok airport. I actually didn’t sleep the night before my flight because I was afraid of oversleeping. We left the house around 345am. My relatives weren’t so amused; neither was I. In 2-3 years, my relatives will be quite joyous because BKK will be moving to a new place, one hour away from their house.

Check-in

Here’s a new twist to check-in: random hand-inspection for check-in luggage. Any passenger traveling on NW is directed to a line leading to the tables for random check-in luggage hand inspection. Fortunately, I was waived through and didn’t have to go through it. I still think that this is “for show” as the people inspecting really didn’t seem to care.

Then came the routine x-ray machine. More security people are now working this and looking at the monitors. After the luggage exited the x-ray machine, workers just put “inspected” stickers on the check-in luggage. No more luggage strap that says “inspected”.

The lines for Y class were quite long. But, surprisingly, the line for J class was quite short. I’ve traveled BKK-NRT on NW on the second Sunday of January for the past 4 years and this is the first time that the line for J class was quite short!

I really liked that fact that the check-in staff in BKK kept my BKK-NRT flight coupon (I was using a paper ticket) and just gave me a boarding pass. Makes things quite efficient especially at boarding! Note that this prevents people like me from causing trouble by losing their paper ticket and boarding pass combo. Boarding passes can be instantly reprinted; however, paper tickets can’t. (Recall I lost my wallet on the inbound flight to BKK.)

Lounge

Typical small, boring lounge operated by Louis Tavern. A few people were in the lounge. I really hope NW operates their own lounge in the new BKK airport. I was not so amused with Thai-only newspapers. I was quite hungry and ate a few (bite-size) sandwiches and drank some juice. Somehow, I was just not eager to sit here for too long so I left after only 20 minutes after being there. I just felt like being “with the crowd”. After exiting, I recognized a friend of my father in the lounge. I met this guy last year after my father and I ran into him in the same lounge last year when we were going back to the US.

After asking, I explained my routing to him; he was quite amused that I was (again) going through EWR on CO metal, as opposed to flying NRT-DTW on NW metal. I explained to him that it was because CO had a 170 degree flat seat when reclined. I also told him that I like the in-flight service on CO more compared to NW. He asked me about the price; and I explained to him that it’s the same price as traveling on NW because it was a code-share. I didn’t bother to explain to him that I was on full-fare and about CO’s HoKeY upgrade rules.

Security
Typical non-US security. However, I was selected to get a wanding.

Waiting by the gate

The NW flight departed from a new pier. I was not impressed with this pier, as it just used the general boarding area concept versus the boarding room concept. (In the boarding room concept, all “random” security checks and ticket lifting are done as you enter the room.) But then again, BKK is moving in a few years.

The area around the boarding gate was roped off. Note that the phones and bathrooms were outside this area. A security agent guarded the “entrance” into this area and asked several more (pointless) questions after examining my passport, boarding pass, and the boarding pass for the flight out of NRT! Then, she decided whether or not to send you to additional “random” security checks. Fortunately, I avoided that one too. There was quite a line just to get into this area. WHY NOT JUST USE THE PIER WITH THE BOARDING ROOM CONCEPT!!! This was SO idiotic!

I spent the rest of the time just pacing around while looking at the big bird and looking at what other people were doing. Some people were on the floor sleeping on their backpacks. I wanted to get on the plane. I just couldn’t stay still before that.

Boarding

Quite civilized. Only WBC pax and other appropriate passengers lined up when the first boarding call was made. A few other agents were making sure that only the appropriate passengers got into the line, as a few Y-class pax tried to get into the line early.


[This message has been edited by Wiirachay (edited 01-17-2003).]

Wiirachay

NW0002 BKK-NRT B747-400 Seat 3A, voluntarily moved to 4B
Block Time: 5’35’’
Flight Time: 5’00
ETD: 0610 Actual: 0601 Gate 46
ETA: 1345 Actual: 1318 Gate 26

Quite an empty cabin in J! I just couldn’t believe it! In the last 4 years that I’ve traveled on this flight on the second Sunday of January, the entire flight was full! Typical pre-departure service: jacket hanging, meal orders, drink, and selecting the necessary amenity items. On the newspaper table were all Thai newspapers except for one: the Bangkok Post.

My dad’s friend initially sat right behind me, and my seat opponent seemed like a cold American businessman. So, I switched seats and sat next to my Dad’s friend. During the boarding process, I saw 3 Thai college students sit in the “nose” WBC section. It was nice to see that I wasn’t the only youth in J class today! It was interesting to note that our style of dress was vastly different compared to the non-youth. BTW, my initial seat opponent was quite a jerk to those Thai college students who were just minding their own business.

BREAKFAST

My main entrée wasn’t good nor bad, but it was really strange. Since on the menu it was advertised as “balsamic chicken”, I had assumed that NW attempted to copy a Thai dish. When I read the Thai version of the menu, it basically said the same thing literally translated. I was hoping that I’d find a name of a Thai dish. This is the strangest entrée that I’ve had! However, the rice texture was fine.

The other choice of entrée was some American one. Since I live in the US, I was not that enthusiastic to feel at home. When I flew in Y years ago, NW served pad thai for breakfast! Also a few years ago when I flew in J, NW also served pad thai. To NW: walk through the streets of Bangkok and see what the street food vendors are selling. Keep it reasonable simple! Hey, perhaps why not have them cater the meals!

MID-FLIGHT

Sometime after breakfast, the purser closed most of the windows, with the exception of the ones that had bodies next to them. I attempted to watch Austin Powers 3; however, I just didn’t find it funny that I dozed off 20 minutes into it. (I haven’t seen the second one but I found the first one really funny.) So, I decided to recline, only to discover that the recline was limited as my seatmate. Thus, I moved to 3J and left comfortably for about 1.5 hours.

The rest of the time, I was back at 4B talking to my father’s friend. A part of the conversation that I like to share was the subject of NW’s international upgrades. I told him about a German website that shows how many seats are available on NW for upgrades. I offered to give him the website and explain him how to use it; however, he declined. Just yesterday, my mother gave me a message. It was from this guy . . . .

LIGHT SNACK

This consisted of some fruit and some Thai snacks. The Thai snacks were not as crunchy as ones found in Thailand; however, I think it’s reasonable not to expect any airline to have a deep fryer on board.

Overall: Satisfactory

While taxiing to the gate, the NW F/A announced that our arrival gate 26 can’t be found on the airport map on the NW magazine, as “this gate is normally used by United but we have it”. I immediately remarked loudly to my seatmate, “like we’ll soon have their B744s”. He laughed hysterically. I was quite joyous to avoid satellite 4 dump for once

NRT New Central Terminal

After deplaning, the path to clear security was kind of weird. I remember taking an escalator up, taking a moving talk, making a lot of turns, and then taking a down escalator. However, the area was nice and not dingy compared to the old satellite 4. Since I was one of first passengers to exit the aircraft, there was little wait at security. After clearing, I was right in the New Central Terminal, where all the stores and restaurants were.

It was wonderful to have a preview of the new facilities that NW will be moving to in April. Unfortunately, NW didn’t have their standard signs after security showing where CO pax should go and more importantly, where connecting NW pax should go!!! Good thing that I’m really familiar with NRT.

Unfortunately, my father’s friend was continuing to SEA, which meant he had a long walk to satellite 4, the dump. I told him where to head as he, himself, was confused. Then, I bid him goodbye and that I’d hope to see him on another flight or in the US.

Wiirachay

Off to the bus gate area (gates 28A-E) I went. This was actually right below the New Central Terminal area. After waiting for a few minutes, I thought that I’d have to wait for 45 minutes before the standard transfer bus operated by the airport would arrive. A few other passengers connecting on CO were also not so amused; however, a CO agent (dressed in the standard CO BusinessFirst concierge costume) soon appeared. We were all happy to see that CO had a special bus and that it would be picking us up soon. She had a list of passengers who were allowed to use the bus, as to make non-CO passengers with flights from the other terminal suffer for not traveling on CO. Right before the bus left, she told ALL of us to stop by the transfer desk regardless. It’s weird because I already had a boarding pass and ticket.

Terminal 1 Transfer Desk

After exiting the bus, I saw a father traveling with his wife and 3-4 teenage children rush out of the bus and walk quickly to the transfer desk. For once, I had an opponent in getting to the CO transfer desk! He beat me to only BusinessFirst agent at the transfer desk; however, I was the first to get to the only economy class agent. All boarding passes for CO transfer pax were already printed and were on top of a table. These generic boarding passes had the word “Economy” with a green background or “Business” with a blue background on the top.
The JAL-contracted agent asked to see my passport, luggage claim tags, and CO ticket. Like BKK, my paper ticket was taken, never to be seen again; I just left with a boarding pass and a map to the various JAL lounges. I looked at my bus opponent next to me and saw the agent handing him 2 business class boarding passes and the rest were economy. I can’t ever see myself traveling in separate cabins as my traveling companions . . . other than my boss. Just to gloat, I left the transfer desk ahead of this guy even though he was serviced first.

Off the NRT Dayroom/Shower facility.

Security

Routine. If you’ve made it this far and noticed, this is my second time clearing security in NRT. I think this was just a result poor planning when the second terminal was built.

Shower

I still can’t believe that all the day rooms were taken!!! I think I can give it up and won’t expect to use a dayroom ever when I’m transiting through NRT. I was surprised that this place took credit cards, especially for just a miserable $2.58 charge. This place is such a steal for a nice shower. This facility is much better than the one in terminal 1. The shower rooms are roomier and brighter.

Outside the shower rooms were massage chairs and tables and chairs right by the windows. No food though. However, this is quite a nice place to escape to while waiting for your flight, especially if you don’t have access to a lounge.

Lounge

I decided to check out the JAL Sakura lounge in the main terminal, as opposed to the satellite terminal, where the CO flight would be departing from, as I used the satellite lounge last year. However, compared to last year, there were cutbacks. Last year there were 3 choices of prepackaged Japanese trail mix; this year there was just a clear plastic box with a scooper. :-( So, I gulped some Apple juice, a few scoops of trail mix, and some, literally, cheese balls. I was still hungry afterwards! I still find these (literal) cheese balls are strange item.

Afterwards, I went to the business area and took the only computer in the lounge. There were a bunch of (idiotic) business travelers dialing up to their ISPs to check their e-mail or surf the net. Since the computer that I took had an ethernet internet connection already, I just disconnected the ethernet cable and attached it to my laptop! I spent some time checking my e-mail and using AOL Instant Messenger to talk to my friends, both in the US and Asia. (My friends are such night owls.) At the end, I went to CO’s website (which was actually working ) and verified the departure time of my flight and the gate. Why didn’t I just check the monitors? Just because I didn’t have to.

I also left quite early because I just couldn’t sit here and keep still. Once I again, I felt like being with the crowd.

Boarding Area & Boarding

After taking the tram to the satellite terminal, I was impressed to see that complimentary carts were provided for hand-carry and duty free items. Quite nice! (Okay, those were provided by the duty free shops. But they didn’t get my business that day.) Since I was quite hungry after the buffet from the JAL lounge, I found a nice self-service noodle/dessert shop. In the front were mock-ups of the food that was being served, along with the price. Most of the tables were occupied and were being shared amongst strangers.

I ordered some soup with udon noodles and vegetables. Decent but nothing to write home about. After finishing it, my hunger ended. Nothing better else to do than to head to the gate.

The area was just simply crowded by people even from other departing flights! I paced around the area, including adjoining gates, in an attempt to get a good view of the plane and take a photograph for www.airliners.net. No view at all! The person who designed this terminal was a bad architect. Since this is a big international hub, one would expect a nice design like HKG or . . . NW’s DTW terminal!

By the time boarding began, all seats in the boarding area were taken and many people were crowded standing around the boarding area for this flight. Right when the boarding agent made the boarding call (for J class only) in both Japanese and English, a college-age Japanese students in Y cut in front of me as I was walking to the agent. After the students handed the agent their boarding passes, she gently chided them in Japanese. I think other people his age attempting to do the same thing then backed away.

Alas, I was on my way! Because of the crowd it seemed like most of the J class pax were struggling to board. Midway down the corridor I noticed only 2 other people walking near me. I made some joke to them about who amongst the 3 of us will get the random search.

Unfortunately, this corridor ends and you have to make a right turn in order to get to the jetway. A security personnel was right at that junction. He didn’t say anything as we were walking towards him; then, tada! After we made the right turn, there were four empty tables with 4 security personnel for all 3 of us! The security personnel then told us that we had to go for the added treatment. So obviously, the sucker after the 3 of us obviously got sent to the last empty remaining table.

After that, the guy standing at the junction repeatedly said “Proceed forward; thank you for flying Continental Airlines” while I was being searched by a security personnel with dragon breath. It was funny that some passengers just stopped right by the random search tables waiting to be search. I would have been more than happy to trade places with them.

Wiirachay

CO0008 NRT-EWR B777-200 Seat 3D
Block Time: 12’40’’
Flight Time: 11’53’’
ETD: 1740 Actual: 1753 Gate D96
ETA: 1620 Actual: 1636 Gate C138

The day before I checked the seat map on itn and saw that the cabin was quite empty. However, it was full tonight! Either Y was overbooked again or a bunch of businesspeople really needed to get to the US at the last minute. (For those of you familiar with CO, no int’l mileage upgrades are permitted within 72 hours of departure.)
What was even more surprising is that the cabin was filled with Asian businessmen in suits. It’s been two years since I’ve been on a cabin full of them! I really like how my ghetto way of dressing contrasts with them.

There was a CO BusinessFirst concierge sighting! She only talked to a few passengers and handed lounge invitations to pax who had connections to CO metal flights in EWR. In other words, she didn’t talk to me. This concierge was the same person I saw earlier who assisted passengers getting to terminal 2 from terminal 1.

Some time before takeoff, the purser greeted everyone either in English or Japanese. Quite a nice gesture. Based on the previous flights I took on CO, she did this on her own initiative.

I have no idea why there was a little delay in pushback, but I guess that there was take-off slot issue. The taxi to the runway seemed to take forever since we were departing from terminal 2 that I dozed off for a bit. However, I woke up just in time before take off.

DINNER: Wiirachay pigs out while watching Simone

• To begin: Roasted nuts and dinky bag of Japanese trail mix. All eaten.
• Appetizer: Smoked Salmon with cream sauce and greens or assortment of Japanese sushi. Took all the sushi types and smoked salmon. All eaten.
• Salad: Typical house salad with zuku (?) Japanese dressing. All consumed. Quite an interesting dressing!
• Main entrée: Japanese Bento box. I couldn’t believe that CO also had some meat with noodles outside the “box”. This was one hell of a heavy entrée! Unlike above, I didn’t eat everything but it was just a few items as I don’t like them. (Somewhere while I was eating this, I regretted eating those noodles in NRT.) Since I had food in NRT, I guess CO’s in-flight food was quite good since I was not pigging out out of hunger. At this point, I felt like I had enough and thought I’d quit. Wrong!
• Fruit & cheese: I actually declined the cheese even though I love brie. Ordered all the fruit types. Ate all the fruit.
• Dessert: Ice cream sundae with strawberries and cherry. Somehow I was not in the mood for chocolate toppings or caramel this time. Peach crisp sounded kind of weird, as I prefer the apple crisp CO used to serve. Ice cream all gone.

At the end of dinner service, between 3 to 3.5 hours had passed since take-off!!! While this is nice and fancy service, I think too much food is just wasted as there are not too many passengers who pig out like me.

I’ve now learned that the next time I ever fly on CO to Europe in J class, I’ll just take the executive meal option, get meal service over with, and go to sleep. Better yet, once NW gets a lie-flat seat for J class, I’ll just fly on their metal. However, CO BusinessFirst service on a 14 hours flight is quite a treat.

MID-FLIGHT: Wiirachay’s $3,300* 5.5 hour** nap on the lie-flat seat

Okay. I didn’t pay $3300 one-way for this trip but this is the one-way published fare between NRT and EWR. None-the-less, I still like to use this (absurd) figure in my trip reports. But honestly, who pays list price?

After the meal service, I walked around the plane for a bit and switched to PJs. It’s so much better to switch to PJs as your regular clothes won’t get messed up or dirty. (I’ve been using the same PJs for the past 3 years for these international flights. I was going to switch to PJs when I flew to CDG from EWR when I went to Europe for spring break with my roommate, but he threatened not to know me during the flight. Come to think of it, I should have threatened to take away his upgrade. )

It’s just so pointless to stay in a suit like those Asian businessmen (or like my father). At least someone in my family has some common sense. (My mother also wears business attire when she flies internationally.) Both of them say that they want to look nice; I say I want to look ghetto and comfortable.

Around after the meal service, the purser made an announcement that all windows should be shut before until breakfast so that everyone can rest, since the sun was going to rise when 5 to 4 hours of flight time were left. I didn’t have a chance to see the moon this time. One thing that was cool on my outbound flight was that someone with a window on the dark side kept it open and the moon was visible. (For the record, for those of you who read my last trip report, this guy wasn’t a moron, by my standard, more of a person with esthetics.)

Now this has had to have been the BEST, most comfortable sleep I’ve gotten on board an aircraft. After fiddling around with the seat a bit I managed to find a comfortable position for side-sleeping. When I woke up 4.5 hours later I found myself flat on my back feeling very relaxed and comfortable. At first, I felt like I was on a horizontal bed; however, after a few minutes, I realized I was on an angle. Then, I realized that I was on an airplane. Such a great feeling!

I took a 30 minute “break” from sleeping and walked around the plane and drank some water. Then I was back to sleep for one more hour. When I woke up, there was only 2 more hours to go.

Around that time, someone in my row decided to open a window. The sunlight was so powerful that I immediately turned my body facing the other direction. And immediately after that, that person shut the window quickly. (This guy wasn’t a moron, by my standard, more of a curious person. Had this person kept the window open, then this person would have been an utmost moron.)

BREAKFAST: Wiirachay’s (further) pigs out early morning

Orders were taken verbally by approximate order of people who woke up. Got another Bento box full of goodies for me. It was fine by my standards; however it was quite weird to be eating at this time as it was 3am in Bangkok and I pigged out during dinner service.

Wiirachay

International Arrival in EWR

The walk from the plane to immigration was quite long; however, it’s through a glass corridor above the departures level. Immigration was quick and to my surprise luggage claim was quick. Those priority tags actually worked! Luggage carts were hard to find; it would have been nice if there were signs where to find them. Eventually I saw that they behind the line of people waiting to clear customs. A bunch of passengers from other flights were waiting to clear customs; however, the line was not that long by the time I got to it.

Four carousels were adequate and the size of each was more than adequate. (I remember last year that there were four carousels, with a BA flight on the carousel as the CO flight (from NRT) that I was on. It was BAD!)

The new international arrivals facility, IMHO, is not as nice as the other one in terminal B, in terms of interior setup. There were no flags or visible welcome signs or wall posters, like in terminal B. The interline luggage check-in area was cramped!!! People were squeezing to get in and get out. What a design for a new facility.

After saying parting with my luggage at the check-in area for connecting flights, I ran into the two Japanese flight attendants on my flight. The attractive, middle-aged BusinessFirst Japanese flight attendant who served me most of the time said bye to me, as well as the other (young and cute) economy class Japanese flight attendant said bye. I saw the younger one a few times throughout the flight walking through the BusinessFirst cabin for reasons unknown.

Off to the monorail I go and head to terminal B. Waved good-bye to the two senior BusinessFirst flight attendants who served the second BusinessFirst cabin. They were actually retired pursers! Quite strange. I thought that once a purser always a purser (until retirement as an F/A of course). These F/As shared their opinions about various (ex)CEOs of CO as well as thoughts on their work conditions. Such a good attitude despite the substandard work conditions when compared to other airlines.

NW0667 DC9-30 Seat 2D
Block Time: 6’35’’
Flight Time: 5’00
ETD: 1810 Actual: 1801 Gate 41B
ETA: 2017 Actual: 2004 Gate A69

(Yes, I stopped by the NW lounge for some steamed milk. But that was basically it.)

This flight was full to my own surprise. Flight was routine. I dozed off now and then during this flight. Then I woke up at some point, I pressed the recline button only to later realize that the seat was fully “reclined” and that there was no footrest. Hey, this was not J class!

The plane landed at the end of the terminal and a tram was required to get to the luggage claim, unless I was in the mood for early marathon training. So I decided to stop by the lounge for some free juice since it was across the tram stop.

Lounge

Same style as the main lounge in DTW; however, there was no high ceiling. The path through the lounge wasn’t that wide compared to the main lounge and the satellite B/C lounge. However, there were small sections, with each section feeling exclusive.

Baggage Claim

Somehow there are still some bugs in the system, as my flight was not listed in some set of monitors; but, it was listed in another set of monitors. So many people were traveling into DTW that night that many flights were assigned to my carousel. The entire carousel was almost filled up! To say the least, my first luggage was out by the time I got to the carousel; however, it was right above another luggage. It wasn’t fun to grab! While waiting for the second luggage, I saw new incoming luggage getting squeezed. And those carousels are big!

After waiting for a while, my second one didn’t appear; so, I went to the lost luggage office. After the agent scanned my tag, she knew exactly what happened, why it happened, and what was going to be done about it. My luggage decided to take the scenic route (got lost) in the CO EWR luggage system. Hence NW found it too late to load it on my flight. So, it was loaded on the next flight from EWR that night. The agent took my delivery information, and the bag arrived the next day as promised with a nice $25 discount voucher attached to it. I wasn’t expecting this! Good infrastructure (tracking systems, boarding pass scanners, online check-in etc.) allows for good service. CO should learn from this.

I remember CO lost my bags between EWR and PHL. When I got to PHL, all the agents could tell me is that it’s lost and they don’t know where it is. (I knew it got lost in EWR because I dropped them off at the check-in for my connecting domestic.) I think that it is much more frustrating and irritating than having the luggage lost in the first place. It took two days to locate it; no apologies, no voucher. Oh yeah, I was also flying in BusinessFirst.

Follow-up: My lost wallet from my inbound flight to BKK

Never found the original wallet. Didn’t lose my (replacement) wallet! Got a replacement AMEX in Thailand, so I was able to spend my own money for major purchases. My replacement NW Visa card already arrived in the mail. So now, all I have to wait for is my driver’s license, my ATM card, and my social security card. They’re all in the mail. I’ll be getting a replacement student ID on Monday.
Lesson learned: Don’t lose your ******* wallet. Kind of like, don’t lose your passport. Saturday’s going to be my last test to see if I retain my wallet, as I’ll be traveling from DTW to SYR.

Ending Remarks

My parents made fun of me about taking the added 8 hours and a lost luggage because of taking CO metal. However, I told them the service and seat is better and that I’m on vacation. Anyways, I was getting more value for my money ($1350 amortized cost for one-way full fare.) But one thing NW has that CO doesn’t have?

A southeast Asian fortress hub, a great southeast Asian network, and connecting service to many cities in the US. If I were traveling on business, was married, had kids, and a dog? I would’ve flown NW straight to DTW, arrived at noon, and went out to dinner at a fine restaurant with the family.

I had a really strange attitude towards lounges this year. I remember when I first started flying in J class, I was so eager to use those lounges and leave them right when boarding began. I guess I was so hyped up about flying J and enjoying its perks.

Today, I think it’s more of a people factor, as not too many people were in there. I seem to like being in an area with a lot of people around. The lounges felt lonely and (too) isolated. Or, perhaps I’m growing up and lounges are not cracked up as I thought that they used to be. But then again, fly int’l Y class and I’ll be kicking and screaming for a lounge.

I also used to get a kick out of the fact that businesspeople traveling between the US East coast and Japan were paying between $3000-$4000 one-way while ghetto Wiirachay was paying much less, or using upgrades, or using pure mileage awards. However, after further learning about contracted airfares, J class consolidators, and the fact that I’ve ran into clumps of Thai students who use upgrades or employ the same tricks as I do, the kick is somewhat gone. Today I just like J class because it’s . . . more comfortable, the service is better, and I’m willing to pay (a reasonable) premium for it, granted though, I’ve done a lot of net surfing, FT reading, learning about fare construction, and searching for consolidators to find good air fares.

I’m contented and will not attempt to raise the bar for J class service. CO BusinessFirst will be my standard assuming a fare budget of $1350 one-way to head to Asia. Although I’ve flown CO’s BusinessFirst many times already, I still continue to rave about their BusinessFirst service. (Note that this does NOT imply that I rave about other things about this airline, such as HoKeY, BF, EUA, etc..)

pallensf

Excellent trip report. I felt as if I were seated in the cabin with you...lol

I have flown CO when Business First just began. I flew HNL-BNE. All I can say is OUTSTANDING. What a great way to get Down Under. And, I only paid for a Y class ticket.

A good friend of mine who worked for CO, got me the RT upgrade. Now, that's a present like no other.

Glad you enjoyed your travels.

All the best & more to you...

;-)

------------------
Patrick A. Inouye

Seat 2A

So like, are you taking Trip Reports 201 or something in school?

Great report! I give it an A

YVR Cockroach

Thanks. I was wondering what the Chicken breakfast was.

hsmythe

Pat:

How much did you actually pay for this trip (you allude to a budget of "$1350 one-way", but no definitive price) ?

Did you purchase using one of the end-of-year business class sales at NW/CO, or did you use one of your favorite consolidators ?

Thanks.

Wiirachay

This was actually the amortized cost for the segments for this int'l trip. Everything was actually full-fare this year. I combined a bunch of domestic trips with int'l business class full-fares, as opposed to buying separate tickets for each trip.

It turned out to be cheaper that way, as opposed to using consolidators for the int'l portion and buying discounted fares for the domestic trips.

I really would've liked to use NW's winter WBC fares to Asia, but it would've cost more money when added to the price of the domestic trips, and I wouldn't have renewed my gold elite status!

- Pat