Jailer

I know that I’ve gotten dinged on this before, Air Tahiti Nui is not a One World Partner and when I flounced up to their lounge in Tom Bradley and flashed my Plat card, I got bumpkis, I got nada and was invited back to terra firma. Off to a bad skinflint start, although I did manage to talk Mrs. J. into a ride to LAX thereby avoiding my normal $60 cab fare. Hungry, we retreat to the food court for breakfast, and I got into my $1,400 bankroll. Throwing caution to the wind, I ordered smoothies with muffins, but held off on coffee, knowing that I’ll be beating that out our airhosts.

The flight appeared full, or at least biz class was full, which is all I cared about as I wondered if AA couldn’t get me an open seat. Daughter slept almost the entire trip while I read the Elegance of the Hedgehog. I choose the book because it takes place in modern Paris, but it turned out to be moving and profound; really timeless and placeless, and the book moved me to tears more than once.

The flight and food were as good as they needed to be; Frost/Nixon was a pleasant surprise, and as we landed a little after 8 a.m. I wish I had slept. Not falling into a paradox of thrift, we jumped into a taxi at CDG and headed for the Hilton Arc De Triomphe. It was before 10 a.m., but they kindly let us check in…the French Open crowd hadn't yet hit. Off to the executive lounge for a late breakfast and then off we strolled arm in arm into beautiful spring weather for a walking tour of the city that ended in a nighttime climb up the Eiffel Tower (E.T. is not covered by the very economical Paris Museum Pass; we activated our two 4-day museum passes the next day, and even if money be damned, these passes must have saved us over four hours of waiting in lines, not to mention lording our queue-jumping over the civilians.

Originally I had planned the lion’s share of our days at the Paris Westin, but switched to primarily the Hilton entirely because of Hilton Diamond lounge access, which also included a full breakfast at the restaurant. We generally ate only one meal out a day, although I admit to having only lounge snacks the first day and then hitting the sack early. We had some decent bistro style meals, but keeping to a theme the only fine dining was at the Paris Westin, where we dined on Starpoints. Both in Paris and at the AMS Pulitzer the exact same thing happened upon check in: “My you have a lot of points; you should use them here at the hotel.” But, when one tries to use them everyone is clueless (one waiter said nobody ever cashed in points before), and a ruling practically has to come down from the International Court in The Hague before *points can be monetized.

While I won’t know what we spent in Paris until my accountants do a full audit, we were likely within target, and other than some souvenirs for my 8 year old jailette, the only extraordinary expense was some shoes that my daughter had to have, and I split with her, or rather I split them with her grandmother who handed off some excess Euros to our little shopper before the trip. In fact, I had assumed that little Miss choose Paris for the shopping and the fashion and Amsterdam for Anne Frank and, indeed, you know who did a lot of shopping, and I do not consider her personal shopping expenses as part of the trip expenses, although a closer look at where her spending money came from might turn me into a liar.