I'm dancing as fast as I can.

So we've all seem those old westerns where the Mexican Banditos start shooting into the ground as they shout "Dance, meester." Well, I'm here to tell you it's all true. I've just completed my third MHD in 20 days and boy do my feet hurt. (No bullet holes at least.)

But I learned an astounding amount of stuff, which I will post here over the next several days. Not being as organized as some I didn't really keep notes -- not like I had the time in any case. So I'll just post the highlights as I remember them. They'll be in no particular order, and they'll appear as additional posts as time allows.

Some are informative, some are amusing, some are just observations. And some are crucial.

Just for interests sake, here are the flight itineraries:

MHD #2 (for 2001)
YVR-YYZ
YYZ-ORD
ORD-DTW
DTW-ORD
ORD-BWI
ORD-DTW
DTW-ORD
ORD-GDL
GDL-MEX
MEX-ORD
ORD-YYZ
YYZ-YVR

MHD #3
YVR-LAX
LAX-GDL
GDL-SFO
SFO-YVR

MHD #4
YVR-YYZ
YYZ-ORD
ORD-CLE
YUL-ORD
ORD-MEX
mex-gdl
gdl-ord
(mex-gdl flight cancelled - above two segments replaced with: )
MEX-ORD
ORD-YYZ
YYZ-YVR

You may notice some unusual "dis-connects" -- welcome to my world.


Punching holes in runways.

I don't really know why -- perhaps there's a competition on amongst pilots. Or maybe it's just the P.O.'d CP pilots. But on most of the flights on these 3 trips we experienced particularly hard landings, especially on the nose gear. And landing in ORD, MEX, and YYZ over the last two days has been quite exciting what with high winds and lots of turbulence. The topper was the landing in YVR tonight -- technically, the flight should probably qualify for three segments.


Aren't we special!

Landing in ORD from MEX early this afternoon, I was dismayed to see a large plane load of people enter the long tunnel just ahead of me. I was even more dismayed when I saw the huge crowd already in the customs hall. I solemnly took my place at the end of one of the lines for foreigners. It was disheartening to see the short lines for "US CITIZENS AND PERMANENT RESIDENTS".

There was an agent there pulling people out of the short lines who shouldn't have been there. She then started shouting "US citizens, permanent residents, and Canadian Passport holders -- over here!" Huh?! Don't ask questions, just quickly move to the nearest short line and shut yur yap.

A couple of minutes later I was being processed. I asked the agent if this was normal, or if it was only because of the huge lineups. He told me it's what they usually do.

So next time consider yourself some time savings. Keep in mind that nothing is in writing, and by the time that info is in your possession it's third hand.


You can't get there from here.

Many of my trips are changed midway, or made up on the fly. (Where am I going? I'll know when the plane lands.) On MHD #2 I was on a ship that was delayed, and was out of the cel-phone coverage area. Being on a J ticket, no problem of course. When I get back to land I'll just reschedule my ORD-MEX-GDL... segments for the next morning.

Only you can't book an AC flight number from the US to Mexico -- the flight has to start in Canada. It would have been OK if I'd changed the flights before the scheduled departure, but after that my entire itinerary disappeared.

So there I was at 1am in the Four Points at ORD, listening to the SE agent trying to figure out how to re-book the ORD-MEX segment on AC flight numbers. She asks someone else, and the solution is simple. Book YYZ-ORD-MEX, then cancel the YYZ-ORD segment.

But the earliest YYZ-ORD segment won't get me to ORD in time to make the originally planned 8:20am ORD-MEX flight, so she can only book me on the 1:05pm flight, thus messing up the rest of my flights. She suggests going to the airport early and seeing if I can get on the earlier flight as a standby. I heeded her advice and was successful.

It occurs to me later that maybe we could have booked the preferred itinerary for a several days later, adjusted out the YYZ-ORD segment, then change the date back. In any case the moral is clear -- do not under any circumstance let your US and/or Mexican segments lapse.


Watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat.

Hey wait. No rabbit. Where'd it go?

It would appear that if you make any change to your itinerary -- different flights, different dates, different seats, whatever -- you points for that segment will not be posted. Doesn't matter how small the change. Doesn't matter how many times you ask different people to re-insert your FF number on the PNR. Doesn't matter if they engrave your FF number down the entire length of the plane in 3 foot high digits -- it ain't gonna happen. Keep your boarding passes.


You pays yo' money, and you takes yo' chances...

...but not necessarily in that order. The MEX departure "tax" is still hit and miss. I got dinged once out of two trips, and even that once I almost didn't get charged. It appears to only happen at MEX, not GDL, and apparently not anywhere else either. It also appears to have something to do with how long you are in MEX.

I arrived in MEX at about 6pm on Saturday evening, connecting to an 8:25pm flight to GDL. That flight was cancelled, eventually, so I was rebooked right back to ORD from MEX, the next morning. Even though I had received my boarding pass the previous night, I had to present myself for the document check -- passport, etc. It was at this point I was dinged. Had I proceeded to GDL the previous evening, I would not have had to pay.


Will that be in US dollars, or in real money?

If you think you going to be hit with the departure tax, make sure you have money -- they don't take credit cards. Better still, make sure you have Mexican money -- pesos. I only had US dollars, and the charge was USD$33.50. Later on in the plane, I noticed I was given a receipt for 170 pesos.

Given that a US dollar is approximately worth 10 pesos, well, check out the math. I'm also a little sceptical about them not taking credit cards, though they did give me a fairly official receipt that was a carbon copy of the portion they kept. I guess if you're going to do MHDs on a regular basis, it would pay to keep a few hundred pesos handy.


That's it for now... more to follow.

[This message has been edited by Ken hAAmer (edited 04-09-2001).]