Part 3 – A try for JFK, UA SFO International First Class Lounge and Lufthansa First SFO-FRA

Jul 13, 2010 – Tuesday
<Original Routing>
UA 8 SFO-JFK 9:05am - 6:00pm (752/F)
LH 405 JFK-FRA 9:40pm – 11:30am(+1) (744/F)
<New Routing>
LH 455 SFO-FRA 2:15pm - 10:05am(+1) (744/F)

Now anyone would ask, why fly United to Kennedy when you have the non-stop to Frankfurt. This trip originally was designed to try as many different first class products as possible which me, as an oneworld flyer wouldn’t normally fly. Also, I also wanted to try to compare the 3 different transcon products, AA 3 class first, VX First and United P.S first.

My day started at 5:45am as I received my wake-up call and got a shower. By 6:15am, I was already to go back to SFO via. BART. By 7:10am, I arrived at SFO and went directly the United Global Services/Premium Service First Class counter. Yay! Gold Boarding Pass. The TA’s own station only gave out white BPs but he walked over to another kiosk and came back with the Gold. I’m starting to actually understand the differentiation between 1K over GS, it’s the little things one of which showed at security and later on as well. At this point, I made my way to the International First Class lounge on G side. The lounge lady gladly allowed me in a few minutes before 8 and I quickly got to work in getting some pics done.

San Francisco United International First Class lounge












United Airlines 8 (Attempted Flight)
San Francisco to New York Kennedy
9:05am – 6:00pm
P.S First Class, Seat 2C
Food - Breakfast
Equipment – Boeing 757-200

The plane, so close and yet so far away


I’ve got myself a light breakfast of Danish and instant noodle and soon got change into a lighter clothes for my flight. Just about when we’re to board for UA 8, ATC issued a delay for JFK due to thunderstorms. And the flight was delayed to 9:30am. As I was unwilling to walk way back to Int’l lounge, I went instead into the Domestic RCC. After sitting for about 10 mins, UA 8 was once again delayed, this time to 10:15am. As now I have more time, I went back to the IFL for a bigger breakfast which I originally planned to eat enroute. During my heartier breakfast, it was again pushed back to 11:00am, which now pushed my connection time in JFK to 2 hrs.

Additional Breakfast



By 10:30am, I went back toward gate 82 where UA 8 was scheduled to depart. The original GAs were now gone since their shifts were over. Just about couple minutes before boarding, UA 8 was once again delayed to 12:45pm, seeing now that I had no chance to make the connecting LH flight. I asked the GAs to meter the bag to baggage claim and I made my way back to IFL for some internet and phone access to call up Aeroplan. This time, I went and got my flight to be rerouted on LH First SFO-FRA as it was the most logical option, additionally, I had also changed my stopover to London in January as my friend was moving to LHR this year. As a result, the ticketing took close to one hour which isn’t bad from getting the flights changes set, uncheck the UA flight, and to get it ticketed to fly on LH. Afterwards, I left my carry ons in the IFL since I was coming back for them and went out to baggage claim. Apparently, down at baggage claim, they didn’t fish out my bag out of UA 8 since all the ramp crew went elsewhere since the Boeing 757 was already loaded up ready to go at 8:30am. Therefore I was stuck thinking how to retrieve this bag which was going to sit at JFK while I’m going off FRA and beyond. Back to the Ticket counter, my GS check-in TA was still there and was now starting to make some phone calls concerning the bag, and United entered my new Lufthansa flight info into the system. Additionally they also once again send another meter my bag. Defeated, I made my way to Int’l terminal to check-in at the Lufthansa desk without a hard copy of the ticket . At security, I was following the LH crew in line, one of them that I talked to was actually going to be working in first class. Back in the IFL, the lounge/Global Service agent who checked me in at 8am as the first person to come in the lounge today gave me good news as I came back. Apparently she called down to the ramp, there was a shift change and therefore despite an early page, no one retrieved my luggage. But she ended up getting a supervisor to retrieve my bag and has now sent the bag to baggage claim where I just came back from. Now we had a problem of the bag sitting in SFO instead of JFK, as I was running out of time to transfer the bags to LH myself and she once again made more phone calls for me and got the bag retagged onto the LH flight for me.

After such a long day with 3-4 walks between domestic and international terminal, I had a somewhat of a lunch in the lounge, quickly fired off some emails especially to my parents since my ticket is now totally redone again. Second Int’l First ticket redone in 3 months!!! I’ve had such bad luck with travel this year it seems. Just when I was about to leave for the LH flight, another lounge agent delivered the new baggage tags for me from outside baggage claim. I truly understand why some of you praised Global Services. Afterwards I made my way to the gate for my first ever trip to Europe.

Lufthansa Boeing 747-400




Deutsche Lufthansa 455
San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany
2:15pm – 10:05am (+1)[Jul 14], 10 hr 50 mins flight
First Class, Seat 83A
Food - Dinner, Breakfast
Equipment - Boeing 747-400

Wow, US CBSA officers at the jetbridge?? I don’t think I’ve seen this ever, must be trying hard to nab more Russian Spies I was soon welcomed upstairs in the first class cabin. As noted by many others, the overhead are extremely small and aren’t large enough to have rollaboards in them. Soon one of the FAs quickly deliver my PDB of 2000 Champagne Laurent-Perrier, Frankreich.

Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 First Class Cabin





Part 3 Continues Below