avm2806

I have to start of by apologizing. While many have enjoyed my TR’s, I have received criticism for not posting pics. Honestly, while I love TR’s with pics, I don’t travel with a camera and am not comfortable taking pics while travelling. I debated continuing the write TR’s because of this but figured that I’d still give them a go when time permitted. I hope that my descriptions and detail will help recreate some of the experience and that you will enjoy them either way…

Over the last few months, due to work requirements, I’ve been flying to China every month for a trip that lasts 4-5 days. Based in MAA, I usually take CX in spite of the horrendous regional J seats on a 0315 am departure, since the return is very convenient, giving me a near full working day in China and I get back home early on a Sunday morning with a day to recover before getting back the office.

Unfortunately, CX only flies out of MAA 4 times a week. I usually manage to work my schedule around it, but this time around I had to fly out on a Tuesday night, so my options were KA from BLR or CX from HKG. Since I own my own business, even though I fly paid Biz, I am always looking for ways to save on cost. I was lucky to find a BA redemption on CX – PVG-HKG-MAA in biz for the date I needed and it was fairly reasonable at 40k miles. I then bought a one-way ECO ticket MAA-BOM-HKG-XMN on 9W/KA and used miles to upgrade the BOM-HKG flight.

My schedule was such that I didn’t have to work on the day of my arrival in China, but only the next morning. I scheduled a quick meeting in HKG and opted to take the evening flight to XMN which would give me most of the afternoon enjoying the Wing first class section on my BA Emerald card.


Fast forward to day of departure:
Having almost missed a flight to BLR the last time due to construction on the roads, I took my luggage to work since it’s halfway between the airport and home. A quick call to the JET Guest relations team at MAA (9W has a team of Guest relations staff at major hubs to take care of regular premium fliers and they do an excellent job), and my baggage tag was printed for one checked bag all the way to XMN. I pulled into the airport at 19:30 comfortably for a 20:25 departure to BOM on 9W 462. I was met kerbside by a wonderful young lady who escorted me through the chaos that is MAA under construction and straight to the lounge. Shortly after that my hand luggage was brought up by a porter and my boarding passes to HKG (9W can’t print KA B’passes, but will tag your bags through), baggage tag etc. were all handed over to me. I had a quick snack of a chicken kebab from the buffet and a diet coke, made some last minute phone calls, charged my cell. At 19:50 boarding was announced, but the lounge agent told me to wait (I know the drill all to well, as the GR staff come up to the lounge with a loader when there 20-30 left to board and whisk you on the plane). Around 7 minutes later as I was packing my stuff, the same lady who had taken care of my check-in arrived with a loader and we made our way down, through security and to the gate where I was on the last bus along with 10 other passengers and we headed for the aircraft. I must admit, slight embarrassment and being walked on the plane like a star and then going past the divider to the back, but hey – it’s a domestic leg and I was saving more then $600 and using up expiring miles but flying the short hop in whY. I had web-checked in onto an exit row window (the aisles were gone, since I was a few hours late to check-in from the 48 hour window), and had more legroom than the guys in BIZ.
I won’t bore you with too many details of the domestic flight, but service was average (actually excellent by most of the crew, marred by one extremely arrogant crew member who both for take off and landing barked orders at passengers – for a moment I felt like I was on a US airline). Dinner was the usual veg or non-veg options. I had the chicken chettinad which was spicy, and quite average – have definitely had better meals in whY on 9W.

Coming next - Arrival at BOM