Friendly skies, ground agents not included

We found a phenomenal deal on a cruise on the brand-new Explorer of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship along with its twin Voyager of the Seas, so Hunnybear and I booked cheap flights to Miami on United and upgraded with 1K North American Upgrade certs. We had booked an outside cabin on this megaship for $890 each for the week including taxes from an outfit Arnie the Compmeister had turned us on to. This would be our third cruise together, part of our All Honeymoon All the Time policy, and all three on Royal Caribbean. Since this was our third RCCL cruise we were now Gold members. I asked Arnie what that got us and he said 10% off selected items in the gift shop. Well, it was something.

We took a cab from Marina del Rey to the airport and checked our luggage with the friendly skycap, who asked us security questions but did not issue us boarding passes. There was a huge line at the metal detectors so we went through secret security and headed straight for the 1K room since I was boycotting the Red Carpet Club because they want me to pay for membership. The skycap was friendly. The security guard was friendly. The agent in the 1K room, whose job it is to take care of United’s best customers, was not friendly. When I asked about possibly sitting in First Class instead of business she lectured me on United’s policy on double-upgrades and, for the first time ever, said that since I had booked the upgrades with confirmable certs I needed to surrender said certs rather than pay with 500-mile coupons. Doesn’t she get it? Her job should be to make exceptions to the rules for 1Ks, not to keep them from getting away with anything.

Our 767-300 to Miami was docked at gate 70B and had the Star Alliance livery. I asked the gate agent one more time about possibly sitting in First Class but he said it was very full. We waited until the last moment and then I asked again but he said they were waiting for four ticketed passengers and then there were a couple 1Ks with business-class tickets waiting to upgrade so I thanked him and we boarded and took seats 5E and F in the front row of business class, where we watched a uniformed pilot and two young United employees with orange crew tags on their baggage take their seats in First. I grabbed a glass of champagne from the nice stewardess and swigged it down.

We took off after 25 minutes of taxiing and then didn’t see a flight attendant for another 40 minutes, at which time we got served drinks. We declined the bags of KrapSnax™ from economy that they serve in business class instead of mixed nuts. No one had taken our meal orders so I mentioned that we’d like crab cakes to the drink server and she communicated the message to the purser. We were counting on the crab cakes because the other choices were chicken with coriander sauce and the dreaded pork charcuterie. Coriander is the seed of the dreaded cilantro plant, which I detest. An hour and 35 minutes after takeoff we finally got served our appetizer, cold smoked duck breast and a spinach salad with fresh mozzarella. I had a glass of the excellent Louis Martini Cabernet, back from a brief hiatus. Then the crab cakes arrived severely overdone. Service was friendly if unspeakably slow. Dessert was Eli’s mocha mousse cake. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but it was so refreshing to have a change from the Eli’s praline cheesecake that I wolfed it.

This plane was outfitted for international service and had the new business-class seats with laptop power, personal video, footrest, and back massage as well as noise-reducing headphones. This kind of comfort on a domestic flight is what really distinguishes United from the competition. We had nine channels of video, the amenity that makes all the difference in the world along with the fully reclining seats. We watched Disney’s The Kid with Bruce Willis first, a flick about a guy my age who meets himself as an eight-year-old and they share the wisdom of age and youth with each other. For the second round I started to watch Hello, Frisco, Hello, a classic ’40s film, but the purser invited me to sample a yummy Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream sundae up in the front galley. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but I couldn’t refuse so I had just one with Kahlua poured over it. Yum.

We landed 7 minutes early in Miami and found Jonathan waiting for us outside security, flying through on the way home to Toronto from Trinidad. Our bags came out quickly despite not being priority tagged by the skycap. We grabbed a cab to the Sheraton Biscayne Bay ($16 plus tip) where we found they had preassigned us the Presidential Suite and the twin Biscayne Suite on the penthouse floor. I noticed how United’s policy of “protecting the integrity of their First Class product” left me strategizing about how to get better treatment on their competitors while Starwood’s “First Class is always full” policy made me never want to stay anywhere else. The suite was stocked with bottles of still and sparkling water and a nice plate of assorted cheeses along with a note from the general manager saying they appreciated my business.

We headed down to grab a bite in the lobby restaurant, which had something I had never seen before: a Manhattan menu! I was in no mood for more alcohol though so I just had a steak salad, which was superb. Jonathan and Hunnybear split a burger and some French onion soup. Although it was not yet 10 LA time the sea air made us sleepy and we called it a night early.


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