I am in the middle of an itinerary that takes me from Muenster, Germany, to celebrate Christmas in San Francisco, attending a conference on Maui, spending a couple of days on Oahu, back to San Francisco and at the end of January back to Germany. The long-hauls are covered by LH (beloved seat 5D), the North-American flights by UA and one small inter-island hop as a UA codeshare operated by Aloha.
This brief report covers the first red-eye I've taken in a long time...
January 9th, UA 64 HNL-SFO, 11:55PM-6:52AM
We arrive at the airport around 10:00 PM, after a nice dinner in town. The UA check-in counter for the LA bound flights are quite busy, but the SFO side is nearly empty. Nevertheless, the agents are busy re-routing baggage for re-booked passangers, so a supervisor suggests we check-in at the ticketing counter.
The counter is staffed with four relaxed UA employees, who happily assist with all our questions. I ask about the price of an upgrade for the HNL-SFO-portion (breaking it out of the complex itinerary). The supervisor takes charge and goes through my LH issued ticket with one of the other agents, explaining the ticket contents.
We finally decide that paying $$$ for an upgrade compared to the 15k miles necessary are not worth the hassle, so I use the 15k christmas bonus from UA for my first domestic first class flight on UA. The computer goes down twice and after a couple of minutes all available ticketing agents are standing behind the computer of the supervisor, following our transactions... The upgrade is processed and I receive a DM card (my first ever).
We ask about the opening hours of the RCC, and - much to my surprise - it is open until 11:30. So we stroll down to the gate and up the escalator, to find the RCC at HNL (above gate 9) to be one of the finest I've ever been in. Clean, spacious, with a nice view of the airport and helpful staff - I'll be back next time around.
Boarding is scheduled for 11:25, so we leave the RCC at 11:23 and escalate down to the gate. Upon view of my DM card, the agent notes "I've already called you!", asks me about my seating preferences and hands me the boarding pass for 6C.
After waving good-bye I proceed down the jetway and settle in my seat. The flight has a rather light load in coach, out of the 24 seats in first, around 3-4 remain empty. I notice that a 1K million miler is asked about his meal preferences before takeoff, everyone else is asked after we are in flight. Since I'm in the last row of the first class cabin, I have to wait to pick my choice, but since about 2/3 of the passengers in first decline meal service, both hot and cold options are still available. I settle for the cold plate, a spicy tomato soup (hot
), a shrimp wrap with a strip of teriyaki chicken, salad and a piece of chocolate cake. Very nice and about a gazillion times better than the eco meal I had flying SFO-OGG. Combined with the smooth Californian Chardonnay (forgot to ask about the estate or vintage) a very nice late night snack. The attentive FAs keep my glasses (water and wine) filled throughout the flight.
I recline into the galley wall behind me and wonder, if the recline of the other seats may be better...). Anyway, I drift off to the land of sleep for a while and notice barely that we hit a couple of turbulences along the way and the seatbelt signs remain on for almost the entire flight.
The wakeup call from the FAs reaches us around 50 miles west of SFO, where we receive the good news - we're half an hour early. But - there are a couple of nasty turbulences wait for us. It is quite rocky and not everyone seems to comfortable with it. Listening to channel 9, I follow the ATC communication when all of a sudden a lightning strikes the plane. This was a first for me and I was more fascinated than anything else - especially by the phenomenon that the flash and the thunder are simultaneous (duh....). The captain gets on the PA immediately after he has reported the incident to Oakland ATC, explains to the passengers what has happened and we descend into SFO without any further interruption. Actually, channel 9 made the bumpy ride quite enjoyable, as there was a bit of traffic coming into SFO and LH unfortunately does not provide this service as opposed to UA.
My 2 Cents: UA first (757) is somewhere between the intra-european biz-class flights but way behind international biz-class (of which I only know LH). The food was definitely good, service was attentive. The seats were not very convincing (no footrests, limited recline).
Was it worth the 15k? For a red-eye, I like every bit of comfort I can get. Considering the 20k for upgrades from and to Germany, you get definitely more bang for the mile on the international trips.
Would I do it again? Probably, but I would look for the 777 flights and not necessarily upgrade on the 757.
Cheers
Mizu