BizElite

I awoke moments before the wake-up call came, followed shortly thereafter by Monkeyboy blaring out John Philip Sousa’s “Semper Fidelis” march and then the hotel’s clock CD/radio starting up with “Sweetest Taboo” in French. As I wedged myself into the tiny bathroom to take a rainshower I thought how nice that I don’t have to face the “sweetest taboo” today—trying for a double-upgrade on United—because I was flying Delta.

The crufty Windows-based guest-services system W had on their TVs was working today but showed no entries in my folio. However, there were four pages shoved under my door: two for me and then the same two duplicated for Hunnybear but with added entries at the end crediting the whole thing off. The occupancy tax had now crept up to $4 a night but I wasn’t in the mood to question it: who knew how high it might get? I packed up and verified my bill with the night clerk downstairs. A male model with long blond hair wheeled my luggage out to a cab as I checked out. We were underway at 6:47.

Since it wasn’t a flat rate the driver took me via the more expensive Triboro bridge instead of the more direct Midtown Tunnel or more groovy Queensboro Bridge. There was no traffic though and we arrived at Kennedy airport at about 7:20, giving me an hour before flight time. I gave the driver a generous tip and found myself at a Third-World airport entrance. I looked around. The only things I could see were a long line to check baggage with Skycaps and a long line to go through some sort of security checkpoint. There were no signs. I could see inside the terminal and saw Delta checkin so I stood in the long security line and got through. Once inside it was like a normal airport so I went to the BizElite checkin and got my boarding passes. I asked the agent if I deserved to enter the Crown Room on this ticket. He said yes and apologized for not mentioning it, then gave me directions. Cool.

I was comped to Gold Medallion on Delta with my Centurion Card membership. This was only the third flight I’d had on Delta, though, because they didn’t allow upgrades on most cheap fares. I used up four of my eight upgrades on this one leg so between their no-upgrade policy and their stingy-upgrade policy I doubted I’d fly them again in the near future, although who knew? The handcuffs of United were unlocked and my policy was now to fly whatever airline I wanted.

I headed for the Crown Room but found a room called BizElite Lounge first and went in there. They were just opening up but I found a slow Internet terminal and read FlyerTalk while I waited for them to put the coffee on. There were free drinks but at 7:30 a.m. I wasn’t in the mood. I tried a stale egg-salad sandwich triangle but couldn’t stomach more than a corner of it. At 7:50 I asked one of the agents if it was time to go to my flight and she said yes, they were now boarding.

I wheeled over to gate 9 and walked on to the 767-300. At shadow’s advice I had booked seat 1C, although there was so much room between seats I think it was tough to go wrong. As advertised, 1D remained empty although the cabin was pretty full. The seats were leather and reclined almost flat, similar to United’s new cloth Business Class seats but with no back massage. The personal video system was great, offering a variety of well-done games in addition to two cycles of eight video channels. I enjoyed some weak coffee and read USA Today while waiting for the doors to close.

We pushed back but then returned immediately to the gate because the valve. It was an hour before maintenance had the problem fixed and then we repeated the process, pushing back once more and waiting in a long line to take off. We had lost an hour but the winds aloft were negligible so we stood to gain 40 minutes of it back en route.

The Delta flight attendants once again were uniformly friendly and helpful. They weren’t any better than good United flight attendants but on United I only got the good ones maybe a third of the time at best. They worked throughout the flight, constantly bringing me fresh bottles of water without being asked. They didn’t appear to run out of any of the breakfast entrees, which was good because it was eggs and two carbo bombs. The eggs arrived as a scrambled eggs Benedict, served with a skimpy fruit plate and briny potato slices. The highlight of the meal was the bread assortment. I had two delicious hot croissants.

As my first movie selection I watched The Dish, the true story of a small Australian town’s involvement in bringing back the TV pictures of the first Apollo moonwalk. It was well done and a boy science geek like me ate it up. I flipped over to watch the end of The Partners TV show then watched the airshow until they started Cycle B. I wasn’t interested in any of the movie selections but they had the wonderful Ken Burns documentary Baseball so I watched that. We were over Las Vegas already so I watched the airshow for the rest of the flight. There was weather east of LA so we got vectored up to the northwest, adding a half-hour to our flight time. We finally got in at 12:15, 50 minutes late.

I was at LAX. I was home.

The end.


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