When planning our next holiday for the upcoming summer it turned out that using miles is the only reasonable option. Historically the fares Germany to US-westcoast border the four-digit range for an economy class ticket, so I thought out a way to get four tickets in business-class for just ~750€ each by using miles. This however involved convincing my wife to take her first mileage-runs of her life.

Well, but as my wife is pretty understanding and I had prepared a compelling case where all numbers added up (;-)), she finally agreed to take up spending four weekend on the road to become LH-Senator and get the necessary miles to make next year’s holiday-flights secured.

First three weekends were “bland” AirRail-trips, spending the whole two days riding the ICE-train mostly between Frankfurt and Stuttgart. Well, it is OK, but it gets boring after a while. So with the LH-Promotion offering double miles on your first US-Airways roundtrip, I thought that this would constitute a good chance to get the necessary miles. US had very liberal routing-rules out of Germany when I looked, allowing you basically to fly any way you want unless you do not get over the maximum permitted miles for the itinerary. For the first segment getting you to the gateway, you were even allowed to take any airline you wanted. So we decided for a fare to Orlando with a MPM of 5586 miles, allowing transatlantic travel Monday – Thursday so giving us a nice long weekend in the City of Mouse. With the help of a great travel-agent I put together the following routing:

11/7: CGN-LH-MUC-US-PHL-US-DCA
11/8: IAD-US-PIT-US-CLT-US-MCO
11/10: MCO-US-CLT-US-PIT-US-DCA-US-PHL-US-FRA-LH-QKL

With LH’s SEN/FTL-Bonus also counting for status and the generous 1000 miles minimum miles, this routing comes to estimated 22573 status-miles and 39632 bonus-miles. On the outbound we really got close to the maximum permitted miles (5540), but on the return we still had some layaway, but adding another flight (like GSO or RDU between CLT and PIT) was not possible due to the restriction that a ticket will only automatically be priced by Amadeus if it has 12 segments or less. And of course I did not want to take the chance to have US look at the reservation and manually add a price-tag. We decided that this indeed is a great opportunity to get a change from the bland train-rides. Fare for the above itinerary came to 378,22€ (about 435$) all taxes included. So here we go:

11/7: LH1269 CGN-MUC 9:25-10:25 75% full in C, about 60% full in Y, 8AC, B735

LH offers a great feature called “Late night check-in” for their departures out of Germany. It means that you are able to check your bags and get a boarding pass for your flight the day before between 6 and 9pm. This also works for LH’s US-destinations, so I assumed that I was safe with US also, but I was wrong.. LH would not accept my bags as US would not take them (strange enough had I booked the flight as LH-codeshare, they would). So I could only check my bags to MUC and then claim and recheck them there. Flight itself was a 45 minute long pretty eventless ride with the usual LH-service (drinks in coach, add a sandwich in Business) including the person in 9C being spilled by diet-coke as always (had this now three times in a row on the 737 including being that person once myself…must be in LH’s script…;-)). Landed pretty much on-time, but got a parking position assigned that must be somewhere in Erding, so it took a five minute bus-ride to the terminal. When we arrived in baggage-claim, our bags were already there, so we picked them up and went our way in the new terminal to find the US Airways counter.

11/7: US15 MUC-PHL 12:15-15:45 100% full in C, about 80% full in Y, seats 10CE, B762

After locating the check-in desk (you cannot use a LH-counter) it turns out that US still asks those stupid questions before they let you proceed to the baggage-counter, and I also was “lucky” to be selected for a manual baggage inspection. While this did not take too long it was certainly annoying having someone go through my carefully packed stuff without properly repacking it, in the full view of other people also being selected. When I complained about that I was told that it is a TSA instruction that the search has to be conducted in the full public view to deter terrorists…I will see if they are really correct on this one when I get home. Flight departed from the second-last gate (H43) of the new terminal, so be prepared for some hike from the SEN-lounge to the gate. The lounge was pretty nice and in contrast to other lounges almost deserted (probably due to the fact that the US flight is the last flight of the morning departing to non-Schengen). Lounge had several snack options including Leberkäse and Frikadellen (kind of hot ground beef patties enriched with bread and spices) as well as two kinds of salad. Preparing for Eco-service on our long-haul flight, we decided to make a small lunch out of that.

When we left the lounge at about 11:30, the flight was already boarding. We came to the gate where the secondary security inspection took place. Everybody had to remove their shoes here, and asking why I was told “because of the government of Oberbayern says so”…not really a convincing response. When reserving seats I had gotten 10C and E hoping that the middle would stay open, and in fact it did. Flight was completely full in C and about 80% full in Y.

With that open seat between me and my wife (and the movable armrest, the seat was pretty bearable. Although I knew in advance that many things are no more complimentary on US it was pretty strange to see them sell both headsets and alcoholic drinks. Some other Germans around even asked if they had to pay for the meal…not that US takes this question for serious and makes food on transatlantic flights for purchase in the future. Lunch choices in coach were chicken or pasta, and anyone around chose Chicken. Well, it was edible, but that’s about it. Portions were less than generous, and even my wife had the whole portion, a first on a longhaul-flight. Entertainment was on a big screen and ran throughout the whole flight, but much to my surprise: No airshow at all! That was something I really found unusual as every other airline I have travelled on had this neat feature several times between the other main-screen program. A word to the movie shown: We had “Hulk” which I though was pretty old for airline-programming, but maybe I am just spoiled.

Flight time was a long nine hours and fifteen minutes bringing us (after a short ground-delay in Munich) into Philadelphia slightly behind schedule at 4pm. US 762’s look really a little old and in need for repair (e.g. my seat reclined without me wanting to do so), but other than that the flight was completely bearable; it just got boring with times considering the little entertainment options available. While the crew was very senior (even the UA crews I had were younger on average) they were very professional and service oriented. Also the person making German-language announcements spoke excellent German, both in choice of words and pronunciation, which I found very unusual. I also had the impression that the FAs were more present in the cabin (offering drinks) than on my previous flights…about twice an hour they came around with water and juice.


The black hole…or: Surviving PHL.

After deplaning we tried to get to Immigrations as fast as possible, but it turned out that it is a looong trek from the gate to the arrivals hall. When we arrived we found signage pretty poor, and accidentally chose the wrong line for immigration. Just having red and green separators between lines just don’t cut it when you don’t explain that the green “lanes” are for citizen, while the red ones are for visitors. Also I though that the checkpoint were severely understaffed…only four open lines each. That caused us to stand in line for the better part of 45 minutes to clear immigration, and when we came to the belt, our bags have already been sick from travelling around for an extended time. Customs was no problem this time, but I thought the people we met so far in PHL lacked much in terms of friendliness. Everybody was brief and spoke in kind of “commanding” voice to me and my wife…I wonder why they are that unfriendly. After clearing customs I threw my bags on the recheck-belt and proceeded to what I thought was the security-checkpoint for domestic departures…it was, but the one that everyone uses, not only connecting passengers. Lines were all across the bridge on all terminals, going all the way to the parking-garage. No way that we would have made our flight if we got in line there. We decided to head for the F-terminal as someone told me the lines were shorter there but when passing the C-terminal (the terminal our flight to DCA was scheduled to depart) we noticed a line-less entrance for First-class and Premier passengers. In the light of cooperation between LH and US I showed my Senator card and was admitted, so I made it through security control in a few minutes, leaving even a little time to spare to visit the US Airways club in PHL (not that this was something to write home, but I was in dire need of a drink). All in all however I made a mental note however to avoid PHL in the future – even with the new terminal it seems that they are not able to work with masses of people and had I not been able to use the Preferred-line, I never would have made my connection even with two hours to spare. While I heard horror-stories about IAD, both times I went through there recently it felt like heaven compared to PHL. Probably Mr. Weber who called IAD a “medieval pit” has never been to PHL before.

11/7: US831 PHL-DCA 17:45-18:40 100% full in F, 60% full in Y, seats 10AC, A319

This is the first time that I flew into DCA since 9/11 and I had been a bit nervous that security would be overly tight and hold up everything. Well, it was no real difference to the previous flights, except for the announcement that everyone had to remain seated for the last 30 minutes which due to the short duration of the flight (announced 20 minutes flight time, actual about 35) meant that nobody was allowed to get up at all. Seats were decently comfortable on this airbus, much more comfortable than on the transatlantic run. Also every seat had a power-outlet in it (although having a very strange connector), and the armrests were fully movable so we could stretch out on the extra seat we had to spare. Other than that the flight was pretty eventless, with no long wait for departure or after arrival. Our bags took their time however and showed up something like 10 minutes after we made it to the baggage-claim. A friend was already waiting to pick us up when we came in, and after being reunited with our bag and his 32 kg supply of Haribo- and Milka-sweeties, we were on our way for a nice dinner.

11/8: US5061 IAD-PIT 9:55-11:05 50% full, seat 6DF, SF3

After our friend dropped us off at about 8am we proceeded to the check-in counter that was not too busy at that time. Check in was reasonably quick, and the person checking us in was very friendly. Sadly IAD has no US-Club, so we went over to the Red Carpet Club of United where the guardian initially did not want to admit us but after some sweet-talk finally let us in. Spend the better part of an hour there having breakfast before riding the moon-buggy for the second time to terminal B. I have not been on a Saab 340 for ages (the last time in 1997) as they are not that common in Europe (or at least with the airlines I usually travel with), so I was not aware how tight the seating in there really is. My wife even had to take out all the magazines etc. in the seat-pocket so she could get into the seat (thanks god my legs are much shorter than hers so I did not have this problem…;-)). Also the plane looked pretty beaten up and made a not-too-pleasant appearance from the inside. IAD is not really busy at that hour, and so we just taxied to the runway for an immediate departure – never had that before at this airport. Also a first for me, I have never departed IAD on Rwy. 30, which this plane did. Flying very low at 10000 feet only made this flight a nice opportunity to watch out of the window (although my seat had very limited view of the ground) which I did most of the time. One word of warning: this plane is VERY loud. Having flown on Turbo-Props of many makes and models (Dash-8, Fokker 50, even Saab SF-2000) pretty much every other I have been on has not been that loud. Notable also was the fact that although this flight was very short, we got a complete beverage-service. Arrived in PIT at the commuter terminal at the outer end of concourse E so we had quite some hike for our departure out of C. However since the flight was so short (about 55 minutes), departed the gate a little early in IAD and experienced no delay on the ground in both PIT and IAD, we arrived about 10 minutes early.

11/8: US1018 PIT-CLT 11:45-13:05, 100% full in F, oversold in Y, 4AB, A319

Thanks to the early arrival we had a few minutes to spare, so we again went to the US-Club at the Mezzanine-level of the terminal. I noticed that US is selling food in there, but found the prices a bit too high. 8$ for a Cobb-salad is simply too high in my opinion given the offers of other airport food-outlets, so we passed on that and again just had some (soft-) drinks. Made it to our gate at 11:30 where boarding already had begun. This time I was not allowed to pre-board as the flight was oversold and running late. Being in row four meant that I could not board until the very last group. By that time US had decided that they would not allow any carry-on bags any more and the person in front of me was the first they forced to check (and I mean check, NOT gate-check) his carry-on. I thought this was unreasonable as I had breakable stuff in my carry-on like camera and laptop, so I started a discussion with the agent trying to take my bags (and he physically tried to rip the bags out of my hand!). It turned out that they were trying to find someone to bump from this flight by making-up the cabin-baggage issue as they had not found enough volunteers. I was even threatened to be denied boarding when the guy in front of me came back and told everyone that there was more than enough overhead-space. With that information the crowd got really loud at once, at all out of a sudden we were allowed to take our carry-on bags with us. Turns out that there were about three completely unused bins and staggered space in others bins as well. Before the departure they finally came out with the real reason for that hassle and asked for two more volunteers as they needed to get crew onto this flight. Due to all this hassle we departed about 15 minutes late, and after a decent taxi we finally departed at about 12:10. Flight time was announced at one hour, and from now on the flight was smooth and eventless. Row four in the A319 is really a comfortable place to be seated…enough legroom due to the cut-out space below and of course the feeling of wider seats than the 757/737 (not sure if they are actually wider but they at least feel this way). Service was the usual standard drink and pretzels. During arrival into CLT for the first time the crew made announcements of the gates of connecting-flights. Turns out we had to hurry a bit as we had to get to the B-concourse from C to make our flight to Orlando. We made it to the gate by 13:15, so just 45 minutes to departure of our last flight of the day.

11/8: US1485 CLT-MCO 14:00-15:29, 100% full in F, 95% full in Y, seats 14CE, B762

I had been watching the flight loads for this for weeks, and it seemed to me that the flight was way oversold. Four weeks before the flight there was no available seat on the seatmap, and for the last two weeks this flight showed completely sold out, both in F and Y-class. However when we got to the gate we found a 762 parked there instead of the expected 757…US had brought in bigger equipment. It turns out that the used the bird ready for the Frankfurt-run for this flight and had a spare operating the flight to FRA later that day. With that increased capacity however the flight was still full, but no longer oversold…oh well, I would have really liked to be bumped, but you can’t have it all.

With all the problems arising from an aircraft substitution, like rearrange seats etc., it took quite some time to get everybody on board. Pre-boarded again using my SEN-card and took our complete middle-row for the short flight to Orlando. No announcement in regard to flight-time was made this time, and we again enjoyed the service of drinks and pretzels (strange: while I got the whole can without asking from the person serving the right aisle, my wife only got a glass from the other side). Descended into Orlando on the usual path and taxied to our gate for quite some time. After arriving we made our way to the baggage-claim where it took ages for the bags to come out. Our remaining bag was last, so we probably waited something like 15 minutes, and our bag looked like it had a tough time on the three flight it had been on. It was completely dirty and (as it was not that full) heavily compressed at the sides. But it proved that the American Tourister quality was really worth the price for our 28’’ softside, as after a little pressing at the right places (without opening it, just from the outside) it looked like in original condition again.

Hiked off to the car park across the street to pick up a brand new PT Cruiser (215 miles on it) from the Emerald Aisle and started or long weekend in Orlando.

To be continued…

Greetings - Dirk

[This message has been edited by djohannw (edited 11-10-2003).]