Frankfurt - Holiday Inn Frankfurt Airport North

I had booked an Exec room in this hotel (their top level room) since the price was so low for this weekend stay. I had joined Priority Club before leaving home and faxed off to them a copy of my Hilton Honors Diamond Card and they had kindly comped me to PC Platinum status. I don't think I got much in the way of Platinum benefits at this hotel but as I had booked the Exec level room there was no scope for a room upgrade. There was some bottle of water and chockies in the room for me.

As the inbound flight was delayed I called my European colleague whom I had planned to meet for dinner and we decided to just catch up the next day (Saturday). He picked me up from the hotel and we spent the day walking around downtown Frankfurt and discussing business.

Next time I go to Frankfurt I will stay at the Intercontinental hotel (since I now have IC Ambassador status thanks to this trip) and we get a very good corporate rate there.

Sunday morning I checked out and planned on having breakfast at the AA lounge at FRA airport.

AA71 FRA-DFW
Departure: 10:55
Arrival: 14:30
seat: 10J

I chose this flight flight as it was a nice day-time flight trans-Atlantic. AA's business class seats are very comfortable for sitting, offer better recline than QF's old Dreamtime seats, and 10 inches more space (60" vs 50" pitch) than QF's dreamtime seats.

The points from my two QF flights had already posted and so I now have more than 25,000 AA miles in my now Platinum AA account. I called AA to see if I could upgrade this flight to First Class, and was told I could but it would cost me 25,000 miles plus US$125 since it was less than 7 days before departure. So I decided to keep the miles and the money since it was a daytime flight and I planned on reading and working anyway.

I arrived at the airport 3 hours before the scheduled departure time, and was second in line for F check-in when it opened (just after I arrived). The check-in process involved undergoing the third degree questioning at a desk before being allowed to approach the actual check-in desk. The interrogator wanted to know where I had been in Germany (wanted to see the hotel receipt), what I was doing in the USA (wanted to see the conference agenda), and who I worked for (wanted to see a business card). He was not satisfied with verbal answers but wanted printed evidence of my answers. Anyway, I must have passed the inquisition and was allowed to check-in.

The AA lounge at FRA was very disappointing. Virtually no food (small bread rolls and jam), coffee and that was about it.

Its a good thing some very kind person sold me a Targus universal power adapter before this trip so I could use my laptop on the AA flights since they don't have the 110V AC in-seat power that QF has in J and F cabins.

I chose a seat in the middle of the cabin and was able to have my first meal choice for both meal services (FEBO for the first meal service and the reverse for the second).

Arrival at DFW's new Terminal D was efficient except for the long queue to exit customs. That took about 25 mins to get through.