Edited, below, re the security lines

I concur with most previous observations; let me add a few of my own:

I drive from the East Bay (Concord area) so can't comment directly on your route. It does seem that very early in the morning 880 is often slow northbound (per KCBS traffic reports) from the San Mateo bridge to about the exit for OAK parking

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checkin

Usually very quick. My last two visits the former "Premier/FC" line was now a "1K/FC" line.

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and security hassles,

There seem to be quite a few early morning flights from Terminal 1, plus those folks (and WN staff!) who look at the nightmare lines at terminal 2 for WN check-in sometimes join the much shorter lines (usually) in Terminal 1. A little dated, but some info about check-in and security at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/008646.html

There are two lines to security in Terminal 1; be sure to get in the right-hand one, and then, when it forks, also take the right hand one. Usually noticeably faster.

EDIT: This morning (11/27), the lines no longer "forked"; there were three lines from the beginning to the end at the lobby (around 10 am). And all the airline staff -- plus the guy delivering 5 humongous boxes of avacadoes -- cut in line in the right hand line. Didn't see any airline or concessions staff cutting into the left hand land. So this morning the right hand line went noticeably slower!

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upgrade opportunities, etc.,

For a brief while pre-September 11 and pre-schedule reduction they had improved dramatically. But now they seem much more difficult given the small FC cabins on most of the DEN runs.

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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> and I would appreciate advice on which to choose, where to park and so on....

Also completely agree that parking at Expresso is your best bet www.expressoparking.com You can reserve a space in advance. Have had a number of great experiences there, plus one really bad wait. Given the service and availablilty of cheap indoor parking at Expresso, I would avoid using OAK's long-term parking. The costs are about the same and the buses inconsistently reliable.

Completely true, unless it's full and the overflow parking, a long way away, is in use instead.

Also, of the other off-airport lots I would not recommend QuickPark -- I discovered once that it closed very late at night -- which is not helpful if your flight is very late or if you get bumped, re-routed to SFO and then vanned over from SFO!

Make sure that you specifically check with the hotel about the room rate for keeping your car parked at the hotel. This summer the best rate by far was at the new Marriott Courtyard (via Marriott's website) but if you wanted the Park and Fly rate, it was significantly more. I've had some folks tell me that many of the OAK hotels really do keep track of who's in the lot and who's not supposed to be there on a given room rate/date, and will tow.

A final alternative (I don't know how realistic for you): You can BART to the Colliseum station, then get the AirBart bus to OAK. Pretty easy and usually pretty quick. Make sure you buy your AirBart bus ticket before leaving the BART station, though.

Hope some of that is helpful. Email me if you have any other questions I can offer either wisdom or certainly an opinion on.


[This message has been edited by cblaisd (edited 11-27-2001).]