Lucanesque

Did my first full-on TP run last weekend. Interesting experience, nearly went horribly wrong, but scraped through by the skin of my teeth to make every connection.

Plan was to go LGW-JER-LGW-LHR-PHL-CLT-PDX-LAX-JFK-LHR over the course of four days:


LGW-JER - CE - 40TP - scheduled 11:50-12:55 - actual 11:46-12:35
JER-LGW - CE - 40TP - scheduled 07:05-08:10 - actual 07:01-08:15
LHR-PHL - CW - 140TP - scheduled 12:40-15:30 - actual 14:03-17:06
PHL-CLT - AA First - 40TP - scheduled 17:10-19:02 - actual 17:40-19:05
CLT-PDX - AA First - 140TP - scheduled 19:51-22:13 - actual 19:51-22:14
PDX-LAX - AA First - 40TP - scheduled 11:53-14:20 - actual 11:44-14:10
LAX-JFK - AA Business - 140TP - scheduled 15:30-12:01 - actual 15:19-23:30
JFK-LHR - CW - 140TP - scheduled 07:55-19:45 - actual 07:47-19:25

Total planned TP: 720TP - Actual TP: 790TP

Ticket booked on the AA site at a cost of $1,400, ticketed on 001 stock. Had some problems with the booking early on, as usual I had a AA record locator and separate BA one, combination of the both should have enabled me to manage both the BA and AA sectors. However, I wasn't able to reserve a seat for my first flight. Rang BAEC and they told me it was because the BA record locator was incorrect, they insisted on giving me another despite me saying "but I've been able to manage the other BA sectors (LHR-PHL and JFK-LHR)". I then ended up with three locators: The original AA one, the original BA one covering two out of three of the BA sectors, and the second BA one covering the JER-LGW flight.

Further problems arose when it came to check in I was able to check in to both the JER-LGW and LHR-PHL flights, but trying to check in with AA for any further flights just redirected me to the BA website, which then errored saying there was no valid e-ticket

Nothing much to do until I got back to LHR so I focussed on enjoying St Helier. My flight from LGW-JER was uneventful, save for the gluten free meal I'd ordered that contained a world record attempt at "driest chicken breast", it was truly astounding. Stayed in the Club Hotel & Spa in St Helier, very pleasant hotel in a nice part of the island. Ate at the hotel's Michelin starred restaurant, Bohemia, which made up for the abysmal food on the way over - I'd thoroughly recommend stopping off here on an ex-JER trip:

Tasting menu at Bohemia Jersey

Coming back from JER-LGW equally uneventful, although my GF breakfast was extremely edible (soft cheese omelette, spinach, mushrooms, and the obligatory hotter than the centre of the sun tomato). Here's both the awful chicken and the tasty breakfast:

GFML lunch and breakfast

My original plan on reaching LGW was to get a taxi from LGW to LHR T5, leisurely breakfast in GF, then stroll through the tunnels, but this went out the window with my ticketing problem. Instead I got my taxi to take me straight to Terminal 3 so I could go to the AA ticket desk to try and sort this out. Took the advice of some other FTers and called AA en-route to see if there was anything they could do, but was still on hold when I reached T3. But&#8 230; all was very quickly sorted when I got to the ticket counter, within five minutes I had the boarding passes for both PHL-CLT and CLT-PDX

Quick trip over to T5 on the underground, a seamless check in and passport check in the First Wing, and a quick bite to eat in the lounge before a walk through the tunnels. I love the walk over from A to B or C, usually empty and peaceful:

Tunnels between Terminal 5A and 5B

First flight of the day out of the way and it was all looking so promising, which of course is when it started to go a little bit wrong! We were late departing the gate, which, with a 100 minute connection at PHL to get through border controls and through two terminals to my next flight to CLT was starting to worry me a little. Got to next to take off and that's when it went properly wrong&#8 230; instead of turning right at Concorde and on to the runway we turned left and the captain came on to tell us we'd have to go back to the gate because there was a problem with the loading, but not to worry as that would only be a 30-45 minute delay

Pleasant flight in 64K, with nobody in 64J (TS works!), interestingly I was unable to choose 64A at checkin because my booking did not have an infant associated with it. But I guess nor did the elderly couple that were sitting in 64A/B Food was good and tasty, I deliberately didn't order the special meal, as I knew I could ask the crew to check Chef's Chat as to what had / hadn't got gluten in:


BA67 Club World food. Clockwise from top left: Grouse with fondant potato, Beef with potato Dauphinoise, pre-landing tapas selection, cheese and port, and celeriac soup with toasted pine nuts.

I was travelling very light so was ready to deplane the second the seatbelt sign went off - I figured that as I'd miss the flight to CLT I'd get straight to the ticket desk because it sounded from the announcements there would be a lot of missed connections. But then a ray of sunshine&#8 230; just as was walking down the stairs to 2L I got a break, an alert popped up saying my connecting flight have been delayed by 30 minutes! I negotiated with the CC on the door, acknowledged that it was totally out of protocol but could I deplane before First as I might still have a (slim) chance to get my next flight.

Fast forward 29 minutes and I'm sat dripping with sweat in 1C on the next flight. Somehow I managed to get all the way from terminal A, through the US border (thanks to Global Entry) and to literally the furthest gate in terminal C, in under 29 minutes

The rest of the evening went to plan, a 45 minute connection at CLT to walk two gates down and boarded straight away. My flight from CLT to PDX served dinner, which I'd pre-ordered, it wasn't that great to be honest a very nice piece of shortrib accompanied by a truly disgusting cheese topped baked potato that had a texture like it had boiled in the oven for some time. Booked a hotel en-route through Hotwire, hadn't booked anything before in case it all went horribly wrong with connections. Stayed in the Aloft PDX, which was surprisingly good for a $100 a night airport hotel, by this time I'd been up for 25 hours so I was ready for bed!

Next morning and a much more relaxed day with just the two flights, both forecast on time. A short hop down from PDX-LAX started the day, which gave some great sights leaving PDX (Mount St Helens & Mount Hood), as well as a cracking view of Hollywood when we came in to land at LAX:

Top: Mount St Helens / Bottom: Hollywood!

This was followed by the LAX-JFK Transcontinental service. I've done this service a couple of times now, although both times in First so this was my first time trying Business. Seat was quite comfortable, a good lie-flat bed, but having to step over my neighbour was a real pain (much more so and more awkward than in CW). The food, however, was very good indeed. Starting with a smoked salmon and caperberry dish, accompanied by a rocket salad, this was followed with a peculiar combination of grilled shrimp with Thai red curry sauce, spinach, and a mushroom risotto It was definitely two different dishes on the same plate, but both were incredibly tasty and surpassed all expectation - risotto was creamy, moist, very savoury, and the prawns were not tough with the accompanying sauce nicely spiced. All of this washed down with a limited but adequate wine selection and followed up with the classic AA ice cream sundae (which I like to keep simple, just the ice cream with hot caramel sauce).

I stayed over in the Hampton Inn near JFK, on Hhonors points. First time I've stayed in a JFK hotel and hadn't previously realised that there were no hotels directly attached to any of the terminals. Benefit of using a Hilton with the digital key meaning I didn't have to queue up, which would have been a killer as it was surprisingly busy at check in.

Following morning I checked ExpertFlyer, saw there were some seats in First, so decided to get to the airport early to get an AUP. Glad I did, as the issues with the booking references struck again - the check in agent wasn't able to check me in because of an "irregularity with my ticket". In the end it took three of them and half an hour to sort it. OK, I know the AUP was an unnecessary expense for a TP run, but I fancied stretching out and having a better bed for a few hours - three days of flying and I was knackered! Trip home was very good, efficient and professional crew, had a good chat with the CSD about the upcoming fleet changes, he was saying that the new CW seat is going to address a lot of the areas that people have been complaining about for years (aisle access, space, screen size, storage etc.). I said that would make flying First a lot less appealing, and he said that changes to the First cabin would take care of that but that he could say no more as his lips were sealed. I cannot wait to see what happens to both cabins!

Conclusions
Booking the ticket many months ago the impact of this much flying didn't cross my mind, and whilst I was quite relaxed about a missed connection on a single ticket the reality was more stressful. When we reached PHL we were told there would be ground agents waiting for us by carousel #8 to sort out all our missed connections - there weren't, and weren't any visible ground staff anywhere around any of the carousels. Maybe I'd got through too quickly for them, who knows, but the race to my next flight nearly killed me!

Having ExpertFlyer and Tripit Pro subscriptions helped a lot. Tripit Pro notified me of the very last minute delay to my PHL-CLT sector, had I not had that notification I would definitely have missed that connection assuming it had gone on time (as it was reporting in the AA app / on google right up to when I got out of my seat to deplane). ExpertFlyer helped me look at alternative ways to get to the west coast, seeing how many tickets were being sold on each flight.

Enjoyed some aspects of the AA service (group boarding was more efficient, and the domestic First was comfortable), but I didn't find the AA service as friendly and slick as BA. Loved the ability on AA to stream to my own device on every flight (even the little Embraer from PDX-LAX) with GoGoInflight.

Other than the CLT connection the trip was quite relaxing&#8 230; for me, sticking my feet up, being fed, watching movies, nobody calling me, is a great way to spend a couple of days. I know of course this won't be to everyone's taste, and to some it will be their idea of hell! Would I do it again, possibly, although if I was doing this many flights I'd probably try and build some time in to actually see some stuff (Portland for example). Also, I don't know what I was thinking when I booked a flight that got me to JFK at midnight, only to have another one at 7:55 the next morning. The flipside to that is I've not been away long enough to acclimatise to the different time zones and so as a consequence I'm (surprisingly) not jet-lagged today.

Factoring in transit between LGW-LHR, hotel, food etc the total cost of the entire trip (excl AUP) was around $2,000. Including AUP, and the extra 70TP it was more like $3,000 - so more of a middle aged TP run than a TP run extreme

mwp1

Lucanesque

Cheers! I used the Great Circle Mapper, here's the link to the chart I created.

onobond

Smiling when I saw your luck with the PHL departure, delayed just enough to make you avoid complications due to late incoming flight, It's certainly good to have luck on your side.

Nice TR, I like the small extravagant touch with a Michelin-starred dinner. Thanks for sharing!

Globaliser

A small question: as this was 2,282 miles, shouldn't it have been 140 TPs, for total planned TPs of 720?

Lucanesque

You're quite correct, I made a mistake on that! Total planned 720TP, total actual 790TP. I'll edit my original post

bisonrav

Lucanesque

I've actually done that before - I needed a TP top up one year to get me over the line so went there for lunch

Edit: Forgot to mention they also have a Ł49 "Chef's Choice" six course menu for dinner Monday-Thursday, which is amazing value!

ouennais

I work opposite Bohemia; it's by some distance Jersey's best. Next time, drop me a message and I'd be more than happy to join!

bisonrav

mtikky

Someone say do? :-D

I missed the JER 'DO' from 2015 through lack of finances, but I seem to now be a frequent visitor of their shores now (thanks to the current BA sale, anyway)

Lucanesque

I'd be up for that - I love that restaurant!

MaxFlyer

Great trip report and glad that it all worked out in the end.
What do you mean by 'TS works!' in this sentence: 'Pleasant flight in 64K, with nobody in 64J (TS works!),... '

CloudGazer

"Theoretical Seating" it's a feature of the Fly system that BA use that means passengers with higher status are more likely to end up with an empy seat next to them.

Gastrocnemius