Djlawman

Never know how long this LP/GP thing is going to last, so we decided to take a great vacation to Costa Rica and burn some GP miles.

Plan: LACSA JFK to SJO

Got to JFK only to find out that GP, which hand writes the award tickets, never inputted the issuance of the ticket into the TACA computer system. Thus, the reservation dropped out at midnight the night before. Fortunately, no one purchased our 4 Clase Ejecutiva seats, so they were still available. Agent reentered them into the computer system, and issued our boarding passes. He also put our reservation back in, indicating ticket already issued, for the return flight. (But failed to reserve our same seats.)

This has happened to us before when traveling to Rome last summer. LP/GP never inputs the ticket issuance into the computer system.

Got our seats, 2AB and EF for the 4 1/2 hour flight to San Jose. Nice cabin service, choice of strawberry crepes or omelette. Nice seats, but lacking footrest made them somewhat uncomfortable for flight.

LACSA 661 leaves JFK at 6:30 a.m.--first flight out of the terminal in the morning by far, so no one else in the terminal. Indeed, most of the shops were not open at that hour.

Such an early hour that we stayed over the night before at the Sheraton JFK. Utilitarian hotel, nothing more. But a good park and fly program with parking for the week included in room rate.

Arrived in San Jose and rented our SUV and then headed over to the Real Intercontinental in San Jose. We had stayed here on our LP run, and really liked the hotel. Nice grounds, great pool, nice rooms, and we had a free weekend nite certificate from Six Continents to use. Stayed 2 nites.

Then, drove down to Quepos, near Manuel Antonio National Park, and stayed at the Si Como No resort. Great hotel. Really enjoyed it.

Back up to San Jose area, and got 2 rooms for 2 nites each with 2 Marriott Rewards Spring PointSaver Certificates (with points which came in part from original transfers from LP). Great resort and business hotel. Nice rooms, very friendly and helpful staff, restaurants and gift shop don't gouge you, and good service.

Back to SJO for LACSA flight 660 back to JFK. It departs at 5:30 or so, arrives JFK at 12:30 a.m.

Didn't get our original seats, got 2AB and E, 1F, but another passenger switched with us so that we could all sit together.

We were late departing and got into JFK a few minutes after 1 a.m. No other international arrivals at that time of the nite, fortunately, so immigration and customs were wide open, and went fairly quickly.

I think Grupo TACA may pay less for the landing and takeoff slots and services so early in the morning and late at night. Because they seem to be the earliest and latest in the terminal.

Had a great trip.

Thanks LP/GlobalPass. (The 4 Clase Ejecutiva seats alone priced out at about $1000 each = $4000, more than we paid for our entire LP run).

Djlawman

Viajero Joven

Glad to hear you had a good trip. Re. the ticket numbers not being entered, that gives just another reason to reconfirm flights a day in advance. I can imagine the same happening on another carrier-- I don't think it's an LP-exclusive issue. I've never had that happen to me.

Re. timing, the flights are timed to connect in San Jose to/from other LACSA service to Bogota, Caracas, and Lima among others. The timing also coordinates with onward flight schedules via LIM onto TACA Peru connections to/from Buenos Aires, Santiago, and Sao Paolo.

The SJO-JFK flight itself originates in Quito and stops in Guayaquil en route. I'd guess they have decent loads on the through flight considering limited NYC--Ecuador service on other carriers, except for CO from EWR.

[This message has been edited by Viajero Joven (edited 04-30-2003).]

Djlawman

Like I said, with Hilton now, never know how long this LP/Globalpass thing is going to last.

Djlawman