Aruba and Roberta:

Better watch out for the Cat; his reach is long!

well ... here's my tday report. i flew to mco on dl no problem (the saturday before the holiday). on tday my family and i flew on northwest to detroit - they let me upgrade to 1st, but not my family - there was a nw employee in 1st (who used a voucher - i saw it when she was in line) - there was another passenger in 1st who was able to upgrade w/his wife but not his kids. i flew nw back to mco on nw the sat. after tday and was able to upgrade. from mco to slc i flew dl - a family got on with 8 bags (i assume they checked nothing) and delayed the whole boarding process. this was a very stressful trip 4 me - i'm glad it's over!

h-neck-ets, mebe yu spil my nam rit and not mak fun of mi amigo roberto. hombre gato big bluf. him goin on vaccination.

Aubie - I hear you on the parking. Some airports just don't have the parking capacity for holiday crowds and some like RDU don't have any capacity period!

Have you considered off airport parking? Every airport has a few. Most will valet park your car, some will wash, detail, service etc. and often for less than the daily rate of on airport parking.

I turned my neighbor on to it and he couldn't believe the comfort and convenience he was missing out on - even as a last minute flyer - like me.

Jim

Aubie... with the holiday season the airlines
should even more enforce the proper boarding
procedures with occassional travelers with
945 bags trying to get on the plane ahead of
everyone else. The whole boarding process chaos is outrageous.

What some brave agent should do is if too many people who are not in the proper called row area try to sneak on the plane simply
stop the whole boarding process. When enough
people get angry (and the plane takes off late) then everyone will realize the importance of waiting your turn.

Mostly I have a car service take me to the airport but if you go to EWR Aubie, brace yourself for another parking nightmare. the lines are long and people at toll booths few, esp. on the holidays. CATMAN

after a very nice meeting with mileageaddict at the Red Carpet Club in SEA this sunday:

*UA shuttle SEA-SFO was delayed 4 hours (apparently wather/storm in SFO - combined with thanksgiving-traffic) - so we arrived at our SFO hotel at 5AM in the morning (but it was not a major problem for us - we had fun looking and listening at all arguments people "invented" at SEA in trying to get an earlier flight ...).

One thing I didn't understand: UA closed their Red Carpet Club in Seattle as scheduled at 9:30PM, not taking note of their flights being delayed (the last one left SEA at 2AM).

Oh, Rudi...you just hit upon a pet peev of mine and one which I have written to United several times. Not only do they not keep the RCCs open when delayed traffic, but they close them even when they have flights scheduled into the night. These are the times when I want the clubs the most. I know why they do this...cost! But I think that the Clubs should be open as long as they have outgoing flights!

As far as my Thanksgiving travel went, My family and I always fly Alaska Airlines nonstop and earn NW WorldPerks miles. However, I am only Preferred with NW (25% mile bonus) and achieved UA Premier Executive this year (100% bonus) so we went the inconvenient way for more miles. I flew SEA-LAX-PHX and returned PHX-DEN-SEA all on UA. The 737 first leg to LAX was packed to capacity and UA was looking for 5 volunteers to take a later flight. Normally, my wife and I travel with just carry-on luggage and would have taken this opportunity but on this flight, we were with our baby and checked in about 5 tons of luggage. We has bulkhead coach seating so we opted to sit tight. Lunch was a pasta salad that looked nice but had as much flavor as one would expect from a meal in a nursing home.

Layover was a brief 30 minutes; just enough time to walk between terminals. LAX-PHX was a very short 737 UA Shuttle flight that was full except for a few middle seats. Again, bulkhead seating and an on-time arrival.

PHX-DEN yet another UA Shuttle 737 filled to capacity. I always seem to get stuck in the middle during maximum capacity flights as my wife prefers the window for privacy when feeding the baby. This is hard to get accustomed to as I tend to get upgraded when flying alone or at least have a window or aisle with an empty middle when by myself. This time was the worst, I was seated next to a man that chose not to wear deodorant. Thankfully, this flight was under 90 minutes as I was dying. Probably the most uncomfortable flight I have taken this year. The last leg from DEN-SEA was on a DC-10 that was only half full. Even though we had bulkhead, we moved to an empty row of 5 center area seats after takeoff so we could lay the baby down for a nap. After a weekend of turkey leftovers, what do we get for lunch...turkey sandwiches...ugh! Still, 100% better than the hamburger UA served me on their 777 between DEN-ORD last month. Landed in SEA on-time, claimed luggage only to find the strap that holds down the handle on the rolling bag ripped away. Filled out paperwork and UA will cover the cost or issure a travel credit voucher for the repair plus $50.

Final note: My baby is 7 months old and has been on 20 flight segments already! He has only cried on one flight (YYC-SEA) due to a quick descent and ear pressure. We always dress him in an outfit that has planes on it when he flies and people love it. Two people have taken pictures of our little cutie.

MileageAddict,

Regarding your seat companion:

I try to turn up the air nozzle to blow fresh air in my direction, but that might not even work in your case! I know that if, for any reason, you have a "problem" with the person next to you, the flight attendant should move you upon request. Of course if the flight is completely full, that will mean someone else will have to sit by your "problem" passenger...I would think it would be a non-rev, since they have last priority?

Maybe they should have electronic smelly sniffers after the metal detectors? *s* They already sniff for explosives.

arturo not on pheenex-denvr flite, must have ben roberto that smel bad.

arturo yu soppozd to bi mi frend!

i showa evry days. AND i use deodrant and aftashev.

mebbe it wos sistertodd, looks lik a man.

mi amigo, roberto, you not on pheenex-denvr flite eithr, arturo forget, we heet goolf balls togethr. must hav beeen hombre gato.

Rudi... hope you travels are going well and the rest of your travels are with NO delays!
(The FlyerTalkers want you back.. the cat cops are driving them crazy!!!))

PremEx/co-cat cop: I did not know that they close the clubs early, even with flights going into 1 and 2 a-m. That's very very very
stupid!!!! Why can't they keep the clubs open... staff who doesn't want to stay till early morning hours.

THis is the off the wall suggestion: What they should do is afterhours give guys like you a special coded key to go in (of course having security inside) and let you stay on "the honor system" (Like if you drink all the alcohol and you pay for it all.) I think the airlines would be able to trust us (It's not we're going to have wild parties in the clubs.)

Mileage Addict... glad your travels went realtively well. Maybe your seven month old
is already earning miles.

Your son can teach some growups to stop acting like children when the boarding doesn't go fast enough, they don't get room for their 475 bags and they whine about being stuck in "the wrong seat."

I guess your son has to be two years old to earn miles, right? If he's already earning miles he'll be a million miler by his teens!
CATMAN

Probably part of the laid-back Hawaii life-style but fly first class on Aloha (or be whatever it is they call their premiers -- help TropicalFlyer) and you get the code to enter the clubs -- and they are unattended. Only coffee/juice and soda but geez I miss it soooooo muchly!!!!!

I already posted a bit about my holiday trip
over in the UA section so I'll be brief here.

The line for going back (IAD->SJC) was just
truly,truly horrid that it made me thank whatever travel gods exist that I was Premier and didn't have to suffer through THAT cattle-call. To UA's credit they were checking cards(they don't always it seems)
and booted a good half-dozen people out
of line, which sped things up even more.

Ricechex, you have my sympathy on your traffic probs. It took my friends 2 hours
to wade through the traffic @ SJC just to
GET to me and we sat there for another 40
trying to get out.

Okay, other annoyance(I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep it short :) ):
The FA's insisted on keeping the side
flourescents on through most of the flight,
which made it pretty **** annoying to try and
get some work done on the laptop. What's
up with that?

As holiday travel goes, I would say I got off rather lightly. Good visits and no major
family psychodrama. Whatever problems or
complaints I had, they pale in comparison to
getting stuck in SEA for two days 'cause of
snow over New Year's '97.