Catman

It's a long hard road to Paradise in Las Vegas.

01-28: Day starts off great. Meet MileCrazy in NYC for some fun and coordinating plans for him for Vegas when he flies out Saturday.
But stayed a bit later than usual and had to take a cab get to the airport from NYC.

BIG BIG MISTAKE! (My gut told me to take the subway and then Airlink bus!) 85 minutes, traffic jam and $70 bucks later I'm at EWR with three bucks in my wallet.

Rush to the RCC to check in, but stop at the monitor and see my 6:35 departing flight to DEN is pushed to 8:11pm.

Rush to the RCC anyway. The helpful and efficient gate agent says I could take the DEN flight and spend the night at the airport or get on another flight. (She also said there is the chance the flight could be cancelled.) SO she types away and my EWR-DEN-LAS routing is now EWR-ORD-LAS.

I also reminded her of my first class upgrades on all routes. I end up on standby.

UA 663: The earlier departing flight to ORD is cancelled so there's a big rush for seats.
I find out right at boarding no first class available. So I end up on an aisle seat ON THE LAST ROW OF THE PLANE.

PremEx card gets me on board early. People practically charge for the plane.

I go "UGH" about the prospect of sitting in the back of the plane. Had a terrific and friendly F-A (Giovanni) and another "MZ SUNSHINE". They did their jobs well but she seemed very annoyed to be there.

Got a nice seatmate, Marsha from Chicago who was on the cancelled flight. We talked of a lot of things, she loves to travel, married with kids, told her about Flyertalk. She thought I worked for United because I was telling her about a few PremEx rules.

Otherwise an uneventful flight. At landing, Giovanni joked how nice New Yorkers got when he suggested we push our way up front. I said I would never push or shove. MZ Sunshine says to me "It's a joke. DOn't you know how to take a joke?" (LUckily I trimmed my Claws.
Giovanni changed the subject to talk about growing up in Brooklyn.)

With about a 2 hour layover I called my dear friend and Flyertalk member AnnaS who comes out to wait out my next flight with me. We catch up on things like winning the Freddie.

The gate agent announces boarding and says "Well first class is sold out but there's one lucky upgrade seat and that's going to...
MR> BLANCHARD."

Anna and I let out a very loud "YAHOO" (and scare about half of the people in the boarding area. I end up using my 500 mi upgrade certificates.

Anna must be my lucky upgrade charm!!!!

After hugs and so longs till NYC or the next trip rerouted thru ORD rush on the plane.

UA 707 (ORD-LAS After pre-boarding drinks we take off on time. There was no meal service, only beverage (is this normal? Maybe because it's a late night service.)

Had this tall and lanky guy next to me who seemed embarassed in his fancy duds to sit next to a cat in Jeans and Converse High tops. He had a stiff drink and went to sleep.

I was bushed and was fading in and out of Double Jeopardy with the pretty Ashley Judd.
The second Beck's kicked in and I did not wake up until right before landing.

(Thus perhaps my shortest trip report yet!)

We got in 15 minutes early and had to wait to get to the gate. The boys on the plane were anxious to get out and lose thier money. I was relieved to get there.

So a Grey Line bus to the Las Vegas Hilton where I met up with Canadian Flyer and began my first SuperBowl weekend of partying.