Decided to take advantage of an offer from Harrahs for a free hotel night and cheap airfare to New Orleans. Going from Big D, where it is 100, to the Big Easy, where it feels like 100.

I could have flown Southwest on an Internet special for $109, but opted instead for AA at $169, to get 7250 miles (500+500 minimum per segment, 125+125 Gold bonus, 2500 DFW bonus, 2500 ROOMY bonus, 500+500 phone check-in).

8/21 AA 1083 DFW-MSY 26D. My first ever phone check in went smoothly. When I got to the gate, I gave the agent my card. He ran it thru, and discovered that there was no paper in the machine. So no boarding card means I better hope everything credits okay, since I have no proof I took the flight.

I had bought the ticket online, but AA.com had crashed on me as I completed the purchase. A call to the Gold hotline verified the purchase, and to select seats. Requested aisle, preferable exit row and was given 26D on the 727. Now, I hadn't been too familiar with this plane, but row 26 is an exit row the same way that the second row of coach on the 757 is. No extra legroom, standard tray tables, etc. Row 27 is the "traditional" exit with the armrest trays and the surplus legroom, and was empty until someone switched into it before the doors closed. It seems to me that the folks on the Gold hotline should know why folks request the exit, and should have given me 27 instead, or at least warned me that 26 was nothing special. A minor annoyance at worst, I guess. The flight itself was uneventful, except that we took an approach to MSY over Lake Ponchatrain that I hadn't used before.

Airport Shuttle. $10 to downtown, vs $24 flat rate for a cab. Very weak air conditioning. And how come I'm always the last to be dropped off?

Hilton Riverside. My first experience as HHonors Gold, thanks to this board and EWRDC. Not sure what to expect, since (1) the room was booked and being paid for by harrahs and (2) they wouldn't know I was gold til I arrived. I gave the front desk my HHonors card, and was given a room in the Towers suite, access to the towesr lounge, and coupons for free bottled water. The lady at checkin almost said "free breakfast" instead of "free water" when she gave me the coupons, but corrected herself. The towers lounge has continental breakfast, though, and in any case, I wasn't planning on breakfast at the hotel, even free, since 4 blocks away is Mother's Restaurant, and the best breakfast sandwich I've ever had.

No problem with the early (noon) checkin. The room itself was fairly ordinary, except for a spectacular 19th floor view of the Mississippi River. But I did notice lots of nice details, such as a card clearly giving notice of new phone rates (per minute charges over 60), a small bowl of mints, and an adequate supply of sweetener and creamer for the in-room coffee (so many hotels seem to give 2 of each, when the pot brews 3 cups).

The towers lounge was quite large, and had an even better 29th floor view. Ordinary hors douvres, except for the crawfish pies, which weren't bad. I made sure to order a drink, so I'd have a charge to my room. I figured that would better my chances of earning HHonors points for the stay. My total bill was $6, but I'm hoping for 60 points, plus Amex bonus, plus 20000 for my 4th EWRDC stay. Anyone else have experience with getting or not getting points for direct-billed stays?

In addition to the aforementioned evening snack, I squeezed in 4 great meals (Gumbo Shop, Mulates, Mothers, Acme Oyster House) in my 28 hours, plus coffee at Cafe du Monde.

I gambled (lost), window shopped the Quarter, and caught a great band (New Birth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf).

8/22 AA 1339 MSY -DFW 3E. The best seat I could get was a middle, so I'd requested an upgrade. This cleared and was confirmd on the 21st. Due to background noise in the city and then the cab, phone check in (which is all voice recognition based) took three tries. On the 2nd, I got all the way up to the security statement, but started to answer YES before the prompt finished, and got the statement to finish checkin with an agent at the airport. I thought that might block my record from phone checkin for security resons, but I hung up, tried again, and 3rd time was the charm.

Afer we left the gate, I noticed my seat was broken. The lever wouldn't stay in the locked position. It would drift back, then my seat would slowly start to recline. I didn't tell the FA until after we landed, since first was full and I was afraid of getting booted to a crowded coach section. But I'm sure the guy behind me must have been getting annoyed (why can't this guy leave his seat in one position!).

Most amazing of all, we landed early, we landed on the correct side of DFW, our gate was at the same terminal I had left from, and our gate was even open. I walked off the plane 20 minutes before scheduled arrival time - not bad for a 90 minute flight.

[edited to correct band name]


[This message has been edited by swag (edited 08-23-2001).]