Discover: B737 in Alaska and the best of Washington (state)!
Jan 3, 2023, 1:58 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: DUS
Posts: 34
Discover: B737 in Alaska and the best of Washington (state)!
Hi there!
I am posting trip reports for around 5-7 years in a german speaking frequent flyer forum now, but I wanna join ft on a more regular base. I think the best part might be to publish my 2022 summer vacation on ft, since it has been magnificent travel wise and aviation wise.
A few words before I’ll start.
I finished my M.Sc. last fall and was rather busy with my master thesis the time of travelling, but a break was not a bad idea for sure. Since I always worked from high school onwards I luckily was able to discover a rather wide range of the world already. Being mid to end 20 now I used to fly about 1-2 longhauls each year since 2011, mostly on my own.
In 2020, after finishing my B.Sc. I wanted to go back to New Zealand for some time, where I’ve spent some months after graduating high school. I also wanted to fly UA154 – the Island hopper. Well …
Forwarding to 2022:
I had a couple of Alaska Airlines miles, which I collected by flying AY/JL to Japan for research right before the world collapsed. I knew I wanted to fly the Milkrun some day and now the time has come – summer of 2022. That said I somehow had to get to Alaska or at least the west coast.
For some reason LHs Miles & More was offering surprisingly cheap business class award fares on LHs rather new leisure Airline Eurowings Discover. For just 28K miles (return) and horrendous fees of around 600€ I was able to go basically anywhere they fly. Since I had to go to Alaska anyway Anchorage became quite handy. Back to Europe was rather worst of both worlds.
Since the Milkrun would bring me to SEA I chose to fly out of SLC, since I have never been there or in the state of Utah. It took me some time to find matching availability on AS und 4Y. For that reason I had to book the second part of the Milkrun out of JNU cash, but overall I think I managed to get a pretty good deal. From SEA to SLC I booked an domestic F ticket on AS which was not too expensive and since it was scheduled to be operated by a variant of the rare (from an EU point of view) variant of the 737, talking about the B739, I was willing to pay almost any price anyway.
The flights
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper (Great Circle Mapper) - copyright © Karl L. Swartz
The trip
I have been to the US a couple of times, but never to Washington state. I decided to stay there for about 10 more days and my summer trip was almost planned. I texted a friend if he wanted to join me for the Washington state part and he was in. Regarding the hotel prices I was quite happy about that, still expensive, but at least we could share the cost.
Our plan was to meet each other in Seattle. I booked a probably nice car with Sixt and our plan was to drive up north first. Since I bought the one-year US nationalpark pass in January in California I wanted to make most of it and visit every nationalpark in Washington state.
Starting in North Cascades our journey continued to the marvelous Mt. Rainier nationalpark. Later on we circled Olympic nationalpark, before our journey would come to an end at SEA after about 1100 miles driven.
Stay tuned, the first part will follow soon.
I am posting trip reports for around 5-7 years in a german speaking frequent flyer forum now, but I wanna join ft on a more regular base. I think the best part might be to publish my 2022 summer vacation on ft, since it has been magnificent travel wise and aviation wise.
A few words before I’ll start.
I finished my M.Sc. last fall and was rather busy with my master thesis the time of travelling, but a break was not a bad idea for sure. Since I always worked from high school onwards I luckily was able to discover a rather wide range of the world already. Being mid to end 20 now I used to fly about 1-2 longhauls each year since 2011, mostly on my own.
In 2020, after finishing my B.Sc. I wanted to go back to New Zealand for some time, where I’ve spent some months after graduating high school. I also wanted to fly UA154 – the Island hopper. Well …
Forwarding to 2022:
I had a couple of Alaska Airlines miles, which I collected by flying AY/JL to Japan for research right before the world collapsed. I knew I wanted to fly the Milkrun some day and now the time has come – summer of 2022. That said I somehow had to get to Alaska or at least the west coast.
For some reason LHs Miles & More was offering surprisingly cheap business class award fares on LHs rather new leisure Airline Eurowings Discover. For just 28K miles (return) and horrendous fees of around 600€ I was able to go basically anywhere they fly. Since I had to go to Alaska anyway Anchorage became quite handy. Back to Europe was rather worst of both worlds.
Since the Milkrun would bring me to SEA I chose to fly out of SLC, since I have never been there or in the state of Utah. It took me some time to find matching availability on AS und 4Y. For that reason I had to book the second part of the Milkrun out of JNU cash, but overall I think I managed to get a pretty good deal. From SEA to SLC I booked an domestic F ticket on AS which was not too expensive and since it was scheduled to be operated by a variant of the rare (from an EU point of view) variant of the 737, talking about the B739, I was willing to pay almost any price anyway.
The flights
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper (Great Circle Mapper) - copyright © Karl L. Swartz
The trip
I have been to the US a couple of times, but never to Washington state. I decided to stay there for about 10 more days and my summer trip was almost planned. I texted a friend if he wanted to join me for the Washington state part and he was in. Regarding the hotel prices I was quite happy about that, still expensive, but at least we could share the cost.
Our plan was to meet each other in Seattle. I booked a probably nice car with Sixt and our plan was to drive up north first. Since I bought the one-year US nationalpark pass in January in California I wanted to make most of it and visit every nationalpark in Washington state.
Starting in North Cascades our journey continued to the marvelous Mt. Rainier nationalpark. Later on we circled Olympic nationalpark, before our journey would come to an end at SEA after about 1100 miles driven.
Stay tuned, the first part will follow soon.
