A run to MIA

In my need to replenish the Alaska Airlines account for the next trip to Chile, I’m on a temporary rampage to earn some miles. AA (a full earning and Q partner) has had some great F fares SFO/MIA (giving a total of 250% account miles with the gold bonus, and 150% Q miles), and so off I went.

I am almost an AA virgin. I have well over a million flight miles on UA, and several hundred thousand on AS, and handfuls on other carriers, but almost none on AA. I tried to web check-in, but it wouldn’t issue the return boarding pass (although within 24 hours). I had also registered for the flight paging, which didn’t work in either direction.

Arrival @ SFO. A pleasure at that hour - for 10:05p departure (or most hours, actually). Security line took all of a couple minutes. I asked at the Admirals Club if I was permitted to enter, but was politely told “no”. Only full F transcon (not the A fare) gets you in. AS doesn’t have any reciprocal lounge arrangement. And so, given that the terminal was quiet, it wasn’t such a bad wait in the gate area.

Boarding - a 757. Why they board these things from 1L is beyond me, as most SFO gates can handle them from 2L. I waited a while to board, and it was still a zoo. No pre-departure beverages. The seats were the same as the old UA style seats. Inflight service - beverages, a large cup-o-nuts, and then a sandwich service. As I hadn’t eaten since a late lunch, I ate, but the food quality was marginal. The UA redeye F snack is far superior in quality. The cabin overall was unappealing. Inflight service was polite and adequate, but nothing special. Also, this was the first premium cabin transcon I’d ever had where there was no pre-arrival juice/coffee service. Captain made an announcement minutes prior to landing, and voila, MIA. Deplaning was also from 1L.

I had two hours in MIA (620a to 820a). Based upon a recent experience, security lines at that hour weren’t bad, and so I went out of security to go to the Club America (Diners affiliated). I also needed to check in and didn’t see any kiosks back by the gates. The lounge, by the way, was quite pleasant. Large, uncrowded at that hour, free wireless and wired connections, and a bar - nothing was self-service (not even the coffee). And if you were hungry, you could have a cookie (which isn’t much, but is a cookie more than AA gives you in their ACs).

The check in areas were an absolute zoo. Premium check-in, a zoo. Everywhere, a zoo. Finally, someone near the F line told me to just go to a kiosk, even if someone was near it and just talking to an agent, and use it. And so I did. On the way to the lounge (just before F security), I walked by E security, where my flight would be departing. At about 6:45, there was absolutely no line, and an F/Premium passenger line set up. I went to the lounge, and left just prior to 7:30. When I left, the E security line was back to the D check-in area, the D security line was even worse, and the TSA decided to take away the F security lines this morning shortly after I saw them. The line went from nothing to over an hour wait within 45 minutes.

And so, with nervous anxiety over what could not have reasonably been predicted (and I was just livid that an F line that existed at 6:45 was removed, as it turns out, by 7:00 am), I just waited, figuring I’d miss my flight, and I called AA while in line, to find that the next one, 6 hours later, was sold out.

Finally, two flights were called (San Francisco, San Juan) for special security accommodation, and we were taken back to the D gates to a special line. We made it to the plane with minutes to spare. It was an absolute joke. The guy sitting next to me on the plane got in line at 7am, and barely made the flight. If any economy passenger had to actually stand and wait to check in, check bags, and wait through security, it would have taken 2 to 3 hours this morning.

Out of breath, I was offered a mimosa within minutes of boarding. We did leave a few minutes late as the last of the passengers came on board.

And now, the flight. An AA 763 (2 cabin). Very nice pitch, and the seats are somewhat comfortable, but not as comfortable as the UA C seats. Inflight service was decent. Breakfast was not bad, quantity was very good, quality is better on UA. (Omelette, assortment of sweet breads and biscuits, some dead pig product, and potatoes.)

I have noticed now after 3 AA transcons this month that I do like UA better. It is somewhat intangible, but I think the UA crews are generally friendlier, warmer, and honestly, I don’t feel like the tired old Texas prom queens 35 years after graduation are serving me on UA. The AA crews are much less mixed in their diversity. I also think the UA planes are generally more comfortable (although there’s no such thing as a comfortable 2 cabin UA 767). The food quality is better, too. AA does, however, do a great job with water - passing out bottles to all the F pax, with extras to spare.

I think I had about an hour sleep on the return, and minutes of sleep on the outbound. All-in-all, a worthwhile run, not too painful, and I may have to do it again. It was definitely a more comfortable experience than when I did similar on AS. However, the situation @ MIA this morning was just an absolute joke. Even the TSA staff were commenting about how bad it was. (Of course, if they were not loitering with comments, but actually at screening stations, well....)

The end.

EB1K-

I've been thinking about an ex- bay area run to replenish my AS account as well, but I guess I must have missed the cheap F fares. If you don't mind my asking, how much did you pay & when did you book?

David

EastBay-

Did you do this run this past Saturday? I was on the 2130 SFO-LAX on AA and could have got you into the AC. Let me know if you have any upcoming weekend flights the next month (PM me). It's pretty small compared to UA, but very nice staff across the board, and usually pretty quiet that time of night.

I'm not a fan of AA 757's, as they're the only seat in the entire fleet that for some reason makes my knees hurt after a few hours. I just can't get comfortable in that seat. Sadly, we're seeing more of them on transcons (they run SJC-JFK, as well as DFW-SMF).

We just had a discussion on the AA board about checking in for return flights. The synopsis is that you can do this ahead of time only if the routing is different coming back. If it sees the same segment (say, a MIA-SFO), it won't let you check in until after you arrive (if you had an AC membership you could do it there on one of the PC's in MIA, or just as the AC counter). I've done 3 Omaha trips this month and was able to print all my passes on two of those because of a different routing coming home. On the one trip where I had ORD-OMA, followed by OMA-ORD, it would not let me check in for the return flights.

Trust you're doing well, even though I haven't seen you for a while. Glad to see you're back in the air

They are $828 - booked in A. They are available up until departure time, but you generally need to book a few days out to get the A space. If you are MVPG, you end up with about 13K account miles, and 7700 Q miles.

Thanks for a report and your perspective on AA F. I actually think the other way -- AA F/As are usually more consistent and friendly, and the ground staff of AA is often more friendly UA ground staff. To be honest, I think both AA and UA are pretty similar and it is up to whom you met the day, and AA F meals are a bit lacking compared to UA F, and indeed I like UA entertainment better as well.

About the water bottles, it is a good feature that AA has especially on longer transcontinental flight. On a couple of UA p.s. flight in F, I got water bottles like AA, but this seems to be discontinued.

Thanks for the report and the $800RT sounds good.

Carfield

Hey there,

Just a quick comment, one I'm certain you've heard before. It is worth spending extra money to fly into Fort Lauderdale International (FLL), twenty miles north of MIA. All locals in South Florida try to avoid MIA whenever possible because of the major problems at that airport. Might cost you a few more dollars, but you'll make up for it in a lack of stress.