My First Mileage Run: Manchester to LA and back
Mar 7, 2007, 1:32 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: San Diego
Posts: 2,687
My First Mileage Run: Manchester to LA and back
A year ago today, the day after my 19th birthday, I booked my first ever flight on American Airlines. The trip would be my first on an American airline, my first to the USA, my first outside Europe, and would incorporate flights twice the length of my previous longest sectors.
This weekend, less than a year after that first trip, I was still that same 19 year old student. However I was flying to LA and back, as an AAdvantage Platinum member, entirely in First and Business class. The differences between that first trip and my latest trip are entirely down to FT, both the knowledge acquired, and the people met during my short time here. The following trip report is so that everyone who has helped me directly and indirectly along the way can see what I think must be one of the more rapid transformations in someone’s travel patterns based on the benefits of the FlyerTalk community.
After spending many many hours playing around with aa.com over a period of months, I found a nice little mileage run that I thought would be both interesting to fly, as well as netting me just under 30,000 miles, for a reasonable price of around Ł350. The itinerary was a bit insane, and I prevaricated for a few hours over whether to book it, but finally my excitement got the better of me and I went ahead and ticketed the held reservation.
The routing was MAN-ORD-JFK-LAX on Saturday, flying LAX-JFK overnight, and then heading home on Sunday night EWR-ORD-MAN.
Two or three days before I was due to leave, I was fortunate enough to be gifted a couple of system wide upgrades by a fellow member of the AAdvantage forum. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement, and my excitement mounted as over the course of the next few days every single sector cleared to the next cabin class.
At the 11th hour I decided to forfeit the extra few miles I was going to get by flying outbound via JFK. The Eagle flight between ORD and JFK had been cancelled for the last couple of days, and AA were offering a single free change for any passengers booked through ORD on Saturday. So after a short conversation with an agent, I got rebooked MAN-LGW-DFW-LAX, still all in Business/First.
The following morning’s services to LGW from MAN had been badly disrupted due to the first flight of the day having to divert for technical reasons. This meant a full flight on the service I was booked on, with most people panicking about connections. I had a couple of hours to relax in the Gatwick Terraces however, and passed through to there after getting my BA boarding passes converted over to AA stock at the LGW FCC. At this stage all the BA and AA employees I had dealt with were fantastic about the itinerary, particularly as I had been checked all the way through from Manchester to Manchester! The AA transfer desk chap at LGW got very excited when I presented him with 5 boarding passes and my itinerary. He had heard about people like me “but never actually seen one for real before”
A lovely shower in the Terraces, a couple of sandwiches and a beer later, and following a very long walk to the gate, I was finally snuggling down in my seat at the front of AA79 from Gatwick to Dallas. This route is the only London route served by a 767, and this unfortunately changes at the end of the month, with everything at LGW and LHR now being run with 777s. This may not be so much of a bad thing after all, as just before take off we had to return to the gate, because of a leaking coffee machine! Many unimpressed engineers later, we were back out on the runway, and heading off towards Dallas. An excellent Salmon lunch was served, and after dessert I conked right out, and slept all the way to DFW.
Now here came the bit I was dreading: Customs and Immigration! Despite many people doing MRs through DFW, I don’t think they get too many non US citizens doing them using DFW as their port of entry, and as such I seemed to arouse a lot of suspicion. After presenting all my boarding passes to immigration to prove what I was doing, he finally accepted that “Transit – UK” on my Visa Waiver form actually did make sense, and sent me off for a thorough customs inspection. After explaining the whole thing several times over once again to yet another confused official, my small rucksack was searched, before I was let on my way.
By this point boarding was well underway for my flight to LAX, and for some reason I had got it into my head that this was the last flight, so I sprinted through Terminal D to get to a mercifully short security queue. Another airside dash ensued, and I made it to the gate literally as they were about to close. The agents kind of apologised that I had lost my F seat, but made it very clear I was lucky I made it at all. I snuck onboard, and was strangely satisfied to see the door being closed right behind me!
The FAs all throughout the flight were great, as I made it very clear when I boarded I had been downgraded! A free snack from the trolley, free cocktails (which I of course politely declined still being 2 years under age!) and finally one of the hot cookies made the downgrade feel an awful lot worse than it could have done. Watching the girl sitting next to me writhe in embarrassment because it was her Dad who had been upgraded into my seat was again strangely entertaining!
The turnaround at LAX was very nice, I got to meet a number of staff members in the Admirals Club that I had got to know quite well the previous weekend when I volunteered my seat two nights in a row on the flight home to LHR. Their only confusion with my MR was why I was doing it so early in the year!
Soon enough I was onboard my 4th aircraft of the day, and the ancient J seats onboard AA’s ancient 762s had never looked so inviting. Despite my snooze on the flight to DFW I was still pretty knackered, and spent the entire journey fast asleep. JFK was brilliantly painless, and I jumped into a van and headed straight over to Newark. Sunday morning security was similarly pleasant, and I crashed in the Admirals Club for a few hours watching the snow blustering in and out across the apron.
Thankfully my 2nd domestic F experience actually materialised this time, and I was very glad it did. Sunday being only the 4th day of AA’s revised domestic F service meant that I got some outstanding service from our FA, who addressed everyone by name throughout the flight, and who very pleasingly provided us with metal cutlery for our lunch. Again, just before landing, the personal service continued, with each of us being given our connecting gate information individually. Unfortunately however she misheard my request for Manchester as Rochester, but as I had a 3 hour layover I didn’t really mind!
Another 3 hours in the Admirals Club in O’Hare therefore was at hand. As such I left the club 5 or 10 minutes before gate opening time, and hung around there for a while. Boarding soon commenced however, and after embarking I was over the moon to see that we were on one of the still reasonably few 767s to have the New Generation Business Class cabin installed. All the people around me seemed as intrigued as I was, and the crew were also keen to see what people thought about it as it was their first time working the cabin.
The seat is fully adjustable using the motorised control panel at the top of the centre armrest, however I was more than happy with each of the 4 pre-set positions. After another fantastic international meal service (I went for the lamb this time) and yet another beautiful Butterscotch Sundae, I put the seat into the flat position and once again fell straight asleep.
I had rather stupidly asked to be woken for breakfast; a mistake I won’t be making again, as it took the crew three attempts to wake me up with some vigorous shaking. They were all quite amused by this for some reason, and thought it very funny to tell me! I guess they weren’t that used to people sleeping particularly well in the old style seats!
After breakfast I went straight back into the “rest” position, which is the same as the full recline position of the old seats, and dozed until we were in our final descent to Manchester. After landing we were made to hold at the very end of the airfield to wait for our gate to open up, and once again this gave me a good excuse to hit the buttons, and get some well earned rest for another 15-20 minutes.
Well, my first mileage run was all over. It happened far too fast, but maybe I wouldn’t have been saying that if the flying was all in economy, I’m not too sure! The one thing for sure was that I had become addicted to that new Business seat, which makes it a very good thing that this MR, and the rest of my trips booked over the course of the next 6 weeks will push me over to Executive Platinum, with those 8 eVIP systemwide upgrades! The added “bonus” that I won’t be flying at all over the summer (As you might have guessed I am going to need to find some form of gainful employment to fund a repeat performance!) means that when I do come to fly again, hopefully all the 767s on the MAN-ORD route will be fitted with NGBC!
Once again I’d just like to extend my thanks to everyone on FT who has educated me on “the way”, particularly those in the AAdvantage forum, and of course most especially norse_aztec who helped make the trip so much more enjoyable!
This weekend, less than a year after that first trip, I was still that same 19 year old student. However I was flying to LA and back, as an AAdvantage Platinum member, entirely in First and Business class. The differences between that first trip and my latest trip are entirely down to FT, both the knowledge acquired, and the people met during my short time here. The following trip report is so that everyone who has helped me directly and indirectly along the way can see what I think must be one of the more rapid transformations in someone’s travel patterns based on the benefits of the FlyerTalk community.
After spending many many hours playing around with aa.com over a period of months, I found a nice little mileage run that I thought would be both interesting to fly, as well as netting me just under 30,000 miles, for a reasonable price of around Ł350. The itinerary was a bit insane, and I prevaricated for a few hours over whether to book it, but finally my excitement got the better of me and I went ahead and ticketed the held reservation.
The routing was MAN-ORD-JFK-LAX on Saturday, flying LAX-JFK overnight, and then heading home on Sunday night EWR-ORD-MAN.
Two or three days before I was due to leave, I was fortunate enough to be gifted a couple of system wide upgrades by a fellow member of the AAdvantage forum. To say I was thrilled would be an understatement, and my excitement mounted as over the course of the next few days every single sector cleared to the next cabin class.
At the 11th hour I decided to forfeit the extra few miles I was going to get by flying outbound via JFK. The Eagle flight between ORD and JFK had been cancelled for the last couple of days, and AA were offering a single free change for any passengers booked through ORD on Saturday. So after a short conversation with an agent, I got rebooked MAN-LGW-DFW-LAX, still all in Business/First.
The following morning’s services to LGW from MAN had been badly disrupted due to the first flight of the day having to divert for technical reasons. This meant a full flight on the service I was booked on, with most people panicking about connections. I had a couple of hours to relax in the Gatwick Terraces however, and passed through to there after getting my BA boarding passes converted over to AA stock at the LGW FCC. At this stage all the BA and AA employees I had dealt with were fantastic about the itinerary, particularly as I had been checked all the way through from Manchester to Manchester! The AA transfer desk chap at LGW got very excited when I presented him with 5 boarding passes and my itinerary. He had heard about people like me “but never actually seen one for real before”
A lovely shower in the Terraces, a couple of sandwiches and a beer later, and following a very long walk to the gate, I was finally snuggling down in my seat at the front of AA79 from Gatwick to Dallas. This route is the only London route served by a 767, and this unfortunately changes at the end of the month, with everything at LGW and LHR now being run with 777s. This may not be so much of a bad thing after all, as just before take off we had to return to the gate, because of a leaking coffee machine! Many unimpressed engineers later, we were back out on the runway, and heading off towards Dallas. An excellent Salmon lunch was served, and after dessert I conked right out, and slept all the way to DFW.
Now here came the bit I was dreading: Customs and Immigration! Despite many people doing MRs through DFW, I don’t think they get too many non US citizens doing them using DFW as their port of entry, and as such I seemed to arouse a lot of suspicion. After presenting all my boarding passes to immigration to prove what I was doing, he finally accepted that “Transit – UK” on my Visa Waiver form actually did make sense, and sent me off for a thorough customs inspection. After explaining the whole thing several times over once again to yet another confused official, my small rucksack was searched, before I was let on my way.
By this point boarding was well underway for my flight to LAX, and for some reason I had got it into my head that this was the last flight, so I sprinted through Terminal D to get to a mercifully short security queue. Another airside dash ensued, and I made it to the gate literally as they were about to close. The agents kind of apologised that I had lost my F seat, but made it very clear I was lucky I made it at all. I snuck onboard, and was strangely satisfied to see the door being closed right behind me!
The FAs all throughout the flight were great, as I made it very clear when I boarded I had been downgraded! A free snack from the trolley, free cocktails (which I of course politely declined still being 2 years under age!) and finally one of the hot cookies made the downgrade feel an awful lot worse than it could have done. Watching the girl sitting next to me writhe in embarrassment because it was her Dad who had been upgraded into my seat was again strangely entertaining!
The turnaround at LAX was very nice, I got to meet a number of staff members in the Admirals Club that I had got to know quite well the previous weekend when I volunteered my seat two nights in a row on the flight home to LHR. Their only confusion with my MR was why I was doing it so early in the year!
Soon enough I was onboard my 4th aircraft of the day, and the ancient J seats onboard AA’s ancient 762s had never looked so inviting. Despite my snooze on the flight to DFW I was still pretty knackered, and spent the entire journey fast asleep. JFK was brilliantly painless, and I jumped into a van and headed straight over to Newark. Sunday morning security was similarly pleasant, and I crashed in the Admirals Club for a few hours watching the snow blustering in and out across the apron.
Thankfully my 2nd domestic F experience actually materialised this time, and I was very glad it did. Sunday being only the 4th day of AA’s revised domestic F service meant that I got some outstanding service from our FA, who addressed everyone by name throughout the flight, and who very pleasingly provided us with metal cutlery for our lunch. Again, just before landing, the personal service continued, with each of us being given our connecting gate information individually. Unfortunately however she misheard my request for Manchester as Rochester, but as I had a 3 hour layover I didn’t really mind!
Another 3 hours in the Admirals Club in O’Hare therefore was at hand. As such I left the club 5 or 10 minutes before gate opening time, and hung around there for a while. Boarding soon commenced however, and after embarking I was over the moon to see that we were on one of the still reasonably few 767s to have the New Generation Business Class cabin installed. All the people around me seemed as intrigued as I was, and the crew were also keen to see what people thought about it as it was their first time working the cabin.
The seat is fully adjustable using the motorised control panel at the top of the centre armrest, however I was more than happy with each of the 4 pre-set positions. After another fantastic international meal service (I went for the lamb this time) and yet another beautiful Butterscotch Sundae, I put the seat into the flat position and once again fell straight asleep.
I had rather stupidly asked to be woken for breakfast; a mistake I won’t be making again, as it took the crew three attempts to wake me up with some vigorous shaking. They were all quite amused by this for some reason, and thought it very funny to tell me! I guess they weren’t that used to people sleeping particularly well in the old style seats!
After breakfast I went straight back into the “rest” position, which is the same as the full recline position of the old seats, and dozed until we were in our final descent to Manchester. After landing we were made to hold at the very end of the airfield to wait for our gate to open up, and once again this gave me a good excuse to hit the buttons, and get some well earned rest for another 15-20 minutes.
Well, my first mileage run was all over. It happened far too fast, but maybe I wouldn’t have been saying that if the flying was all in economy, I’m not too sure! The one thing for sure was that I had become addicted to that new Business seat, which makes it a very good thing that this MR, and the rest of my trips booked over the course of the next 6 weeks will push me over to Executive Platinum, with those 8 eVIP systemwide upgrades! The added “bonus” that I won’t be flying at all over the summer (As you might have guessed I am going to need to find some form of gainful employment to fund a repeat performance!) means that when I do come to fly again, hopefully all the 767s on the MAN-ORD route will be fitted with NGBC!
Once again I’d just like to extend my thanks to everyone on FT who has educated me on “the way”, particularly those in the AAdvantage forum, and of course most especially norse_aztec who helped make the trip so much more enjoyable!
Mar 7, 2007, 6:06 pm
#2
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: SJC/SFO/OAK
Programs: BD Gold (and future SEN), 0.2MM AA EXP, HHonors Gold, SPG Gold
Posts: 3,107
Congratulations on successfully completing another MR. I remember joining FT as a new UA 2P in June of that year. By the end of the year, I had amassed 106 segments and loved it. Happy flying.