Category: Travel

I’m currently sitting in the somewhat-decrepit US Airways terminal here at LAX, waiting for my flight. As usual, I overbudgeted somewhat on time to get to the airport, so I have a little time to kill. I think I’ll try to rustle up a light supplement to my dinner while I wait. Afterwards I think I’ll play a little Phoenix Wright…

That’s right…I’ll be doing another mileage run shortly. In my idle moments, I worked out a fare that will net me 7,052 EQM (elite qualifying miles) at a rate of just about $0.03/EQM. I’ll actually get some additional redeemable miles (RDM), as my status nets me a 25% bonus, and, subsequently, a rate of $0.024/RDM. This bonus is also part of why I’m doing this in the first place — as it currently stands, the redeemable miles we currently have will only get us free capacity-controlled tickets to a number of destinations. The capacity controls, however, typically mean “off peak only,” so if we wanted to, say, go to Europe in the high season for free, we’re out of luck. However, by redeeming more miles, we can get tickets that are usable at any time there are available seats, and we also would not need to book very far in advance. (The capacity-controlled awards are typically booked 11 months in advance for high-demand routes.) In essence, the “standard” awards can be booked any time there is a seat available on an aircraft — the “saver” awards come out of a (much) smaller pool.

You can also buy frequent flyer miles to add to your account. The rate starts at something like $0.065/RDM for 1,000 miles, and goes as low as $0.027/RDM (if you buy 60,000 miles at once!). Note that even the best rate for buying miles is still worse than my mileage run, and the miles that are purchased are not elite-qualifying. With the way our situation currently stands, it would be significantly cheaper for me to do mileage runs and/or buy miles than to buy the hypothetical peak-season ticket to Europe with cash. And, of course, doing a trip like this gets me back on the road to re-qualifying for elite status.

From my departure point in Los Angeles, I’ll be (briefly) visiting the fine cities of Pittsburgh, New York, Manchester (New Hampshire), New York (again!), Washington D.C., Charlotte, and Las Vegas. My alleged final destination is the aforementioned Manchester, New Hampshire, but I won’t be staying long — as a matter of fact, I’ll be heading back to New York on the same plane that brought me there. Amusingly, this convoluted itinerary is significantly cheaper than itineraries I found that simply went to New York — a byproduct of the byzantine fare rules and other machinations of the airline industry.

Once again, I’ll try to blog a bit (and take a few pictures) while I’m on the road. We’ll see how much patience I have with trying to work with WordPress in a mobile browser — it can be quite aggravating, although a quick search turned up a couple of plugins (WPhone and iPhone/Mobile Admin) that I can try out. My road trip should also give me an opportunity to do some reading, as well as play some of Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, which I just bought the other day…

Me and Sandy are getting married this weekend in Vegas. 🙂

I’m back home again after my mileage run’s final leg back to Orange County. All flights went smoothly, with no changes or unexpected problems, although for a while it looked like the flight from Charlotte to Phoenix would be bump city because an earlier flight was cancelled. I should be getting a shade under 6,000 miles for this trip, which should be all that I need. United Premier status, here I come.

I’ll clean up my earlier posts and add photographs tomorrow — right now, I just want to eat and sleep…

I am definitely tired now. I slept practically the whole way from Charlotte to Phoenix. I am also getting confused about where I am, and what time it is, which was to be expected. Just one more leg of the trip to go…

I also realized that I forgot to take a picture in Charlotte. I was planning on taking the picture in these rocking chairs they had set up in the food court, but I forgot. Darn.

On the flight from Charlotte, there was a woman sitting across the aisle from me who was traveling with a young kitten — probably 2-3 months old. I only saw her for a little bit, but the kitten was very cute. I guess if we ever have to travel with our cats, that would be an option, but I think Oliver might be a little too big for traveling like that…

Anyway, I think I may try to find a bit of food now…

I’m currently sitting in the food court here at the Charlotte airport. It gets high marks from me for having a wide variety of choices and great service. The flight here, however, was extremely uncomfortable because I was stuck in between the stereotypical two obese dudes. Unpleasant. Thank heavens the flight was only a little over an hour. Thankfully the rest o the way I have aisle seats.

One other thing that struck me as strange is that it’s 90 degrees outside here, but hardly anyone is wearing shorts. WTF? I suspect I am sticking out like a sore thumb now…

I’m currently sitting in a random departure lounge at Baltimore Washington International Airport, staring down a four and a half hour wait before my next flight. I am somewhat tempted to see if I can hop on an earlier flight, but I worry that doing so would mess up my carefully calculated mileage run. Oh well. Going to break out the DS for a little bit to give the battery on my phone some rest…

So I’m here in Philadelphia after the redeye flight from Las Vegas. I was surprised — the flight looked to be completely full. I wonder how many people are headed straight to work after a 4-day weekend in Vegas…

BTW, final tally from Vegas is a $2 loss from playing Deuces Wild video poker. I couldn’t find blackjack on any of the machines there.

So I still have about an hour to kill before the next leg, to Baltimore. Maybe I’ll catch some breakfast, or at least a caffeinated beverage of some sort. I’m also going to rearrange my bag a little bit, as I may need to gate-check my bag on the next flight, and I want to carry any essentials on my person. (I flew on this type of aircraft, a Canadair regional jet, recently, and I did have to gate-check my bag then…)

I’m on the ground here in Las Vegas. No surprises here, since I’ve been here several times before. I’ve always come at peak times, though — it’s pretty quiet here now, which seems strange to me.

Anyway, what I wanted to comment on about SNA was that it was extremely hot in the terminal, even though I am wearing shorts and a t-shirt. As the sun goes down, it quickly heats the place up since there are tall windows that span the length of the terminal. I know Sandy had mentioned some kind of glass that dims when a current is applied — I wonder if the cost of running that would be recouped by the savings in HVAC costs.

Anyway, I have another 40 minutes to kill here, so I will walk around and try to find some way to amuse myself…