hermorrine's journal, I was over in Chicago again last weekend. The outbound journey didn't get off to the best of starts - I was stuck on a long call which caused me to miss my bus which caused me to miss my coach, which got stuck in worse-than usual M25 traffic. Thankfully the "minimum 2 hour check-in" is a complete fabrication to make people turn up early and I had no problems being only 90 minutes before the flight - besides, it just meant no hanging around in the departure lounge. The flight was completely full, and I hadn't even managed to snag a bulkhead seat, although I was at least on the aisle. We arrived somewhat late and had the longest taxi ever, but all that conspired to do was get me out front of the airport two minutes before hermorrine arrived instead of the usual twenty or more.We were staying in a previously-visited hotel this time, chosen soley on the basis of free cookies at check-in (nice, but really not worth the $8.95 they want for a tin of 6 - no cookie is worth that, even the ones I make). On Saturday, we went out for English Tea at a French Creperie - quite the bizarre combination. It was very nice and convinced me that some day I must hang the expense and have tea at the Ritz. Unfortunately, I did let the British side down by making a hash of pouring the tea - go me! Also, they had possibly the world's smallest scones - rather yummy, though.
In the evening, we decided to brave the swimming pool. This turned out to be a rather poor plan as the place was positively seething with small, largely unsupervised children. The main pool seemed like a bad idea, so we went for the nice, empty, but not very hot hot tub. Alas, this too was immediately invaded by splashing kids who mostly seemed to be trying to see how long they could stay underwater -
Sunday lunch was the obligatory burger and shake - something very hard to find done well on this side of the pond. Very nice, although I decided not to go for the somewhat excessive 1 lb burger. Alas the movie we wanted to rent was already out, so we had to go with alternatives - we got Mona Lisa Smile which was enjoyable enough although the ending came out of nowhere and was IMO entirely out out of place with the main part of the film. Alas, all to soon it was time to fly home (bulkhead this time - yay!), but I shall return!
Thanks to the undocumented challenge, on this trip I achieved my AAdvantage Gold status - more miles and other benefits for me, huzzah!
In related news, I really ought to talk about what happened at New Year's. Yes, I am a complete t00b for leaving it this long, as
hermorrine managed to write about it much closer to the time. In fact, you should go and read that if you want to know what happened because I don't remember much else that isn't there. Well, except for pressies!First of all there were the magical glowing ice-cubes - we had these in our drinks at a place we had dinner in Disneyland, so they are both cool and have nice memories attached. Next was the Incredible Smooching Bears - two cute little teddies with magnets behind their lips and velcro on their paws so that they can kiss and hold hands - awwwww! The next two pressies will not be discussed here ;-) Last, but not least, was a lovely watch. Not only was the logo an eerily appropriate 'HP', but I can open up the watch and inside there's a picture of
hermorrine and a little message! <3 
March 29 2004, 08:53:01 UTC 17 years ago
Continental claims that it's 3483 miles from LGW to EWR and 719 miles from there to ORD, so making it a close thing. However, their frequent flyer program gives you Elite status after just five transatlantic (one-way) flights (which status lasts through to the next-but-one February) - which is how I came to have Elite status when booking my honeymoon.
Mmm-hmm! Monogrammed handkerchief and a pair of cuff-links, eh?
I read that as "handcuffs"…
March 29 2004, 10:11:44 UTC 17 years ago
I read that as "handcuffs"…
Oh, good. I'm glad it wasn't just me.
March 29 2004, 11:37:43 UTC 17 years ago
*awaits glare*
March 29 2004, 13:26:11 UTC 17 years ago
March 30 2004, 04:35:01 UTC 17 years ago
Full fare economy is a strange beast.
In fact, fare classes are pretty strange altogether. Contintental's web site informs me that A, C, D, J and Z are first or business class fares; Y and H are full fare Economy; K, N, B, V and U are just Economy, and Q, I, S, W, T, X and L are discount Economy. But it doesn't tell me anything else about what any of those letters means, except that "Y" is the classic full-fare economy ticket, and that the letters are probably in roughly descending fare order. Our flights to Washington were L-class, apparently. The classes falling into the "discount" category have fewer benefits associated with them in the frequent flyer programme, but apparently for transatlantic flights purchased online it matters less.
Anyway, that's a bit of a digression. If I ask their web site for tickets to (say) Chicago, it gives me a U-class fare at £300.80 (though if I specify Mondays it gives me an N-class fare at £477.80 - hmm, maybe I can learn something by playing with it a bit more). "Avoid most change penalties" or "No advance purchase restrictions" both give me class H at £1,042.80. On the other hand, the full "Y" fare is a whopping £2,048.20 (though the routing is different - it's £2,526.80 for the same route as before). For comparison, a First (Z and D) class ticket for the same route costs £2,793.80 (again, slightly cheaper on a different route with three Z-classes on the way out instead of one Z and one D).
Now what I want to know is who on earth would buy a "Y" economy fare for eight times the cost of the bog-standard ticket when for another couple of hundred you can get a first class ticket?
Fortunately, five one-ways at the cheapest economy fare I could get were sufficient for me to get Elite status on Continental in 2001/2. They seem to have just changed some of the rules, but I suspect that will still be the case.
I have 31,858 miles plus an expected 7,354 from the recent trip. Transatlantic return flights cost 50,000 for the basic version (quotaed, and not available on certain dates) or 100,000 for the version which allows you to book any flight that isn't full, and First/Business class flights cost double those numbers.
March 30 2004, 13:59:37 UTC 17 years ago
Tell me about it. I've never quite understood the point - on American, it's easily 3-4 times the price of a discount ticket, although only half of a business class one. I can only think that perhaps the difference is much less on domestic rather than transatlantic flights - then it might perhaps make sense. Certainly the fact that you can change it without penalty is less useful if you could just buy a second cheapo ticket and still be better off.
As regards classes, I mostly fly S class, which is special offer fares from the AA website. Last year, before I wised up, a had tickets from Expedia/Travelocity/etc which were all in O class - and earned no mileage. A complete list of AA's class letters can be found here.
Unfortunately my plans to fly buisiness class free are coming unstuck - a bit of poking through the booking system suggests that the low-mileage offers for business class are *very* restricted - much more so that economy or first (the latter costing 125k miles).