Tame last night in Vegas, and after dinner ended up sitting around having a few drinks. Was watching some tv and texting on my phone and…
…and next thing I knew it was 5 minutes before I’d planned to leave the hotel in the morning. Ugh, I’d fallen asleep texting/watching tv…and my phone was completely dead so the alarm never went off. I’d never done that before. Quick shower, packing, and was out the door about 15 minutes later than planned. No big emergency, but incredibly lucky I woke up when I did. I guess all the time zone changing and tiredness finally caught up to me and the body just crashed.
Made it to the airport in plenty of time, there was no line at security, and soon I found the AmEx Centurion lounge. The agent asked me how I’d liked the LaGuardia Lounge (impressive CRM – and good database) and offered to show us around if we needed anything. I just wanted breakfast at this point.
Some tasty pancakes and fruit, along with a poached egg in tomato basil sauce which was delicious. Oh, and a glass of Veuve. Won’t want to go cold turkey and risk getting the shakes or something! One nice thing the Centurion lounges do for Centurion card holders is offer a special drink at each lounge. At both LaGuardia and Vegas it’s Veuve or a glass of Johnny Walker Blue. I figured 8a was ok for champagne, but later in the day it would be a hard choice….
Originally, I had ticketed Vegas-Houston-Chicago-DCA because I was afraid I might be short on qualifying miles this year. But at this point, I was exhausted…and there was one seat on the Houston-DC nonstop in P class so I called United to try and make a same day confirmed change. After being on hold 15 minutes, the agent had no clue how to do it, and pulled the “it’s under airport control” excuse. Ugh.
United Airlines flight 1236
Las Vegas, Nevada (LAS) to Houston, Jorge Bush Intercontinental (IAH)
Depart 9:32, Arrive 14:34, Flight Time 3:02
Boeing 737-900, Registration N47414, Manufactured 2008, Seat 2E
Not terribly much to say on this flight. I wasn’t very hungry after the lounge, but took the breakfast for photo purposes. Ok, I actually ate the fruit and greek yogurt and a couple bites of the egg, but that was all. I’d had way way too much United food on this trip, and was rather over it. The other option was the usual cereal and banana, which today was raisin bran.
Landed in Houston a few minutes ahead of schedule, checked ExpertFlyer, and there was still one P seat on the nonstop to DC, so I tried to use the app to change it…and it worked! Yes, United technology succeeded where an actual agent couldn’t…go figure! I’d get home nearly four hours sooner, which was sounding absolutely fantastic at this point!
I stopped at Le Grand Comptoir to wait for my flight, and had a couple of glasses of prosecco while waiting:
Not only had I gotten on the earlier flight, but I had an aisle seat in row 2 – my preferred seat. Clearly it was my lucky day!
United Airlines flight 292
Houston, Jorge Bush Intercontinental (IAH) to Washington, DC, National (DCA)
Depart 16:37, Arrive 20:18, Flight Time 2:41
Airbus A319, Registration N846UA, Manufactured 2001, Seat 2E
One last class of Domaine Ste Jeff and one last bowl of discount warm nuts:
Today’s lunch was some sort of sandwich on pretzel bread, bread on no plate, and scary halloween colored soup:
Chatted with my seatmate a bit, who was a flyertalker coming back from Singapore (or was it Bangkok?) and was a fan of my trip reports. Made the flight fly by, and soon landed at DCA ahead of schedule. A very busy, very packed, very successful trip down in the books.
So, was it worth it? Absolutely! Although I would have liked to have more time in Paris, Barcelona, Andorra, and Hawaii, it was a great trip. I had lots of really cool experiences, saw lots of new things, managed to visit a new country, and had a great time driving through the mountains. The trip made for some fantastic stories, and I’d love to do something similar again…but not any time too soon!