Well… here I am again. Similar to my Mileage Run To HEL, I plan to “live blog” as much of my current mileage run as possible. I believe these live blogs give readers the chance to experience what a mileage run is actually like.
Typically all you get to see is the final review of the product and the experience. While I love writing those reviews, I don’t think it gives the whole experience justice. All you get see is a flight that seemingly went to plan. What you don’t get to see is what it often takes to get on that first flight. So, for this weekend’s mileage run I think a “live blog” could be beneficial and most importantly fun.
Planning This Weekend’s Mileage Run
As I’ve mentioned before, I booked this trip as part of Cathay Pacific’s Black Friday sale. With that sale Cathay was offering premium economy tickets from North America to Hong Kong for just $800. The catch with this particular sale is that the cheapest tickets originated in San Fransisco. You could fly from New York for a bit more, but it diluted the Elite Qualifying Dollars and Elite Qualifying Miles per dollar a bit. So, as anyone would do, I booked one of these fares for a long weekend (this weekend).
For this particular Mileage Run I booked a Thursday Night (12:40AM PST Friday) departure and a Sunday morning return. Given the quick turn I only needed to take one day of PTO from work since I’d fly Thursday night and be back to work on Monday.
The only wrinkle of this entire plan is that I first needed to get from my new home (more on that to come) in New York to San Fransisco. Thankfully, American Airlines has a fantastic Transcon service that I love taking so I booked that to get to San Fransisco.
I ended up booking the 6:30PM EST departure from JFK which arrived in San Francisco around 9:40PM PST. By booking this flight I would have ample time to get to my Cathay Pacific flight, but also have a shot at an upgrade to Business on the A321T.
That was the plan… however, as you can probably tell already, nothing went to plan…
A Very Untimely Delay
While my idea of flying to San Fransisco after work seemed rock solid, I hiccup with work popped up two weeks earlier. The hiccup is that I needed to be at a meeting just outside of New York until 3PM EST. This wasn’t ideal, but all went to plan and I made it back to Manhattan around 3:10PM. However, having missed the better half of the day for this meeting I ended up hanging around the office much later than anticipated. I didn’t end up leaving the office until 4:40PM which didn’t leave me much time to catch my 6:30PM departure.
From the office I got on the subway to the airport, missed a stop, had to double-back, got on the right train, and then I got an email from American… The email came with the familiar subject line which notified me of a delay impacting my trip. I figured the delay would be 30 minutes, maybe an hour, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Unfortunately not. The delay was for nearly 3.5 hours! That’s right, an hour before our scheduled departure we were notified of a 3.5 HOUR delay.
Now, timing aside, delays are manageable provided you have a smartphone and internet access. This created a problem because the subway from Manhattan to New York’s JFK does not have cell service, so I had to wait to get to JFK to do anything.
Calling American And Getting A “New Flight”
With delays more than 2 hours American generally allows you to switch to another flight without a fee. I already have this benefit thanks to my elite status, but when a delay is involved I find there are more options available. However, when I finally logged into the American Airlines app my only available options were for the following day. Clearly that wasn’t going to work.
At that point I called American and spoke to a service agent. The agent was amazing, she stayed on the phone with me for quite a long time looking at all of my options. Ultimately she noticed an earlier JFK-SFO flight became further delayed which meant that I could get on it. She then issued me the ticket and I began my sprint from the JFK AirTrain to Gate 7 in Terminal 8.
I made it through security in record time and made it to the gate right as boarding began. I thought I’d made it. That’s when I stopped by the American Airlines gate agent’s desk and asked for my boarding card. Oddly enough, she didn’t have it. In fact, she didn’t have a seat for me. She then told me to visit an AA customer service desk in the airport to get a booking on an alternate flight. I’m still not sure what exactly happened here, but I’ve given up trying to find out.
Thankfully, when the AA phone agent put me on the easier flight she also put me on a Delta flight as a reserve option. I ended up needing that option.
Going Back To Terminal 2 To Catch A Delta Flight
Before leaving Terminal 8 I first stopped by the American Airlines ticking counters to get a voucher for my Delta flight. I didn’t want to go all the way to Terminal 2 if I didn’t confirm that I was actually on that flight. Call me crazy, but I had just been walked from a flight. After a few minutes the ticket agent printed out my voucher and I made my way to Terminal 2.
When I got to Terminal 2 it took a few minutes for Delta and American to properly talk to one another to issue my ticket. After a short wait the Delta ticket agent printed out my boarding pass and I made my way through security, again.
As my luck would have it, Delta also further delayed the flight I’m currently on. This flight was supposed to leave at 7:30PM, but didn’t end up leaving until just after 9PM. That puts us into SFO at about midnight. Provided it get to SFO at midnight I then have 30 minutes to get off this plane and get to my boarding gate. Fingers crossed.
How Am I Feeling?
Today was one of the most stressful travel days I’ve had in a while. In general, I find traveling quite relaxing. However, trips like these tend to give me quite a bit of stress. The stress is due to the fact that I’m not protected in the event of a delay because I booked my flights on separate tickets. That means the airlines are not responsible if I miss my flight due to a delay. Ultimately, if I miss this Cathay Pacific flight, I probably won’t be going to Hong Kong this weekend and won’t be earning any miles.
I’m feeling a little more relaxed now that I’m in the air. The Captain thinks we will be at the gate around midnight, the crew is aware of my situation and is actively helping, and I think I’ll make it. Given that it now looks like I’ll make it, I have a moment to look back at today’s events. I keep looking back at today and wondering what I could have done differently to avoid this situation entirely. Ultimately, I keep coming back to one thing. I should have been at the airport in time to make the 4PM departure on American.
I wonder if I had been at the airport earlier if it would have made any difference. For example, if I was at the airport at 4:00PM instead of 6:00PM if I would have made the earlier flight. Instead, I arrived to the gate around 6:10PM and was walked because the flight was full.
Final Thoughts
Wow, what a day. It’s been a long day already and I haven’t even begun the longest part of this entire trip. I’m definitely nervous about making my Cathay Pacific flight, but feel somewhat confident at the moment. Perhaps overly confident given the narrow connection window I have in front of me. I’m also overly confident that if I end up missing my flight Cathay Pacific will put me on the 11:30AM departure that gets me into Hong Kong Saturday night and therefore allows me to complete my journey on time.
That’s all for now. I’ll check back in from either the San Fransisco Terminal as I watch the beautiful Cathay Pacific A350-1000 pull away or from inside the aircraft as we reach our cruising altitude.
