Traveling To…

For my night in central Milan, I picked the Four Points, located near Milano Centrale.

As I had come off an overnight flight and no shower facilities were available at Malpensa, I happy to get to the airport and check in to my room without further delay.

As seems to be fairly common in midrange Italian hotels, breakfast was complimentary.  (The Park Hyatt is a bit beyond “free breakfast” territory.)

Thanks to a United travel waiver for the Northeast, Wideroe was willing to make changes to the otherwise non-changeable mistake bookings.  Rather than try to call Norway, I gave their online chat a try: A few minutes later, I had a new ticket in my email and was ready to go.  A quick call to United and one systemwide upgrade later, I had a seat in the business class cabin.  Online check-in didn’t go so smoothly, though:

That’s not the message you want to see 4 hours before your international flight while it’s after business hours in Norway…  One lengthy call to United (and some fingerpointing between United and Wideroe) later, I was able to check in and obtain a boarding pass.

At Newark Airport, security was a zoo and TSA Precheck was no better.  Right as I passed through the security checkpoint, TSA discovered an abandoned bag, requiring passenger traffic in the terminal be stopped until a police dog could inspect the suitcase.  This left me scrambling to get to my gate where the masses were already teeming but boarding had not yet started.

Boarding eventually started and I settled down into my seat.

United 19
Newark (FRA) – Milan Malpensa (MXP)
Friday, February 14th, 2014
Depart:  6:58PM
Arrive: 8:17AM
Duration:  7 hours, 19 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 767-424ER (N68061)
Seat: 2K (Business Class)

In addition to the choice of water or orange juice predeparture beverage, the flight attendants came by to offer amenity kits.  Our flight featured the much-coveted (yeah… right.) hub-friendly tins:

Given the few cents necessary to acquire the contents, it’s not clear to me why United thought people would be willing to pay $20 for these.

As I had placed myself on this flight less than 12 hours beforehand, I didn’t have the opportunity to ensure I had a vegetarian meal.  Nonetheless, the menu offered a vegetarian dish so I didn’t have to cobble together a meal out of the salad and sundae.  The menu read as follows:

Somewhat interestingly (given there had been a slight uproar on FlyerTalk over the matter), the wine list made a reappearance.  (During my trip from Hong Kong on United, the wines were conspicuously absent.)

After a bit of perusal of the menu and a bit of a delay departing Newark, it was time for takeoff.

East-bound transatlantic flights (particularly from the east coast) are meant for sleeping, but I figured I would check on the IFE during dinner.  While I ordinarily don’t think much about it, given I prefer to use my laptop or read a book, this was one of the more subpar IFE experiences.

About 50(!) minutes after takeoff, the flight attendants came by with hot towels, finally providing an initial place setting an hour(!) into the flight.

The bread arrived at the 1 hour, 20 minute mark.

Our next course, salad, took another 20 minutes to arrive, making its first appearance at the 1 hour, 40 minute mark.

The entree of ravioli quickly followed, a few minutes later.

I selected a cheese plate for dessert. Nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes since takeoff, the flight attendants made another round afterwards offering sundaes as well

When flying east across the Atlantic, I’ve tried to have one simple guideline:  Go to bed before running out of Canada.   I didn’t quite make it this time.

To the extent I could, I slept through the breakfast service, waking up completely only just before our arrival to Milan Malpensa.

Overall, the flight turned out much better than I had expecting just a day prior.  That is to say, it wasn’t in coach.

While perhaps the Friday night departure made the cabin less full of business travelers in desperate need to catch some sleep before important meetings, I was a bit dismayed that the dinner service took about 2 hours and 45 minutes of the flight to complete.

Once in Milan, I quickly cleared Italian immigration and headed to my hotel in city center.  As part of their BusinessFirst offerings, Continental had long provided arrivals lounges and day rooms in their European destinations.   When I inquired on-board this flight, the flight attendant I asked interpreted it as a question about breakfast before arrival.  As I later discovered by inquiring on FlyerTalk, United does provide day rooms at the Sheraton Malpensa Airport for BusinessFirst passengers, but it requires asking at the gate or lounge (rather than on the aircraft).

Back in November, a small Norwegian regional carrier, Wideroe, stopped charging fuel surcharges on Star Alliance-operated tickets across the Atlantic.  Needless to say, the frequent flyer community pounced on the opportunity to save hundreds of dollars per round trip.

While I had previously visited Milan in October (thanks in part to Emirates’ fifth-freedom route between New York and Milan driving down fares), I found it hard to resist a $189 round trip, all-inclusive fare.

Originally, I had booked EWR-FRA-LIN/MXP-EWR, expecting to grin-and-bear two transatlantic flights in coach.

Thanks to some weather waivers in the northeast during the days leading up to my trip, I switched over to the nonstop to Milan Malpensa, rather than take a long layover in Frankfurt.

Having been escorted to a waiting car from the lounge, we quickly drove along the terminal past Lufthansa’s various widebodies waiting to depart to far-off lands.

Until we turned left and drove past the jetbridge, it didn’t occur to me that this was the 747 scheduled to fly to New York.

After stopping the car, my driver escorted me and my suitcase to an elevator next to the jet bridge so I could board the plane.

Lufthansa 400
Frankfurt (FRA) – New York (JFK)
Tuesday, December 31st, 2013
Depart:  10:55AM
Arrive: 1:35PM
Duration:  8 hours, 40 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 747-430 (D-ABTL)
Seat: 82C (First Class)

While many airlines place their first class cabin behind the nose on their 747’s, Lufthansa has its on the upper deck.  The 747 First Class differs a bit from those on other aircraft (such their A340) by featuring a dedicated bed next to the seat, minimizing the compromises necessary to get a seat that can morph into a bed at a moment’s notice.

  One of the flight attendants stopped by to drop off a pair of pajamas and an amenity kit.

After finishing up boarding soon after the first class passengers arrived, we had a short taxi past a waiting United 777 before taking off.

The menu read as follows:

The initial place setting, complete with butter, olive oil, and grinders for salt and pepper.

As we were departing from a Lufthansa hub, they could afford to attend to details such as ensuring the butter is stamped “First Class.”

When United’s reservations system dropped this Lufthansa segment, I lost my vegetarian meal reservation.  Nonetheless, the flight worked out and I was able to find suitable vegetarian options from the menu.  I began with the salad and lettuce mousse.

For my main course, I selected the walnut gnocchi.

Finally, I had some carrot cake, topped with fresh carrots, for dessert.

Having woken up at the crack of dawn in Europe (and with minimal sleep from the night before), I settled down to take a nap.  I woke up shortly into the snack service just before landing, selecting the canape with cream cheese.

Once off the plane, Customs was a zoo, even for Global Entry, so I was a bit delayed in getting into the city.

I found myself relaxing most of the night before my flight to New York. At about 1AM, I looked at my United reservation in dismay.  My flight from Zurich to Frankfurt was there, as was my onward flight from New York.  The Lufthansa First segment was missing in action. Fast forward an hour later and with the help of a United agent, I managed to get the segment restored.  Nevertheless, it seemed prudent to head over to over to the airport a bit early.  If everything was fine, I’d wind up enjoying more time in the First Class Terminal.  If things weren’t, I’d have more lead time to resolve everything.

After catching a few hours of sleep, I checked out of the Sheraton and walked along the arrivals level to the First Class Terminal.

The main entrance to the building is on the second floor, with a driveway attached to it.  The first floor entrance, accessible from the sidewalk from the arrivals level, has an elevator up to the check-in desks.

I quickly checked-in with the agent and then passed through the most courteous security screening before entering the lounge.

The lounge had a small display case filled with some of the collectible-edition, Lufthansa rubber ducks.

Having put down my bags, I ventured over to look at my options for breakfast.  (On account of the precarious state my reservation was in, I opted to head straight to the terminal rather than visit the lounge at the Sheraton for food.)

Shortly into my meal, the check-in agent returned with my boarding pass, my passport, and a New Years edition rubber duck.

Rather than list all of the day’s flights, the First Class Terminal’s departure screens are customized to the passengers actually in the lounge.

The tables throughout the lounge had drink menus.  I think those are fairly understandable.

…but water?  That seems a bit more far fetched.

About 30 minutes before departure, I began packing up my laptop bag in anticipation of needing to depart.  Around then, one of the lounge attendants found me and escorted me to the lower level so I could exit the Schengen Area and be driven over to my flight.

United finally announced that they’re shifting to a revenue-based earning scheme for 2015.  Given the announcement looks like a copy-and-paste (and a find-and-replace of “Delta” for “United”) from Delta’s announcements, it’s surprising it took them this long.

We knew this was coming.  Some are talking about the destruction of the program, but fortunately, credit card spending will save us.

This change might finally spur me to get on the Delta bandwagon, though.  At least with them, I can earn elite qualifying miles entirely from credit card spending with American Express.

Since I had a morning flight out of Frankfurt Airport, I decided to stay at the Sheraton rather than try to stay in city center.  While Germany has terrific trains to most (I’m looking at you, Tegel) of its airports, it’s hard to compete with taking an escalator and walking across a skybridge to the airport terminal building in the morning.

I was given a king room on the 8th floor with a not particularly exhilarating of a view of the airport terminal.

Having settled into my room, I ventured up to the club lounge.

Late in the evening, most of the food options had been picked up, but a few deserts remained.

After writing up my post about the AA award chart changes, I took a quick glance at Twitter.  There’s not quite the sharp response that was elicited by United and Delta during their recent devaluations, but I caught notice of American Airlines promising that all would be revealed in the morning.

Well, okay, they didn’t quite say that.  They went for:

You’ll see some changes to the AA and US websites. We plan to officially announce some new policies later this morning

Then the other shoe dropped:

US Airways has a new award chart out, increasing the price to 110k miles roundtrip for business class to North Asia.  Somewhat oddly, first class remains at 120k miles roundtrip.

While it’s not quite as bad as the feared fuel surcharges of last August, One Mile at a Time discusses how AA has quietly restricted its AAnytime awards.  In between his original post and my write-up of this, AA has released a new award chart with “five” tiers:

• MileSAAver Level 1: This looks like AA’s old off-peak awards.
• MileSAAver Level 2: These look like AA’s traditional peak MileSAAver awards.
• AAnytime Level 1: Old price
• AAnytime Level 2: New higher tier
• AAnytime Level 3: A very vague asterisk.

One commenter on FlyerTalk suggests that this is the start of market-based awards for last-seat availability:

It is meant to be announced tomorrow. AA did everything in their power to keep it hush hush until they sprang it on us. AAnytime awards will now be dynamic, meaning we will have to pay a premium on high demand dates/periods, and less on off peak periods. What is also unannounced as of yet is that International Gateway City Stopovers are also gone.

Emphasis mine on the real nugget in there.  Edit:  A quick search of NRT-LAX (stop)-BOS shows that this is pricing as two separate awards: