Modern Tale of Two Cities

Modern Tale of Two Cities

The plan was simple:  Take advantage of a very inexpensive airfare from Dulles to London and get a big bunch of United miles.  I’m very close to my second million miles with United and when I get that, I’ll have Gold Status/Executive Premier for me and for Cindy for the rest of our lives.  This is important to us since we live near Dulles, which is a major United hub, so we are mostly condemned to fly with them.  This status gets us free checked luggage, access to all the Star Alliance lounges worldwide, better seats in Economy Plus, priority screening and boarding, and a host of other little perks.  I felt that the quick trip would be worth the inconvenience of international coach, but I had aisle seats on exit rows so I knew it wouldn’t be too bad.

My first leg was to depart Dulles at 3:30 for Toronto where I was to connect to a flight for London at 6:30 pm, arriving at Heathrow at 7 am.  While at Heathrow I had planned to take a quick shower and change clothes, do some duty free shopping and then hop on the noon flight back to Dulles.  I had a small bag with a change of underwear and shirt so it was a snap to park in the covered lot, walk to the terminal and head upstairs to get boarding passes for my flights.  United, however, had other ideas.  They could only get me my boarding pass for the first leg to Toronto, which meant I would have to find the connecting desk in Toronto to get my Air Canada boarding pass, and hopefully, my UA boarding pass to return to Dulles the next day.  I cleared ID checks quickly but then realized that getting through security was going to be a very, very long affair. They only had two lines open on a Sunday afternoon, and the place was filled with families and foreigners and the lines moved very slowly.

There must have been a Daisy Mae look alike contest in Washington this weekend since so many of the women I saw were in short, short cutoffs, halter tops and flip flops.  95% of them should have been wearing muumuus or burkas to shield us from the flaps of flesh hanging out everywhere!  It is painful to watch clueless travelers going though security.  The TSA agents are always telling the passengers in the lines to remove this and that, get out laptops, get out liquids, remove shoes, etc. and yet every second person would forget to do something requiring them to start over and holding up the line even more.  It took a full forty-five minutes to get though security and by then I was really ready for a drink.

I went to the British Air Terrace Lounge, which is open to folks who have a Priority Pass membership.  The lounge was almost empty and by 1:30 I was sitting in front of floor to ceiling windows, Champagne in hand, watching the planes come and go. At 2:15 I went next door to the Lufthansa lounge (Star Alliance Member) and got a few sandwiches, which I placed in my bag for the flight.  I stopped by See’s Candy and purchased some lollipops, which I hand out to flight attendants as bribes for better service.  It works!

By 3 pm I was at the assigned gate waiting for boarding.  To make a long story short, there was a toilet-related accident on the incoming flight and they announced that it was going to take two hours to clean the aircraft since they needed to have a Scrub team, similar to Hazmat, come on board.  You know things are bad when the crew comes off because of the stench.

This delay meant that I was going to miss my connection on Air Canada so I quickly went to the United Club.  I told them I had to get to London since I had to pick up an important package and asked if there was anything they could do to help me.  Of course I first gave them some lollipops when I greeted them so they were inclined to help. The Amazing Elizabeth, which is what I called the agent, got right on the problem and in about five minutes she asked if I was willing to go from Dulles to Paris, Paris to London, and then London back to Dulles, arriving an hour later than planned.  I jumped on the chance and she did some more tapping and then looked at me and said some of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard, “There is only one seat left on the flight to Paris and it is in First Class. I hope that is alright?”  I was stunned but delighted.  She gave me all three boarding passes and said I should head to the gate very soon. 

I boarded the 767-300 and took my seat, 1A. These are suite seats that are very comfortable, convert to lay-flat beds and have on demand movies on 15’ monitors.  I just counted my blessings and never once looked towards the back of the plane. There are only six seats in First and one of them is blocked for a rest area for the cockpit crew, so with one flight attendant to five guests, the service should have been excellent.  It wasn’t!  First of all, they announced that due to an announced strike by the airline caterers in France, they were carrying not only the food and drink for this outbound flight but also for the return, which meant that they didn’t really have enough space to allow for choices.  Coach was told that they would get a chicken sandwich; business would get either a pasta or chicken dish, and first class would get fish, chicken or pasta. They were very apologetic and embarrassed, but that was how things were to be.  If I had paid for First Class, I would have been as disappointed as three of the five passengers. They had to constantly ask for things that should have been proffered.  They didn’t have any First Class wines and the food was really awful, but I kept my mouth shut except to eat and drink some wine, and then I slept like a baby for five of the seven and a half hours.  I woke up feeling wonderful and the gear came down and we landed right on schedule at 7 am at a rainy CDG.

We arrived at Terminal One and I had to get to Terminal 2A for my flight on British Air to London, scheduled to depart at 10:40.  I followed the signs to the bus gate and waited only about fifteen minutes for the bus, which stopped at six other gates before depositing me at 2A about thirty minutes later. They say that the connections are only twenty minutes but I suppose with lousy weather it takes longer. I didn’t care since I had lots of time and the fresh air and moisture were most welcomed.

Going though security again was time consuming and finding my way to the gate was even more frustrating since it involved going up and down stairs.  Charles de Gaulle is a really horrible airport.  I finally found the gate and was told that I could go up the stairs I had just come down and use the Cathay Pacific Lounge.  This was a small place but well stocked and I was rather hungry so I tucked into two pancakes with real Canadian maple syrup, two bottles of water and some decent coffee.  I spend an hour on the computer in the lounge and realized that I was ready for Champagne.  The joy of not getting into any time zone is that you really don’t care what time the clock says, just what your body says, and my body was yearning for Champagne so I took a break and had a lovely glass of Lanson Brut while looking at more food choices.  Since this was Cathay Pacific, they had a wonderful noodle bar so I had a steaming bowl of noodles with chicken and a bracing glass of Sancerre. 

It was now getting close to boarding time so I headed back to the gate and waited in line for the bus to take us out to the plane.  The bus was filled with well-behaved high school kids from California on the grand tour of Europe and it was fun listening to their stories of adventures in Italy and France.  I was in Club Europe, which means business class. That means that they block the middle seat but otherwise all the seats on the Airbus are the same.  The BA crew were very nice and efficient and managed to serve cocktails and nuts, a snack of cold salmon and crème fraiche, fresh rolls, hot tea and biscuits and figs.  I asked them if they had carried this food with them from London, relating the story we were told about the strike in France. They had no knowledge of the strike and they had catered all the food and drink in France. 

We were delayed by weather for about thirty minutes, which meant I had to get from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1 very quickly upon landing.  I must say, I need to reevaluate my opinion of the British in terms of their organization.  Unlike CDG this trip only took fifteen minutes, even though the distances were greater.  Security was quick and easy and I even had a few minutes to buy some shortbread cookies.  I used the Star Alliance lounge to clean up a bit and had a glass of water and cup of tea before heading to the gate - about a ten minute walk which I found refreshing.

The Amazing Elizabeth had seated me in Business Class for the return flight.  It was on a 757, which is a single aisle aircraft, but since there is no First Class the 16 Business Class seats are up front and they are the sleeper suites, which means lay-flat beds.  I talked to the purser and gave him the lollipops to distribute to the flight attendants.  He told me that we were the only four people in Business and to take any seat we wanted.  One older couple took the front two seats and I took a row of two on the right side of the plane since I wanted to see Cornwall and Ireland before sleeping. 

I asked why there were so few business passengers and was told that the 777-200 left completely full at noon and that this was a new service and no one seemed to know about it.  I loved the space and the quiet, and unlike the outbound this flight was full service and it was excellent.   I had the salad and appetizers of seared tuna but skipped the meal since I wasn’t really hungry.  The food looked good and they kept trying to get me to change my mind but I opted instead for some lovely Heidsieck Monopole Blue Brut, a Michel Lynch Bordeaux Sauvignon Blanc and a bottle of water.  I was intrigued by the reds and thought I would sample them with some cheese.  Unfortunately they were all very powerful, the lightest was 13.5% alcohol and the other two were 14.5% so I skipped them.

Cornwall and Ireland were beautiful to see from above and the weather was just lovely.  As soon as we passed Ireland I lowered the shades and made my bed and slept for four hours.  I woke up to see Boston, New York and Philadelphia before we landed at Dulles on time.  I was out of the airport in twenty minutes and heading home a mere twenty- two hours after the journey began.  Some fun and lots of miles!  (Here is a picture of my seat to Paris.)  William