markis10
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- Nov 25, 2004
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Having been inspired by members trip reports of the weekends F lounge run, I thought I might put a bit of effort in and finally put in a long overdue trip report, well it is in fact 19 years overdue!
Lets rewind...........
Picture this, its early July 1992, a young air traffic controller is on a break during his shift in the tower at Bankstown airport and notices an ad by Northwest Airlines, book this weekend on our new Sydney-Osaka-New York service and we will upgrade you to business (where was AFF to spread the love). How could I not pass up that opportunity, big seats, a movie on the main screen and three meals, who do I call?? Needless to say a trip to Florida to visit Disney World, Spaceport USA and the Orlando Greyhound Track was locked in (did you know they use different colours for the dog numbers in the US, I didnt until the last race but thats a story for another forum another time - just accept it cost me money).
Fast forward to a week later and I was on my way (no I-94s/visa waivers etc, I had a true LOTFAP 5 year visa in my passport), now anyone who has done Japan to New York via Alaska would know what a scenic trip it is, little did I know how much I would get to enjoy it on the return trip(s), enough said. Got to New York and did the normal tourist things, you know what I mean, like going up the twin towers and spotting an aircraft carrier with a blackbird on it (thats not natural, better check it out), etc etc, sunset on top of the twin towers was the place to be as a tourist and 9 years later the memories of it bought home the reality of the events of 9/11
.
After a week of window shopping in New York, you know the kind, where you start walking down a street checking out the shops and 5 hours later you are still on the same treet but kilometres from where you started , I headed to Florida and the marvelous UK city of Orlando (I am sure they got visitation rights from the Boston Tea Party fallout?). A couple more days were spent at Epcot/Disney/Spaceworld/Damned Greyhound Track before it was time to head home, but not before my St George Visa got swallowed by a gas station ATM and I finally worked out which side of the road I should be driving on!
I made it back to New York (where the paper machines are not full of the UK dailys like they are in Orlando) and hopped on my Northwest Flight back to Sydney via Osaka in J. Before I knew it we were on our way, 15 hours of flying with as much Baileys and Scotch as I wanted, and the odd mountain view as we flew over Alsaka. Having spent so much on my Y fare that got me into J (I think it was $1000 return), I was keen to get value for money so there is no doubt I enjoyed the offerings, on landing at Osaka I made my way to the lounge quite happy. It was not long before my flight to Sydney was called (or so I thought) - " Northwest Flight 69 now boarding at gate 81 for Sydney".
Yep, thats me, so I make my way down to the gate, same plane I came in on, so its all good, show my boarding pass (no magnetic strip/high tech stuff in those days) and up I go to the top deck and settle in. As we start to taxi out I note the crew playing a video on how to fill in the USA immigration form, which I find odd given I am heading to Sydney, so I turn to my seatmate and suggest that perhaps the crew had a long layover, they seem to thing they are heading to the USA, well, you should have seen the look I got, "where do you think you are going" he asks, to which I reply, "Sydney" with a slightly puzzled look! Surprise, surprise, his response " thats odd, I am going to New York" ! At this stage our conversation is interupted by a page over the cabin system "If there is a Mr Markis10 onboard would you kindly press your call button", which I promptly do, however as our top deck crew are strapped in it gets ignored for the time being.
So we take off from Osaka and finally the cabin crew come to see me, "How may I help you" they ask, to which I reply " I am Mr Markis10 and you paged me, however I think I am on the wrong plane
". Needless to say the look on their face is priceless, " well I will check in with the Captain and get back to you". Ok, thats fine be me, so I decide to just enjoy what I expect will be a short ride!
10 minutes later the crew return, "Yes, Mr Markis10, you are on the wrong plane and are coming with us to New York". My reaction - :shock: (or get me a Baileys or 10).
Did I mention how scenic the flight is over Alaska, thats right I did, well let me tell you that my second flight in less than 24 hours over that scenery I was not enjoying the view, no one explained to me was going to happen when I got to New York, after all whose fault was it that I was in this predicament and who was going to pay to get me home (with parital thanks to those greyhounds in the wrong colours and my swallowed St George Visa Card I was hardly flush with cash)? At least I was in J still and not locked up in the crew rest quarters as a stowaway (albeit with a boarding pass to SYD).
13 hours later and the questions are still unanswered as we approach New York, its July 30, 1992 at 1730 hours local time as we make our approach to JFK, a few minutes later I notice all of a sudden the gear is going up, engines increase in noise etc etc, yes we are doing a missed approach! Seems a TWA tristar had aborted a takeoff and crash landed back onto the runway (TWA Flight 843 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). with JFK closed we end up heading for Newark, and after an hour or so finally make it to a gate (Newark had shut down its international arrivals as it thought its last arrival had landed). I was told to head to a customer service desk where I would be looked after.
As you can imagine it was chaos in the arrivals hall with planeloads of JFK bound passengers now at EWR, I had some issues trying to explain to the surly immigration officer why I felt the need to revisit the USA just 30 hours after leaving but eventually my point was made and I was granted admittance, customs was a breeze with nothing to declare (apart from my bags were in Sydney) and I made my way to the Northwest service desk........" Hi, my name is Markis10 and I am not meant to be here"! The response was predicatable "yes sir, we have planeloads of people in the same position"!
At this point I got a little exasperated, "no, you dont understand, I am meant to be in Sydney" , to which the reply was "Nova Scotia??". Needless to say I replied, "No, Sydney, Australia". "Ahh, so you are the one" was the staffers reply, " here is your ticket for a flight home tomorrow, a taxi voucher to JFK and a voucher for a stay at the EWR Hilton (did not ask if it was a qualifying stay for gold benefits).
To cut a long story short, I had a nice sleep, caught the next days flight to Osaka/Syd, had an escort to the lounge at Osaka then back on the plane to Sydney and arrived home a few days late. But before I sign off, there was an epilogue to the story of interest to frequent flyers, a few weeks later I called the Worldperks Service Centre to check my mileage only to find out I had been credited for the full JFK-SYD legs for both flights, making me gold and because it was in J earning enough reward points for a weekend trip to LAS to try and get back some of the money those dogs took, although strangely enough it took a little while before I was ready to hop on another Northwest plane to the LOTFAP
.
Lets rewind...........
Picture this, its early July 1992, a young air traffic controller is on a break during his shift in the tower at Bankstown airport and notices an ad by Northwest Airlines, book this weekend on our new Sydney-Osaka-New York service and we will upgrade you to business (where was AFF to spread the love). How could I not pass up that opportunity, big seats, a movie on the main screen and three meals, who do I call?? Needless to say a trip to Florida to visit Disney World, Spaceport USA and the Orlando Greyhound Track was locked in (did you know they use different colours for the dog numbers in the US, I didnt until the last race but thats a story for another forum another time - just accept it cost me money).
Fast forward to a week later and I was on my way (no I-94s/visa waivers etc, I had a true LOTFAP 5 year visa in my passport), now anyone who has done Japan to New York via Alaska would know what a scenic trip it is, little did I know how much I would get to enjoy it on the return trip(s), enough said. Got to New York and did the normal tourist things, you know what I mean, like going up the twin towers and spotting an aircraft carrier with a blackbird on it (thats not natural, better check it out), etc etc, sunset on top of the twin towers was the place to be as a tourist and 9 years later the memories of it bought home the reality of the events of 9/11
.After a week of window shopping in New York, you know the kind, where you start walking down a street checking out the shops and 5 hours later you are still on the same treet but kilometres from where you started , I headed to Florida and the marvelous UK city of Orlando (I am sure they got visitation rights from the Boston Tea Party fallout?). A couple more days were spent at Epcot/Disney/Spaceworld/Damned Greyhound Track before it was time to head home, but not before my St George Visa got swallowed by a gas station ATM and I finally worked out which side of the road I should be driving on!
I made it back to New York (where the paper machines are not full of the UK dailys like they are in Orlando) and hopped on my Northwest Flight back to Sydney via Osaka in J. Before I knew it we were on our way, 15 hours of flying with as much Baileys and Scotch as I wanted, and the odd mountain view as we flew over Alsaka. Having spent so much on my Y fare that got me into J (I think it was $1000 return), I was keen to get value for money so there is no doubt I enjoyed the offerings, on landing at Osaka I made my way to the lounge quite happy. It was not long before my flight to Sydney was called (or so I thought) - " Northwest Flight 69 now boarding at gate 81 for Sydney".
Yep, thats me, so I make my way down to the gate, same plane I came in on, so its all good, show my boarding pass (no magnetic strip/high tech stuff in those days) and up I go to the top deck and settle in. As we start to taxi out I note the crew playing a video on how to fill in the USA immigration form, which I find odd given I am heading to Sydney, so I turn to my seatmate and suggest that perhaps the crew had a long layover, they seem to thing they are heading to the USA, well, you should have seen the look I got, "where do you think you are going" he asks, to which I reply, "Sydney" with a slightly puzzled look! Surprise, surprise, his response " thats odd, I am going to New York" ! At this stage our conversation is interupted by a page over the cabin system "If there is a Mr Markis10 onboard would you kindly press your call button", which I promptly do, however as our top deck crew are strapped in it gets ignored for the time being.
So we take off from Osaka and finally the cabin crew come to see me, "How may I help you" they ask, to which I reply " I am Mr Markis10 and you paged me, however I think I am on the wrong plane
". Needless to say the look on their face is priceless, " well I will check in with the Captain and get back to you". Ok, thats fine be me, so I decide to just enjoy what I expect will be a short ride! 10 minutes later the crew return, "Yes, Mr Markis10, you are on the wrong plane and are coming with us to New York". My reaction - :shock: (or get me a Baileys or 10).
Did I mention how scenic the flight is over Alaska, thats right I did, well let me tell you that my second flight in less than 24 hours over that scenery I was not enjoying the view, no one explained to me was going to happen when I got to New York, after all whose fault was it that I was in this predicament and who was going to pay to get me home (with parital thanks to those greyhounds in the wrong colours and my swallowed St George Visa Card I was hardly flush with cash)? At least I was in J still and not locked up in the crew rest quarters as a stowaway (albeit with a boarding pass to SYD).
13 hours later and the questions are still unanswered as we approach New York, its July 30, 1992 at 1730 hours local time as we make our approach to JFK, a few minutes later I notice all of a sudden the gear is going up, engines increase in noise etc etc, yes we are doing a missed approach! Seems a TWA tristar had aborted a takeoff and crash landed back onto the runway (TWA Flight 843 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). with JFK closed we end up heading for Newark, and after an hour or so finally make it to a gate (Newark had shut down its international arrivals as it thought its last arrival had landed). I was told to head to a customer service desk where I would be looked after.
As you can imagine it was chaos in the arrivals hall with planeloads of JFK bound passengers now at EWR, I had some issues trying to explain to the surly immigration officer why I felt the need to revisit the USA just 30 hours after leaving but eventually my point was made and I was granted admittance, customs was a breeze with nothing to declare (apart from my bags were in Sydney) and I made my way to the Northwest service desk........" Hi, my name is Markis10 and I am not meant to be here"! The response was predicatable "yes sir, we have planeloads of people in the same position"!
At this point I got a little exasperated, "no, you dont understand, I am meant to be in Sydney" , to which the reply was "Nova Scotia??". Needless to say I replied, "No, Sydney, Australia". "Ahh, so you are the one" was the staffers reply, " here is your ticket for a flight home tomorrow, a taxi voucher to JFK and a voucher for a stay at the EWR Hilton (did not ask if it was a qualifying stay for gold benefits).
To cut a long story short, I had a nice sleep, caught the next days flight to Osaka/Syd, had an escort to the lounge at Osaka then back on the plane to Sydney and arrived home a few days late. But before I sign off, there was an epilogue to the story of interest to frequent flyers, a few weeks later I called the Worldperks Service Centre to check my mileage only to find out I had been credited for the full JFK-SYD legs for both flights, making me gold and because it was in J earning enough reward points for a weekend trip to LAS to try and get back some of the money those dogs took, although strangely enough it took a little while before I was ready to hop on another Northwest plane to the LOTFAP
.
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