Now is the part of the trip where an AFF education comes into play.You are not allowed a stopover on an Aadvantage award but you are allowed a transit of less than 24 hours.So if the DFW plane had been on time it would have arrived 23 hours and 56 minutes before the next day's JAL flight to NRT.This gave us time to head up to the Camarillo outlets.
But first thing was to pick up our Avis car and once again shake my head at the incompetence of the LAX office.My name was not on the Avis preferred board so had to line up-fortunately not as long a queue as at the main office but slow moving not helped by a Chinese couple pushing in.A Frenchman then tried the same thing as I reached an agent.She told him to go to the end of the queue.He insisted that TSSKWHW.At that the agent said go to the end of the queue,this is your last warning.He persisted so she said Sir you will have to go to the main office as you are not going to be served here.I agreed with her actions.
However the excuse for not having a car ready was that they had my expired Amex in my profile.Sorry this is the third avis car I have had on this trip and the previous 2 had the updated Avis card in their profile as did my printout of this booking.They guessed I was annoyed so didn't carryon with the object of their ruse which would be to try and upsell extras as has been done before in LAX.
Finally got going but being over an our late in starting 405N was a slow moving parking lot.Slightly better when we got to 101N but took over 2 hours to reach the HGI Oxnard.Checked in,dropped the bags and straight out to the outlets.Then off again to a Walmart and Target.It was getting late and we were tired so instead of finding a restaurant we went back to the HGI and ate there whilst our washing was being done.Mrsdrron had a burger and I fish and chips.A bit annoyed at the end when told we couldn't put dinner on our room account-also meant no points for dinner.
Up early and had breakfast as soon as the restaurant opened at 0700.The car was already loaded and we were on our way to LAX as the sun rose-
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Naturally a lot quicker at that hour and we were back at the Avis depot in just an hour.A little wait for the Avis shuttle and another delay as one stupid pax put all his luggage in front of the door even though not getting on that bus.Fortunately some of the others told him what he should do.Even with the delay though we were now in the terminal for an hour before the JAL checkin opened.All the seats were taken by several Chinese groups.They were having breakfast and the rubbish was being thrown onto the floor.One obviously didn't like their coffee so just put it on the next seat when the fellow got up and of course the cup fell over spilling coffee all over the seat.Fortunately after about 20 minutes one of the groups got up to checkin so we got a seat.
There was a young Asian woman sitting next to us with an infant and obviously pregnant again.With her was an Asian fellow who only spoke English-well an American version of it.He was trying to get her to checkin as departure time was approaching fast.He also thought he was going to wheel the infant in it's pram through security even though he was not flying.He finally got her to go to the checkin at 0930 when the plane was due to depart at 1040.Would have been close as we took 15 minutes to go through security in the priority lane.
Checkin opened a little early.There were 6 Japanese in front of us in the F queue.When we boarded they were not in the F cabin.Just WDs in JMB apparently.
When we were in the security line a Japanese fellow asked a woman in a red jacket what the sculpture hanging from the ceilinf meant.A wonderful answer-"they sent people all over the country to buy the most expensive pieces of plywood they could find.They brought them back here and painted them with the cheapest paint they could purchase.They put together and called it a work of art."
Next Flounging.
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