A shortcut to Status

[Moindardt]

For the record, they are 9-13. They do suffer from a condition known as Street Angel Home Devil, so they are very well behaved.. For everyone else. Also, with Qantas, they have to be checked in a unattended minors and you pay for it. We regularly had someone come and give us an update and the kids knew the ramifications of any sort of disruptions, if they were to cause them. For what it is worth, I have seen many with their parents in Y who may as well be unattended. Had 2 kids behind wife and daughter on one Veuling flight, seeing how many times they could kick the seat in front in a minute. Parents did nothing until I had a big go at them.

They have 3 last legs in Y, BNE-AUH, AUH-JFK and JFK-YVR. Thanks to all the changes we made made due to the wonderfull here and at Flyertalk, for the same dollars or with awards bookings, they will be all J now.

Anyways, back to the hopefully not too boring story. I started with 800SC and BJ with 295SC.

So my daughter joins me in a flight to the US flying Qantas. Thankfully they had really cheap J on, so she joined me in J for the BNE-LAX and LAX-and LAX-BNE. Because she was now with me, I enrolled her in the AA platinum challenge. We both credited the BNE-LAX to AA. For those that don't know, the Platinum challenge WAS to earn 10k EQP in a 3 month period. Flying in J is a 1.5x multiplier, so the BNE-LAX is approx 7k miles so with the multiplier, there is your 10k for qualification. Unfortunately, the person at checkin stuffed up the entry of the AAdvantage numbers so it took 3 months to sort it out.

We we had our little 2 hr stopover and then LAX-JFK, BJ to QF and me to AA. In NYC, we stayed at the W Times sq for 1 night and used my free night at Westin Grand Central. So with work done, it was time to get the MR out of the way. We had chosen Chicago as the base of operations. We had been told to look for a place that had a lot of flights to DFW for ease. As I was taking my 13yr old daughter, I didn't push as hard as I could have but it was still very hectic.

MR Day 1. JFK-ORD-MIA-DFW-ORD. 310 SC I think
My main reason for this routing was that I didn't want to get into ORD too late and I wanted to fly the B787-8 from DFW to ORD. Try explaining to anyone why we are going through ORD twice. Some understand flying the 788 but no one understood it being cheaper and more points to fly via Chicago and Miami. Anyway, the worst thing that can happen to a Milage a Runner happened. Our luggage was eventually found in Miami because someone thought there was something wrong with the routing and pulled it off. All good. We were prepared and had a full set of clothes and toiletries in out carry on. Only problem was, it was the height of summer, so all our clothes were summer clothes. It started raining and didn't stop for 4 days and the temp never got over 12 degrees. We were freezing. Remember you get blankets in First. We also learnt that because you are in First does not mean that there will be any space in there if you aren't there at the start. How they let some of that stuff on as hand luggage is beyond me. And they always go for the space in First if they can. So if you arent boarded before Group 1, expect your hand luggage to be stowed down the back and you be one of the last off the plane and maybe miss your connection.

Going to see if I can get some photos in. BRB.

 

[Moindardt]

The 788 from DFW to ORD


The suite at W thanks to a really cheap hot escapes price

 

[Moindardt]

MR Day 2. ORD-DFW-LAX-LAS-DFW-ORD. 400SC
Well we were buggered. The luggage was supposed to have arrived at midnight and didn't. Our first flight left at 6.45am. Wheels were even up and both of us were asleep and we're still half asleep when we landed. We stumbled up the the Amex Centurion lounge. Love these lounges. Currently sitting in the Miami one at the moment. As good as any international business lounge I think. We had a feed and massage and relaxed for a while then headed down to our next flight to LAX. As we were about to board, I realised BJ's tablet pc was missing. If you ever lose it on a plane, it is gone forever. To quote the lost property person, "you actually want me to go through all those laptops and find yours???". According to three separate people I spoke to, their job was just to out it in a pile for x days until it is shipped out as unclaimed. Obviously to claim it, someone has to look through and find the item. None of them knew who's job that was.

Anyway, the flights to LAX and LAS were very quick and painless, but then as we landed in Vegas, we were informed that storms in Dallas had caused delays. After about an hour, I received a message that we had been put on the direct flight from LAS to ORD in coach. 3 hours in coach is like a death sentence to my knees and back. Of course, because we were dropped back to coach, there was no meals or drinks. However, we had to get back as we had a 5am flight the next morning. Took 4 months and me shouting at them to get a manager before we got the routing credits sorted.

We we got an email just before we left that the luggage would be delivered that night, so at least there was some good for the day.

 

[Moindardt]

MR Day 3. ORD-DFW-LAX-DFW-ORD. 360 SC. The other 2 days had been credited to AA for me.

i took the shorter route to get on the 788 again and have an earlier night to recover and so we had a spare day on the Friday, just in case anything went wrong.

MR Day 4 Nothing!!

With all the flights set so that both of us had Platinum sown up, we spent the day looking around Chicago. We went to Navy Pier and on an architectural river cruise and then to the Chicago food festival. After 4 days of rain, it hit 30 degrees and we got to see it in its glory.

BJ at Navy Pier

having issues uploading files so will do more later. We had been staying at the Fairmont Chicago, as there is a special deal with Candian Amex Platinum where if you stay for 5 nights, you get FPC Platinum. I had seen on forums that this had also worked for many non-US Amex Plat as well, so gave it a go as we had stayed at the Fairmonts a few times before. Amex told us we should get away with it, but when I tried to get it through, they said I was not from Canada so no go. Not all short-cuts work

MR Day 5 ORD-LAX. Both credited to AA.

There was very few flights available that Saturday and I didn't want to miss the flight back to Brisbane, so we arrived at LAX at 12pm and trundled next door to TBIT only to find out the checkin wasn't open until 4pm and we couldn't go to the lounge with out our boarding passes. Later, someone of AFF told me I could have checked all the way through from ORD to BNE and got boarding passes there for both, even if they were on different tickets. So we sat in the terminal for 4 hours with flat iPhones and iPads. Eventually I got one of the 4 power points in the whole place, which was absolutely packed. I managed to get online and work out how I could credit my return flight to AA but still get access to the lounge without all the trouble people were having. Short answer was to change it back to QF and get the boarding pass and then change it back in the lounge, which is what we did.

I am not the biggest fan of the Qantas Lax First lounge. I don't think it is super special. I find the food to be just ok, the drinks to be excellent, but the atmosphere of the room to be terrible. It is too open and there is just not enough power points. I also find the showers to be very underpar with the water going hot and cold and terrible shower heads and terrible layout. I had one in the Wing in HKG and at the Centurion lounge in Miami and both were infinitely better. I think if there was a Centurion in LAX, I would go there instead.

MR Run Day 6 LAX-BNE. Credited to AA.

Once again, a beautiful flight on QF.

And the Airline FF is out of the way. We have both achieved QF WP and AA Plat (like our gold). Combined with my wife's F ticket, we are now covered for all the lounges etc on our next trip.

Now we have to work out the shortcut to SPG Plat. More on that when I sit on the beach at Sint Maarten over the weekend. Hopefully I can get the pictures back working. Hope some people are getting something out of this.

 

[love_the_life]

GPH, it doesn't offend me at all. It annoys me - quite different. I'm not debating kids in Y at all. I said I don't like it if parents assume others will mind their little darlings for them, sort of out of sight, out of mind. It's a personal opinion.

I made my comment and now I'm interested to see Moindardt's experiences in attaining WP.

 

[get me outta here]

Moindardt, thanks for all this very interesting info and hints. I always appreciate all the effort people go to to tell us stuff, that rI for one don't know about. Love a trip report.