I’m kind of proud of myself. It has been 21 days since I’ve stepped foot on a plane, which has to be a record of some sort. I have to say, all this sleep totally sucks. No redeyes, no third world airports (IAD), and no warm cheese. It’s tough!
The good news is that I couldn’t wait any longer and decided to book a ticket for this weekend. I’ll be flying to LAX on Saturday to have dinner with well over a dozen FlyerTalkers and Captain Flanagan.
LAX fares are crazy, so I had to take advantage of the better fares to SFO along with same day confirmed changes, which are free for 1K’s. Let’s hope everything works out. Best of all, I’ll get to enjoy two flights that will be under Captain Flanagan’s command.
I can’t wait!
Wow, just realized now how odd it is to wish luck to an entity named lucky... :P
Good luck, lucky, and let us know how it goes.
Ah, well I think that might have been part of the problem. I don't plan on showing up 12 hours late or anything for my flight. I plan on showing up within two hours of my scheduled departure, basically trying to use the "flat tire" rule. I realize I might technically be on a roundtrip, but I booked it via multi-city with one part being LAX-SFO, so I think that should work just fine. Furthermore,...
Ah, well I think that might have been part of the problem. I don't plan on showing up 12 hours late or anything for my flight. I plan on showing up within two hours of my scheduled departure, basically trying to use the "flat tire" rule. I realize I might technically be on a roundtrip, but I booked it via multi-city with one part being LAX-SFO, so I think that should work just fine. Furthermore, I still think I can make a same day change at 8:03PM for an 11:03PM flight. But who knows, I'm ultimately relying on some of my angels at TPA to take care of me....
One last point then, lucky, and then I'll let the issue settle. :) On an MR some years ago, my return was a simply LAX-JFK-IAD, with the transcon on a red-eye and the RJ segment in the morning. Well, I simply headed into New York for the whole day and showed up for an evening segment on JFK-IAD, only to be denied per the reasoning above. And believe me, I did escalate matters at the...
One last point then, lucky, and then I'll let the issue settle. :) On an MR some years ago, my return was a simply LAX-JFK-IAD, with the transcon on a red-eye and the RJ segment in the morning. Well, I simply headed into New York for the whole day and showed up for an evening segment on JFK-IAD, only to be denied per the reasoning above. And believe me, I did escalate matters at the airport, only to be flat-out denied nonetheless. I ended up having to take a bus from New York to Washington that night.
@ boberonicus -- Excellent suggestions. We've been meaning to discuss it on the podcast for quite a while now, and I can promise it's coming (eventually). As far as how I construct mileage runs, I did make a post about that a while back, which can be found here:
https://onemileatatime.com/how-i-construct-mileage-runs/
There are quite a few pilots that do the cool "air tour" out of SFO, so it wasn't necessarily Captain Flanagan. I guess the...
@ boberonicus -- Excellent suggestions. We've been meaning to discuss it on the podcast for quite a while now, and I can promise it's coming (eventually). As far as how I construct mileage runs, I did make a post about that a while back, which can be found here:
https://onemileatatime.com/how-i-construct-mileage-runs/
There are quite a few pilots that do the cool "air tour" out of SFO, so it wasn't necessarily Captain Flanagan. I guess the question is whether or not all the other "trimmings" of his service were there, like an announcement at the gate, greeting at the door, onboard fun, etc.
@ ua_to_ord -- Hmm, that's not how I read the rules, based on the same day confirmed changes page on united.com. Frankly, I'd be shocked if I couldn't convince an agent to confirm me on that flight in TPA, let alone somewhere else during the day, assuming the loads aren't too bad. Either way, I'm booked now and there's nothing I can do. I'm hoping for the best.
Lucky, if you arrive at LAX prior to 7:04p, which it sounds like you might, then you cannot take the 11:04p flight by regular standby or same-day confirmed, as that would change LAX from connection to stop-over. The only way to change a connection city into a stopover city is to standby for an earlier flight TO the intended stopover city, e.g. booking a 9p arrival into LAX and the 11:04p departure, while standing-by for, say, a 12N arrival.
I don't have the chops to construct a four-hop itinerary without using conventional sites (kayak, UA), which invariably yield very expensive results. There seem to be many study areas for the uninitiated: Understanding which fares permit additional stops, subscription-based search tools, not to mention persuasion of clueless agents to actually book these bizarre concoctions. I'm an SFO-based United 1P and would like to learn more. Maybe this would be a good UPGRD podcast? Or perhaps...
I don't have the chops to construct a four-hop itinerary without using conventional sites (kayak, UA), which invariably yield very expensive results. There seem to be many study areas for the uninitiated: Understanding which fares permit additional stops, subscription-based search tools, not to mention persuasion of clueless agents to actually book these bizarre concoctions. I'm an SFO-based United 1P and would like to learn more. Maybe this would be a good UPGRD podcast? Or perhaps you could suggest a good first step, or a favorite flyertalk post on this topic?
Thanks,
Robert
P.S. Hope you have a fun dinner! I wonder if Flannigan was the same UA pilot who took my SFO departing flight of many months ago on a glorious, low altitude "bay cruise" tour before heading up to altitude?
To clarify, I'm booked on an 8:24PM flight and want to get on an 11:04PM flight. So I'm hoping to call United and do a confirmed same day change at 8:04PM, availability permitting. I'm hoping for the best....
Lucky, just to clarify, do you plan to stretch your LAX connection beyond 4 hours? If so, you may be SOL and denied transportation to SFO, and possibly have your return ticket cancelled, too. Such an occurrence happened to me in the past, stranding my in JFK, and forcing me to take a Chinatown bus to WAS. I was not a happy camper.
@ llel -- To clarify, my routing is TPA-ORD-LAX-SFO on Saturday, and SFO-LAX-IAD-TPA on Sunday. I'm currently booked on the 8PM LAX-SFO flight, but I plan on trying to get on the 11PM LAX-SFO flight using a confirmed same day change. So I'll call just before my 8PM flight to switch over to the later one, loads permitting Otherwise I'm screwed!
@ Hunter -- You should come!
Fares to LAX from SFO are $129 which is pretty much as low as I've seen in recent times... But the ony 2 places that seem to be cheap from SFO right now are LAX and SAN. They want $700 to go to DEN!!!
To clarify my earlier question - "How do you get to LAX by buying a ticket to SF and using the same day confirmed changes?"
Lucky,
Have fun in LA. What do you mean by "I had to take advantage of the better fares to SFO along with same day confirmed changes, which are free for 1K’s"
Fares are bad to pretty much anywhere right now on UA. Yeccch. Let's bring on fall MR season!!!!
Fares to LAX are horrific? I can't get a fare from here (SFO) to MCO for less than $450.
@Mark -- I think Lucky is referring rather poetically to the cabins of United aircraft. :)
Disneyland.
Disney World is in your home state.