I miscalculated the time I needed to catch my plane in SMF. Usually I fly Southwest, and the parking garage is conveniently attached to Terminal A where Southwest is based, so no waiting for the shuttle. I get to the airport, and doh! I am flying United! That is in Terminal B, and the Terminal B parking lot requires a shuttle ride. The shuttle took forever to arrive. I was checking the time as the bus drove like a snail. Fortunately I didn't have any check-in baggage, so I rushed up the escalator, flew through security (Terminal B usually has a very short line), and of course, my gate is the last one on the concourse. Everyone had pretty much boarded. When I approached the gate, the agent looked at my boarding pass and said, "I've been calling your name for a while." Which is what happens when door closing time approaches. If you are not at the gate by 10 minutes before departure, you could lose your seat. This mileage run almost ended prematurely.
There was no first class on this flight...it's a small EMB-120 propeller plane (loud!) with identical seats throughout the cabin. One row of single seats on one side of the plane, and pairs of seats on the other side. Actual flight time from Sacramento to San Francisco is a mere 20 minutes. That's enough time to listen to one and a half songs on my iPhone in between dings at 10000 feet.
Sheri was meeting me at the gate in San Francisco. With an hour to kill, I grabbed an egg sandwich at the Boudin Bakery in the food court and take it to the gate, which again, was at the end of the concourse. I was enjoying my breakfast when someone pokes me multiple times in the bicep. Yay, it's Sheri. (or so I thought) I turn around and it's an old man. He points to my sandwich and asks where he could find it. I tell him the bakery name and point way down the concourse. How strange to physically touch someone, versus saying "Excuse me ma'am (or miss)?" Sheri shows up shortly, huffing and puffing. She also thought she was late and ran across the terminal.
As this was before UDU (unlimited domestic upgrades) was implemented, Sheri and I each redeemed one 500-mile upgrade certificate to sit in first class on our 1.5 hour flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We indulge in a bloody mary, which left me all loopy since I suffer from ADS (Asian Drinking Syndrome). In Los Angeles, we get on a small jet to San Diego.
We had a pretty tight connection in San Diego, just 20 minutes from arrival to boarding time of the next leg to Washington DC. I figured that was enough time since I didn't think the airport was that big. But when we touched down, I saw that we were parked at a commuter terminal, which meant we had to take a shuttle to another terminal! All in 20 minutes! We caught the shuttle right when it was departing (we ran to alert the driver), and got to the gate just in the nick of time; we swooped onto the red carpet as the gate agent was calling for 1K's to board. This was our longest flight at about 5 hours. We didn't have enough 500-mile upgrade coupons to snag a seat in first class, so we got the second best option - exit row. On a 757, there exists a pair of bulkhead exit row seats so we didn't have to deal with a middle seat or an undesirable rowmate.
Overall, the flight went smoothly except during food service and the in-flight entertainment. On long hauls like this, the flight attendants offer passengers in coach buy-on-board meals such as sandwiches, wraps and snacks. We hardly saw the flight attendants out and about to begin with, and then when it came time to serve food, they weren't too excited, as if they were at the end of a 12-hour shift (which they may have been). One of the ladies took my order, charged me for the items, and then forgot to give me my cheesecake. I had to flag her down and when I mentioned the shortfall, she looked at me like I was inconveniencing her. The movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" (great!) was shown very late in the flight, after the TV shows (I believe it should've been the opposite order). We were almost at the end of the movie when the plane crossed 10000 feet. The purser apologized for the delayed start and told the passengers that he would keep the movie on through landing. As the flight attendants were going through the cabin to prepare for landing, one of them looked at us angrily and pointed at our headsets. We pointed up at the TV screen to let her know we were watching the movie and she kept shaking her head and pointing at her ears to indicate to put away "electronic devices". Our non-electronic headsets were plugged into the seat headphone jack, which is permitted as passengers can listen to the audio programming. Despite this, we kept pointing to the TV screen above to key her into the situation. She finally figured it out and walked away exasperated, like she was making an exception for us. Sheri and I looked at each other...what was going on?!?!? We couldn't wait to get off that plane.
Unfortunately, the night was not over...half an hour later, we hopped on one more plane, arriving in Tampa at 12:30am the next day. The Grand Hyatt had complimentary shuttle service; I called from the free telephone at the hotel information kiosk located in baggage claim to let them know to pick us up. The shuttle arrived 20 minutes later and took us to the hotel, right off of Tampa Bay.
Our flight the next day departed at 11:55am, so we had some time to sleep in. When we checked out, the front desk agent asked if we had a nice stay, and to come again. It's wonderful to be treated like "full-price" guests just like when I stayed at the Hyatt in Waikiki. No problems catching the shuttle to the airport. Our flight was on Continental, from Tampa to Houston. I felt like a fish out of water. No "red carpet"-esque boarding as we were not Continental elites, but we got Star Alliance priority. An interesting feature of this plane was that there were AC outlets at the base of the armrests in each 3-seat row. Two people could plug their power supplies in (assuming someone would be nice enough to let the 3rd person use the juice when needed). I hadn't flown Continental in probably a decade or more, so when the flight attendant said something to me (and I had my headphones on), I assumed he was asking me for drinks, so I yell out "Water no ice please!" from my window seat and he looks at me funny. I took out one of my earphones and listened to his request again, "Do you want any peanuts?" Haha. A cart comes out to serve peanuts first...it seems strange to me as it is not the United way. Drinks didn't come until 15 minutes later, from another cart. I'm so not in my element.
At this point, Sheri and I aren't sitting together; if you book a United flight that has "codeshares" on another airline, the computer automatically assigns you a seat. I went to the Continental website to try to change seats, but was unable to. I could have called, but I read on Flyertalk that it was hit or miss. The seats we had were in the front of the plane, normally reserved for elites anyway. We didn't have to sit together the entire mileage run (probably sick of each other by now!), so I left the seat assignments alone. It was fine for the flight to Houston, but we were on another Continental codeshare flight from Houston to Los Angeles, and I ended up having two huge guys (probably Texans) sitting in my row. I felt bad for the middle guy as the seat is supposed to be narrower, but not so bad that I would offer up my window seat.
Once in Los Angeles, Sheri and I parted ways - she flew back to San Francisco, and I flew to Sacramento. Sheri's flight was on a 757...I was relegated to a CRJ-700, which is a 70-person small jet with a tiny first class section and no in-flight entertainment. I didn't bother upgrading this flight.
That was the end of our overnight mileage run...7229 BIS (butt-in-seat/elite qualification) miles + 100% elite redeemable miles bonus for a total of 14458 miles accrued for miles redemption. Not bad for a domestic run, and Sheri and I got to spend some quality cousin time. :) Looking for the next mileage run, but I haven't seen any good deals out there besides recent "Tware" fares like $699 San Francisco to Sydney roundtrip plus tax. (don't have time to fly Down Under) If you want to be informed about the Tware fares, follow @UnitedAirlines on Twitter. The Tware fares do accrue mileage, but are usually booked in lower fare classes like T, L or K, which are not upgradable with SWU's, but can be done with miles + money.
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