LA for Xmas, New York for New Years.

[IainF]

Back in July, I spied a great fare in J on VA to JFK from BNE.
I rang my wife & within 10 minutes had booked the following for XMAS.

BNE-SYD-LAX//LAX-JFK//JFK-LAX-SFO//SFO-LAX//LAX-BNE over a 3 week period.
Price paid to be in J on VA and F on VX was $5700 each, which was a bargain, considering QF wanted $11,400 per person for the same routing.

We will make our way to SYD today (Xmas day) then connect to VA 1 with seating in the wonderful row 5, landing in LAX at 9:30am on Xmas day.
I have hired a BMW 740 from Avis and we are then heading to Palm Springs for two days, mainly to take advantage of the Boxing Day sales at the Desert Hills Premium shops at Cabazon.
I booked us into the Hyatt in Palm Springs for a sale rate of $89 per night, then upgraded to an executive suite using my Hyatt Diamond Suite upgrades.

I will upload the photos as we go.

 

[amaroo]

Checked in - ready to read

Enjoy, sounds like a nice trip.....

 

[Sprucegoose]

Have a safe flight.

I would be doing the shopping at the end of the trip? Saves you lugging them to NYC.

What plans do you have for NYC.?

 

[turtlemichael]

Look forward to your progress reports and pics . New in LA is seeing the space shuttle at California Science Center, as we did last week, if that is of any interest.

 

[mella2007]

Looks like a fun trip! Looking forward to the write up

 

[Deewhy]

Have a nice trip. Look forward to reading the report. Enjoy row 5! It was certainly an experience - almost a private suite

 

[LadyC]

Definitely sounds like fun! Will take notes for my 2014 visit

 

[IainF]

OK, we are back and I will kick off the report over the next few days. I have to compile a few photos as they are on different devices....
But a quick overview - Highlights were VA service and seat in Business class (row 5) both ways, but particularly on the SYD-LAX leg on Christmas day. Just outstanding.
The hotel highlight was the Intercontinental in LA where as a newly minted RA, I was given a cracker of a suite for a very reasonable F & F rate. The restaurants we visited were all of a good standard, bar having to have Christmas lunch at a Carl's Jnr on the way to Palm Springs because we were both starving.
The low points of the trip - Having a "C" grade celebrity vomit on my wife's Burberry jacket & Louis Vuittion bag on the LAX-JFK leg on Virgin America in First, after drinking too much. I will go into a bit of detail on this later.
Overall, thanks to a bit of research and a strong $AUS, a great time was had.

 

[smit0847]

The low points of the trip - Having a "C" grade celebrity vomit on my wife's Burberry jacket & Louis Vuittion bag on the LAX-JFK leg on Virgin America in First, after drinking too much. I will go into a bit of detail on this later.

I cannot wait to hear this!!