ReLoad
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- Apr 20, 2010
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Hi Everyone, here is my first trip report for AFF , sorry its a long one!
2010 June USA Trip report.
I would like to thank everyone for their help and opinions regarding fares to book, routes to take, getting the most value for money and most importantly how to work things in my favour!
I was USA for a couple of reasons, first off was a wedding in Dallas Texas, and the second was to show off my giant QF Lego A380 at a convention in Chicago.
See:
http://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/open-discussion/lego-qf-a380-21954.html
A huge thank you to Qantas who generously donated for my flight from MEL to LAX and return (with 3 extra Pcs of luggage – the plane), they didn’t have to support me with this flight, but they did come through and I must say hats off to them I thoroughly appreciate what they did for me.
At the start of my trip I was but a humble SG (all from domestic inside AU) and hadn’t accrued any SC’s overseas in my QF year.
So now to start the trip:
Leaving Melbourne, i was booked on QF 93 MEL/LAX on Nancy Bird Walton, which ironically is what my Lego plane is modelled and named after. With connecting flights on AA to ORD via DFW.
I checked in at the J class counters(as I’m a SG) and the very friendly and helpful girl freaked out when she saw the luggage I was carrying, needless to say the checkin process was rather difficult – I was booked under staff travel even though I wasn’t staff, and the flights on AA were not in the same booking, however the check in girl Daniela (I think that was her name) was amazingly helpful and with the help of her supervisor got me all checked in and ready to go. QF also had upgraded me to J class. Thank you QF! Seat 16K.
This was my first ever trip on an A380 and boy was I impressed!
The last time I flew J class on QF internationally was some time ago and it had changed a lot, the seat was fantastic and the service on board was excellent, the cabin services manager personally introduced himself to everyone and the crew were great. J class was about 70% full according to what I could see.
The food on board was excellent, the in flight entertainment systems was also fantastic certainly an improvement on previous systems. Got about 6 hours sleep, I must admit I was very busy enjoying the service and the features of the aircraft. The most interesting point to note for me was just how quiet the plane was, dare I say it almost unnervingly quiet?
So Arrive into LAX, plane was on time so didn’t have too many issues in customs, all 3 boxes of the Airbus were intact and looking good, no signs of any issues. Customs wanted to know what was in the boxes, and not for the first time i had a crowd of customs officers all very interested in it, not for customs reasons but just wanted to check it out! I even had to fire up the laptop to show them photos, the guys were great and they helped me get the boxes up the ramp to the transfer conveyor belt for internal USA flights.
Things i learnt from AFF: This was the first part of losing my virginity on a Status credit run, got a UPP fare to ORD via DFW & return, 420SC for $1100.
So I headed on over to the next terminal for my flight to ORD via DFW, so i had a few hours to wait and headed up to the Admirals club for my first taste of their service.
Admirals club was nice, much more spacious than QF and a heck of a lot less people in it, took this funny photo whilst waiting in it.
clearly no OHS whatsoever! – will speak about this later as I saw some bizarre things while on AA that made me think just how lucky we are with QF.
The flight to DFW from LAX was uneventful, the F seats on the MD-81 were almost identical from my memory to AN’s J class seats. The same colour and everything! The MD-81 is a comfortable enough plane, relatively quiet. Meal was average, a hamburger with a reminder of just how wrong American orange cheese is. (Is the cheese there to remind you of the state of the TSA warnings system, it’s a code Orange alert?)
Travellers tip on AA: I only travel with one piece of Carry on, if you fly AA, board as soon as you are able to, as they charge for luggage you do NOT want to be boarding last as you simply won’t have enough room!
Arrived at DFW on time without any issues, had a couple of hours to spare at DFW so walked around and took the monorail between terminals, looked at all the shops and eateries, I’ve been there a few times now and it really is an amazing airport.
took a 757 from DFW to ORD, this one was going to be an hour and half late, so waited in the Admirals club again, got a free drink coupon for being a QF SG. After the long flights I was getting a bit tired by this point, again the Admirals Club was quiet enough.
Got dinner on the flight from DFW to ORD, was some pasta, was nice enough without being spectacular. (the 757’s seats were very tired, and gosh it is a noisy plane) Having not had QF J class domestic meals I cannot compare, but got a nice ice cream sundae, the staff (old ladies were very helpful and attentive without being spectacular in any way.
Now here sadly is where it all comes to a gory and grizzly painful issue, the luggage: here is what one of my Airbus’s looked like when arriving in ORD.
Looking back i can laugh, but boy oh boy at the time was i an unhappy camper. My two cases plus the first two boxes came out just fine, the third box as you can see was a wreck. I estimate given the parts that were going around on the carrousel that i lots some 3000 pieces (a large portion of the wing).
Now they say you can tell the real quality of customer service when something goes wrong, and guess what, totally no surprises AA failed miserably. The 16 year old girl at the AA baggage services counter couldn’t give a toss, I was given a case number and a phone number to contact. I was met by some friends who took the airbus off my hands and i went to bed after a long days travel and a mind blowing disaster on my hands.
The next day I continued my AFF advised SC run flying to DFW via DFW and SLC (yes a lot of DFW!) which I scored for $371 and nailed me 180 SC.
This time of course i wasn’t travelling with the A380 in tow so I didn’t really have much to worry about, again AA’s F was ok without being outstanding, the meals again were good without setting the world on fire (breakfast was cereal, fruit salad, and an omelette type thing). Having never been to SLC before I was surprised just how small the airport was, it reminded me of Adelaide for some reason, albeit it with better views coming in to land and the surrounding mountains.
Had a 737 in these legs, and it was clearly not as good as a MD-81, noisier and not nearly as good a ride IMHO. Got into Dallas after the trip quite late 8pm to find that AA had indeed lost my luggage.
I then with the help of two much more friendly guys at AA baggage services in DFW managed to find that my bags were on their way to Tokyo as part of an AA baggage shipment. And that I should get them back in approx 2-3 days.
They issued me with a amenities kit and told me to keep receipts for whatever clothes I needed to buy for the next few days. My issue was that on the 2nd day in Dallas I had the wedding to attend and i needed my formal clothes, suit, shoes, etc. Things were not looking good!
Early the next day I bought a disposable cell phone for 20 bucks so I could make USA phone calls without paying a gazillion dollars, and it was well worth it, as when I rang AA they told me that in fact my luggage was not on its way to Japan but in fact in Salt Lake city, which made much more sense and i would get it later in the day, sure enough at 4pm my luggage arrived, yay!
The wedding was good, and had a great time for the week in Dallas, I highly recommend it to anyone, saw the JFK museum at the book depository, went on a tour in the new cowboys stadium, and caught a Texas rangers baseball game as well. The weather was stinking hot, (over 100 every day) but was totally awesome. A little aussie spotting moment, wanted to go to the movies so near the outlet mall we saw some cinemas, low and behold it was a Village gold class cinema!! Good old aussie gold class, yay! The cinema complex had just opened some 3 days before, and was entirely gold class! The funny parts were that all the signage around the cinema was of James and Tanya Hird! The locals of course wouldn’t have a clue who they were, and also apparently all of Village cinemas hierarchy was out from Australia for the cinema opening, so the staff seeing we were Australian (they obviously wouldn’t get many aussies in North Dallas.) thought we must have been part of the group and got unbelievable service!.
Leaving Dallas to head back to ORD, i did see more of a recurring theme from AA, it was the FOD/rubbish on and around the runways, there was a lot of rubbish around, things like plastic wrapping, used cups, broken pieces of plastic etc just laying around on the ground under and near the terminals and where the planes were. I was always of the opinion that having loose debris around jet engines was bad, and i was very surprised to see it all. Again another reminder why I like QF as I’ve never seen any safety issues unresolved first hand.
Got to ORD no problems in whY there was no service at all so nothing to complain about, again I don’t travel with much cabin baggage so it wasn’t an issue for me, but others, crikey what a proverbial bunfight!
End of Part 1.
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2010 June USA Trip report.
I would like to thank everyone for their help and opinions regarding fares to book, routes to take, getting the most value for money and most importantly how to work things in my favour!
I was USA for a couple of reasons, first off was a wedding in Dallas Texas, and the second was to show off my giant QF Lego A380 at a convention in Chicago.
See:
http://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/open-discussion/lego-qf-a380-21954.html
A huge thank you to Qantas who generously donated for my flight from MEL to LAX and return (with 3 extra Pcs of luggage – the plane), they didn’t have to support me with this flight, but they did come through and I must say hats off to them I thoroughly appreciate what they did for me.
At the start of my trip I was but a humble SG (all from domestic inside AU) and hadn’t accrued any SC’s overseas in my QF year.
So now to start the trip:
Leaving Melbourne, i was booked on QF 93 MEL/LAX on Nancy Bird Walton, which ironically is what my Lego plane is modelled and named after. With connecting flights on AA to ORD via DFW.
I checked in at the J class counters(as I’m a SG) and the very friendly and helpful girl freaked out when she saw the luggage I was carrying, needless to say the checkin process was rather difficult – I was booked under staff travel even though I wasn’t staff, and the flights on AA were not in the same booking, however the check in girl Daniela (I think that was her name) was amazingly helpful and with the help of her supervisor got me all checked in and ready to go. QF also had upgraded me to J class. Thank you QF! Seat 16K.
This was my first ever trip on an A380 and boy was I impressed!
The last time I flew J class on QF internationally was some time ago and it had changed a lot, the seat was fantastic and the service on board was excellent, the cabin services manager personally introduced himself to everyone and the crew were great. J class was about 70% full according to what I could see.
The food on board was excellent, the in flight entertainment systems was also fantastic certainly an improvement on previous systems. Got about 6 hours sleep, I must admit I was very busy enjoying the service and the features of the aircraft. The most interesting point to note for me was just how quiet the plane was, dare I say it almost unnervingly quiet?
So Arrive into LAX, plane was on time so didn’t have too many issues in customs, all 3 boxes of the Airbus were intact and looking good, no signs of any issues. Customs wanted to know what was in the boxes, and not for the first time i had a crowd of customs officers all very interested in it, not for customs reasons but just wanted to check it out! I even had to fire up the laptop to show them photos, the guys were great and they helped me get the boxes up the ramp to the transfer conveyor belt for internal USA flights.
Things i learnt from AFF: This was the first part of losing my virginity on a Status credit run, got a UPP fare to ORD via DFW & return, 420SC for $1100.
So I headed on over to the next terminal for my flight to ORD via DFW, so i had a few hours to wait and headed up to the Admirals club for my first taste of their service.
Admirals club was nice, much more spacious than QF and a heck of a lot less people in it, took this funny photo whilst waiting in it.
clearly no OHS whatsoever! – will speak about this later as I saw some bizarre things while on AA that made me think just how lucky we are with QF.
The flight to DFW from LAX was uneventful, the F seats on the MD-81 were almost identical from my memory to AN’s J class seats. The same colour and everything! The MD-81 is a comfortable enough plane, relatively quiet. Meal was average, a hamburger with a reminder of just how wrong American orange cheese is. (Is the cheese there to remind you of the state of the TSA warnings system, it’s a code Orange alert?)
Travellers tip on AA: I only travel with one piece of Carry on, if you fly AA, board as soon as you are able to, as they charge for luggage you do NOT want to be boarding last as you simply won’t have enough room!
Arrived at DFW on time without any issues, had a couple of hours to spare at DFW so walked around and took the monorail between terminals, looked at all the shops and eateries, I’ve been there a few times now and it really is an amazing airport.
took a 757 from DFW to ORD, this one was going to be an hour and half late, so waited in the Admirals club again, got a free drink coupon for being a QF SG. After the long flights I was getting a bit tired by this point, again the Admirals Club was quiet enough.
Got dinner on the flight from DFW to ORD, was some pasta, was nice enough without being spectacular. (the 757’s seats were very tired, and gosh it is a noisy plane) Having not had QF J class domestic meals I cannot compare, but got a nice ice cream sundae, the staff (old ladies were very helpful and attentive without being spectacular in any way.
Now here sadly is where it all comes to a gory and grizzly painful issue, the luggage: here is what one of my Airbus’s looked like when arriving in ORD.
Looking back i can laugh, but boy oh boy at the time was i an unhappy camper. My two cases plus the first two boxes came out just fine, the third box as you can see was a wreck. I estimate given the parts that were going around on the carrousel that i lots some 3000 pieces (a large portion of the wing).
Now they say you can tell the real quality of customer service when something goes wrong, and guess what, totally no surprises AA failed miserably. The 16 year old girl at the AA baggage services counter couldn’t give a toss, I was given a case number and a phone number to contact. I was met by some friends who took the airbus off my hands and i went to bed after a long days travel and a mind blowing disaster on my hands.
The next day I continued my AFF advised SC run flying to DFW via DFW and SLC (yes a lot of DFW!) which I scored for $371 and nailed me 180 SC.
This time of course i wasn’t travelling with the A380 in tow so I didn’t really have much to worry about, again AA’s F was ok without being outstanding, the meals again were good without setting the world on fire (breakfast was cereal, fruit salad, and an omelette type thing). Having never been to SLC before I was surprised just how small the airport was, it reminded me of Adelaide for some reason, albeit it with better views coming in to land and the surrounding mountains.
Had a 737 in these legs, and it was clearly not as good as a MD-81, noisier and not nearly as good a ride IMHO. Got into Dallas after the trip quite late 8pm to find that AA had indeed lost my luggage.
I then with the help of two much more friendly guys at AA baggage services in DFW managed to find that my bags were on their way to Tokyo as part of an AA baggage shipment. And that I should get them back in approx 2-3 days.
They issued me with a amenities kit and told me to keep receipts for whatever clothes I needed to buy for the next few days. My issue was that on the 2nd day in Dallas I had the wedding to attend and i needed my formal clothes, suit, shoes, etc. Things were not looking good!
Early the next day I bought a disposable cell phone for 20 bucks so I could make USA phone calls without paying a gazillion dollars, and it was well worth it, as when I rang AA they told me that in fact my luggage was not on its way to Japan but in fact in Salt Lake city, which made much more sense and i would get it later in the day, sure enough at 4pm my luggage arrived, yay!
The wedding was good, and had a great time for the week in Dallas, I highly recommend it to anyone, saw the JFK museum at the book depository, went on a tour in the new cowboys stadium, and caught a Texas rangers baseball game as well. The weather was stinking hot, (over 100 every day) but was totally awesome. A little aussie spotting moment, wanted to go to the movies so near the outlet mall we saw some cinemas, low and behold it was a Village gold class cinema!! Good old aussie gold class, yay! The cinema complex had just opened some 3 days before, and was entirely gold class! The funny parts were that all the signage around the cinema was of James and Tanya Hird! The locals of course wouldn’t have a clue who they were, and also apparently all of Village cinemas hierarchy was out from Australia for the cinema opening, so the staff seeing we were Australian (they obviously wouldn’t get many aussies in North Dallas.) thought we must have been part of the group and got unbelievable service!.
Leaving Dallas to head back to ORD, i did see more of a recurring theme from AA, it was the FOD/rubbish on and around the runways, there was a lot of rubbish around, things like plastic wrapping, used cups, broken pieces of plastic etc just laying around on the ground under and near the terminals and where the planes were. I was always of the opinion that having loose debris around jet engines was bad, and i was very surprised to see it all. Again another reminder why I like QF as I’ve never seen any safety issues unresolved first hand.
Got to ORD no problems in whY there was no service at all so nothing to complain about, again I don’t travel with much cabin baggage so it wasn’t an issue for me, but others, crikey what a proverbial bunfight!
End of Part 1.
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