Being in a temporary (and planned) travel slump, I’ve been thinking of little things I could do to ensure that I don’t suddenly find myself statusless next year. I could try a couple of mileage runs, and there’s a good chance that I will, but I actually need to head down to North Carolina to check in on my Mom pretty soon. We only have one car, and Mrs MJ on Travel needs that on the weekends, so my choices are Amtrak, plane, or walk. You know which choice I picked.

I poked around the interweb earlier today for flights and prices. Unfortunately, DCA is out because of prices ($500 dollar range for a roundtrip), so I expanded my search to BWI departures. Both Southwest and Delta have nonstops from BWI to RDU, but who wants to do that when you need segments?! Not me. I found a reasonable fare on US Airways routing me BWI-PHL-RDU-CLT-BWI. I need to go to Raleigh, and I need to start working on qualifying for Dividend Miles Preferred status for next year, and I will qualify on segments. Problem solved. Now I need to figure out how I can do something like BWI-PHL-LAX-CLT-RDU-CLT-LAX-PHL-BWI for my next trip to Mom’s house. Not much time for that kind of thing right now, so this will suffice just fine.

Right now, I’m contemplating an endless string of Monday mornings in the office. The mere possibility of it is depressing. Not to fear, I’m just at a place with work projects that will keep me in town for a while. I’m sure unforecast travel will pop up, but for now, I’m stuck flying my desk. What should one do in a situation like this other than be depressed? Well, to start, I’m not depressed about it, merely contemplative about the possibilities.

Perhaps it’s time to think about some well placed mileage runs to make sure I hit my elite status goals for next year? Or better yet, take the time to expand the blog’s focus a tiny bit. How the heck does a general travel blogger do that? Stay tuned. I’ve been thinking….and you know that’s dangerous!

Hello from Port Everglades where MrsMJonTravel and I are waiting to disembark the beautiful Navigator of the Seas. I really didn’t mean to totally disappear this past week, but it sure was fun. Great weather, calm seas, no rocks. It was awesome. I probably should have put up a little “best of” content while I was away, but it’s too late now. It was a great week!

Reality returns tomorrow as I will be heading down to Atlanta for a one night biz trip. So look for a new hotel review this week, the Atlanta Marriott Marquis, and of course a few details on our cruise too.

Just a brief note to wish everyone a joyous holiday season! I hope you were able to celebrate with those closest to you. MrsMJonTravel and I spent the weekend with my mother and other family in North Carolina, and will be heading back to MJ on Travel World Headquarters tomorrow. Flying the 2005 Mini Cooper so no 500 mile segment minimums for this trip!

I hope 2012 brings you the best of everything!

OK…. Take it for what you will and no matter what you think about the whole AA vs Alec Baldwin thing, this did make me laugh. Alec Baldwin showed up on Saturday Night Live last night calling himself Captain Steve Rogers. Note: He’s in a copilot’s uniform, but I digress.

See for yourself. (Link to NBC site)

Hat tip to fellow Boardingarea blogger, Getting Status.

I know, it’s my job to say things that help you out, but I find myself in a bit of a quandry. I would like a new briefcase/bag. I currently have a basic Samsonite “TSA Approved” briefcase that works just fine for a day or two trip. For longer trips, I normally take my Wenger “Swiss Army” backpack. Either bag is great for their purpose, but I really want something else. Preferably, I would have one bag that I could carry for business and personal trips and to the office as a briefcase as well. I need a bag that has lots of room for a laptop as well as other things too like my Bose headset, folder pockets, meds, and enough “stuff” to get me through a solid 5 day business trip. Any suggestions? Help MJ out.

One of the things that makes travel interesting to me is the people you run across along the way. In many years of travel I’ve met (sat beside) some very interesting people. Heck, I even sat beside Prince Albert once on AA flying from Chicago to Stockholm. Yes, that Prince Albert. And yes, I we were both in First Class. Honestly, I had no idea until the next day, but I suppose I should have known something when he put a $100 dollar bill in the little spare change for charity envelope.

But I think tonight in the JFK Terminal 2 Sky Club takes the cake. No surprise to see a few characters hanging out there, but this guy, well, I don’t even know why I’m blogging about it because you had to see (and hear him) to believe it. After bothering the bar tender about the fact that he had to pay for top shelf liquor, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone that was not obviously ringing or vibrating and began having a conversation. It’s 50-50 as to whether or not he was actually talking to anyone. But he proceeded to get an $89,000 dollar bonus and get invited to Thanksgiving dinner in the same 3 minute conversation which was shared with everyone within earshot. Then we got to hear about his great job making deals. Once he finally left, the 3 of us who were closest along with the bartender all looked at each other and busted out laughing. People say the darndest things.

Thanks for your tolerance. Like I said, you just had to be there, but I couldn’t help but write about it. There are some real characters on the road. Tonight I met an interesting one to be sure. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Good morning from the beautiful W Fort Lauderdale, where we arrived last night to find a thumping bar and lobby scene. We were upgraded to a “Mega Room” and the name fits the bill. While not a suite, the room is enormous. The bath area is larger than my first apartment! The first class snack basket on US Airways didn’t quite measure up for dinner, so we arrived famished. Whatever-Whenever hooked me up with a reservation at Steak 954 at 9:45pm last night. Dinner was excellent!

The car is picking us up at 10:45am for transportation to the beautiful Allure of the Seas, which I suppose is a “mega ship!” I’ll be blogging throughout our 2-week adventure aboard the world’s largest cruise ship.

Forgive me for feeling a little nostalgic for Ronald Reagan and “Morning in America” right now. I’m sitting at the Evansville, Indiana airport now waiting for my flight to Atlanta. This is the kind of airport that I wish I could fly from more often. There’s not auto rental car return. You simply pick an empty space, write down your mileage, fuel level, and time, then walk it to the counter where there’s no line. TSA only opens when it’s time for the flight to leave. The people in the airport cafe are actually friendly. And frankly, it’s just kind of nice here. There are times when I love the hustle-bustle of a big city airport, and then, there are times when I like to slow down. I guess this weekend is one of those times.

Being here for all of 24 hours reminds me (not that I ever forgot) that there’s a whole other country outside the beltway bubble in which I currently live. It’s good for me to be here. It would probably be good for more of our national leaders to spend more time in the rest of America too.

I’m winging my way home now on American 1126 from DFW to DCA. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the insides of an AA MD-80, and now I remember why. I should’ve called my travel agent and booked the flight departing exactly 25 minutes later that was operated by a 737-800. Hey, at least I have wi-fi, and the crew seems nice. Thankfully, the person in front of me has not reclined. Hey, it’s his right to do so, but after watching the domino effect on the opposite side of the plane, I have to say I’m happy he hasn’t. It was one of those comical things that you really would have needed to see in person to appreciate.

I elected to spend 15,000 AAdvantage miles (and a $75 dollar co-pay) to confirm my upgrade in advance of my flight. Why? My flight from LAX to DFW was aboard a 767-300 for one. And two, after 6 days away, I was really in no mood at all to risk not getting upgraded. Frankly, I think a transcon flight is a pretty reasonable spend of miles, especially in this case. I accomplished a lot this week, and I was ready to relax. And I am.

I’m working on my review of the Hotel Palomar San Francisco, which I should have done by Monday morning. Needless to say, I really enjoyed my first Kimpton hotel stay, and will look forward to more in the future. For now, I’m gonna kick back here in seat 3B, and chill. Have a great weekend!

Seems like it’s been ages since I’ve flown somewhere. In reality, it’s been about 2 weeks, but still. I’m comfortably ensconced at the recently remodeled and eternally great DCA Admirals Club waiting for my 10am to Chicago, where I will connect to another American flight to San Francisco. As a junior Gold AAdvantage member, I expect I will be cooling my heels in coach for the trip out to SFO, but you never know. I asked to be placed on the upgrade list anyway, just in case. Normally, I would’ve placed myself on the upgrade list when checking myself in online, but that wasn’t working out for me yesterday.

Per usual, I dutifully attempted online check in at the 24 hour before flight mark yesterday morning, but received an error message that I would need to check in with an airport agent. Bummer. My trip was booked by my corporate travel agent and includes 4 segments on American and 1 on Virgin America right in the middle. I suspected that I knew what was wrong, but that didn’t stop me from calling AA.com web services to see if there was anything obvious going on with my reservation that could be easily fixed.

I waited on hold just a couple of minutes before I was assisted by a very nice gentleman with a sort of Texas-seeming twang. I told him my issue and he went through my reservation only to confirm what I’d suspected, that I really would have to check in with an agent. He went through the whole spiel explaining the difference between a reservation and an electronic ticket and how they link to each other, etc. Due to the one segment on Virgin America, I would be unable to check in online because the system basically can’t reconcile why there are 5 segments in my reservation, but only 4 ticket “coupons.” AA and VX do not have an interline agreement, so AA’s system can’t “see” that there is a ticket for that one little segment and online check in fails. Seems simple enough to fix, but I guess it isn’t.

In any event, I was first in line at First Class check in at DCA this morning where I was processed without a problem. Heck, it’s kind of neat to have an actual boarding pass for once. Honestly, I don’t remember the last time I checked in with a person! So, word to the wise, if you have a segment in your itinerary with an airline that AA doesn’t have a ticketing agreement with, your online check in may not work. Life goes on, and now I’ll go on to San Francisco!