United’s New Business Class seats can’t be installed soon enough on their Boeing 777’s. I mean, I knew what to expect, but this flight reiterated to me how important it is for United to make these changes sooner than later. It’s not even so much about having a seat that lays flat or my burning desire to sit backwards for 10 hours. In my mind, it’s about having a normal power source for my laptop, a video screen larger than 4 inches and something to show on that screen – a.k.a. audio/video on demand.

I called United reservations 3 times to ask why their website would not let me check in. No-one could figure it out. I then called United.com support and was told, because I requested an upgrade, I would have to check in at the airport and not online.

Me: “No passenger that request upgrades are able to check-in online?”
Tech Dude: “that’s correct”
Yeah…whatever.

This is the screen I got and I would LOVE someone to enlighten me on what was happening. I wound up checking in without issue for my LAX-LHR flight at the UA desk in ATL, it’s just the principle that bothers me. Note the circle with an X through it (?)

After switching terminals at LAX, I was at the gate counter as agents started “working” the flight:
Me: “Hi sir, I requested an upgrade using mils and co-payment but I do not see my name on any standby or cleared list”
UA Agent: “Well how are you going to upgrade then?”
Me: “I don’t know, but miles were withdrawn from my account and my credit card info was taken at check in”
UA Agent looking shocked: “Oh, it already cleared”

Boarding and departure were seamless, despite going out with a full load in all 3 classes.

Food
After we reached cruising altitude, the standard drinks and nuts were offered. My question is this:
Why does UA provide warm towel service after they serve nuts? I eat nuts with my fingers; except when I am really hungry I will use a spoon; that’s when I don’t care about the cleanliness of my hands. At the end of the day, NO, those towels don’t really sterilize anything, so maybe it doesn’t even matter.

I chose the braised beef for lunch. Braising being a cooking method where the meat or fish is cooked slowly in low heat, producing an extremely tender, flavorful entree. This meat did not exactly fall off the bone; actually there was no bone. The beef was tough, not fatty, just that it tasted like it had gone from frozen to convection without a defrost period. The rest of the grub was O.k.; the highlight being the breakfast “frittata” -the cheese on the eggs was similar to Cheese Whiz = good.
God forbid a piece of pork is served on an airplane.  Turkey sausage is a disgrace, almost as laughable as turkey bacon. Isn’t this why special meals can be pre-ordered when booking your reservations?
One last food rant; don’t put midflight snacks in the menu unless you are going to offer and/or serve them. This is not United thing, all the airlines do it. I don’t want to engage in a scavenger hunt for food at 38,000 feet.

Service
Service was solid, although the crew spent much more time chatting and reading in the galleys when compared to many other airlines.
These older seats have great recline and plenty of legroom, but go for an aisle seat if you plan on getting up a lot. Like I alluded to, United could keep these seats if they installed audio video on-demand.

Overall
While it may not sound like it, this was an enjoyable, smooth flight.  United definitely met my expectations.  We waited 15 minutes for our gate at LHR, but… it’s LHR.  I am trying to make United a more significant part of my travels.  Even though I live in Delta country, I feel United offers superior opportunities to upgrade flights internationally and also provides more relevant alliance partners.  Thanks for visiting this blog-questions/comments always welcome!

eye level moon

full recline

I was watching planes one day near SFO and a guy rode up on his bike and took a seat on one of the benches next to me.  After a few pleasantries, he began to recite the schedule of each international arrival and departure that afternoon.  I thought:

“Wow, this guy is as cool as I am”

In discussing our aviation addictions, I was surprised to learn that he had never heard of Flightaware, a site I knew he would enjoy. I just thought all aviation geeks visited all the same web sites. Not the case and that is why I am sharing this list.

Thanks, dude I met watching planes at SFO!

FlyerTalk
While I have poked fun at Flyertalk in the past, it remains a tremendous resource for even the occasional frequent flyer. From the most basic questions: how to book an award ticket… to the most trivial of topics: how many stalls are in the Kenya Airways Business Class Lounge bathroom.

Flightaware
Although the site has been very slow as of late, it is entertaining to look at what paths flight take, what equipment is being used and who flies where at what time of day.  You can sort results by aircraft, airport or airlines. When I can’t fall back asleep in the middle of the night, I like to pull up Flightaware and look at West Coast departures bound for Asia.  More practically (debatable), Flightaware tells me when I need to leave to pick up Mrs. Planereality at the airport.

Airliners.net
This one is particularly enjoyable as so many users are from so many parts of the globe.  They share their opinion and experiences on an endless number of airlines. Up to the minute aviation news can be found in the Civil Aviation Forum.  The Trip Report section will give you a good idea of what each airline is like.  And oh so many incredible photographs.

Boarding Area
Call it shameless self promotion, but truth be told, some of the best airline deals, news, interviews and insights can be found under one roof at Boarding Area.com.  BoardingArea is a collection of travel bloggers who all write about slightly different topics pertaining to travel.  Most of the contributors are pretty witty and you may even get a laugh out of their prose.

Orbitz
While I am confident they do not need any more advertising, especially from me, this is where I continually find myself researching good airfares, both domestic and international. Yes, the choices are overwhelming when it comes to booking engines, but I prefer the way Orbitz displays flight  search results and thoroughness of  those results.

What?

If you are reading this, chances are you have, at one time or another, visited FlyerTalk.com, if not, here is a primer. FlyerTalk claims to be the “world’s most popular frequent flier community” (and I believe it is, based on traffic anyway) where travelers from all over the world can post opinions, ask questions and mention deals about almost anything travel related, but most discussions pertain to airlines and hotels.  Each subject or brand has its own forum (i.e. the Delta Airlines forum).  Each forum is assigned a moderator to edit or block submissions that are inappropriate or off topic. The moderators are a somewhat salty bunch and jump at the opportunity to reprimand you, should you post something that they already knew.  I suppose, these moderators know every possible thing there is know about a particular topic… how else would one obtain the astute title: FlyerTalk Forum Moderator?

Who?

There are a number of users who take themselves extremely seriously, sometimes called FlyerTalk Evangelists, who I assume aspire to become moderators.  Many of these folks find it their duty to not only welcome new users, but to also scold users who post topics in the wrong forums, question a user’s character when they make errors while posting, chastise them when something has been previously mentioned and make all “community” members aware that they knew something before all other users….  This all makes for pretty solid entertainment.

What Happened?

A few months ago I found an airfare on my online booking engine that I determined to be a very good value which did not require a minimum stay.  I thought it would make a perfect fit in the mileage run forum.  What I failed to do was include the details of where I found the fare.  I received an email immediately from the “Mod” (cool member slang for Moderator) asking me to please include where I found the fare.  In addition, several other users asked where they could find the fare.  I obliged, posted where I found the fare and…voila…I received an email notifying me that I had been suspended from FlyerTalk for 48 hours for including a link to what they called a “commercial link.”  (this was right after another user suggested that my post may be some type of scam, but, in true FlyerTalk fashion, I think he was just annoyed because he didn’t find the fare first and turn did not get to post it)

Still Confused…

I was somewhat confused (not unusual) …users should never post an airfare without saying where they found it but you can’t include any commercial links.  I asked the “Mod” if I could say where I found it without including a link (just plain text) and the response was that if it was my own booking engine, this was not allowed.  From what I gather, users can only link to the big boys…Expedia, Priceline and airline web sites, so long as one does not have any official “tie” to that particular web site.

I’m Rich!

In fairness of full disclosure, I stood to gross a whopping $3, for each of those fares sold.  In contrast, the fare was roughly $150 less than what I could find on other web sites.  FlyerTalk can be a very helpful resource for extracting information, but I will leave the input to the “experts”