Maui report is mostly about air travel

Well, as thrilling as it was to get to Hawaii, for various reasons, mainly around Margaret's health, we didn't cover very much of Maui.  We found satisfaction staying in Kihei and relaxing at the condo.  The volcanoes on the Big Island were not an issue for us.  One remaining highlight is that we went out to dinner, at Matteo's in Wailea, with Kelly and Charlie, whom we'd met at one airport connection and Margaret became a regular customer of Kelly's cosmetics sales, and we happened to wind up being on Maui at the same time.

So I wind up having the most to say about air travel on the return.  Early in our stay, when I happened to look at the American Airlines app, I think to see if the miles had posted, I found that my confirmation code had changed, while Margaret still had the old one that was originally for both of us; perhaps the change was because we wound up in separate cabins on the LAX-Maui leg.  Anyway, Margaret's record no longer showed her as being on the waiting list for an upgrade.  I went to the airline both on Twitter and by phone to get our records linked again, so Margaret too was on record as requesting an upgrade.

At the 72-hour mark, we found ourselves confirmed in First for the second segment, the red-eye LAX-Boston flight.  There were still six seats open (according to the seat map) in First, but the airline likely expected from experience that a fair number of people pay for First on short notice on Hawaii routes, and in those remaining days the cabin filled up without our getting upgraded.

On the morning of our flight, we returned the rental car before 11 and got to the terminal.  Because there was some question whether we would actually return as scheduled, and there are warnings that upgrade "stickers" purchased online are late in posting, I held off buying the upgrade until we got to the airport.  After putting our checked bags through an agricultural x-ray required for Hawaii departures, I was first in the Priority line, ready to check in and holding the credit card to buy the upgrade.  The agent, whom I'd have expected to be used to processing these, fumbled for a long time, made a couple of phone calls, and finally went back to a supervisor for advice on how to get it done.  The deal was that the upgrades needed to be added to my AAdvantage account before they could be applied to Margaret's check-in, and apparently this agent wasn't used to handling that, which happened at my status level.  It's more common to have passengers at lower status levels who need to buy upgrades for themselves, or for the group to be on the same confirmation.

We got our boarding passes printed after 11.30.  The TSA inspection area there is open to the outside, and there was a high number of electric fans for cooling.  Then it was a long way to our gate, including an agricultural inspection (x-ray) of our carry-ons.  We were getting close to our boarding time of 12.10.  Margaret sent me to Starbucks to get some things, and I was able to get back just in time to board together.  No upgrade on this flight, but our Main Cabin Extra seats were quite satisfactory.  The person initially assigned to the aisle seat in our row was, I think, a deadheading flight attendant, and when the doors closed she moved to another row.  There was pretty good room on this flight, I bought a fruit and cheese plate, on a credit card where 25% is rebated, and they didn't ask for payment for the sparkling wine that was mostly frozen when served.

The eastbound flight, with tailwinds, went pretty fast, with us going into darkness quickly before arrival at LAX.  We had a three-hour connection, in fact using the same gate although it was not the same plane; the best sit-down eating opportunity in that terminal appeared to be Sammy's Woodfired Pizza.  We got through a meal, seeing the terminal bustling through the wait to red-eye departures, there and back to our gate, and eventually to our Row 1 seats, with departure just before midnight.

I'd understood that there would be no meal service at all in First on this red-eye flight, but in fact they offered a fruit and cheese plate, in addition to drinks.  We tried to get a little sleep, and at the end they offered a breakfast with a cinnamon roll and yogurt.

With a scheduled arrival time of 8.41, we had hoped that a flight this long would be early and we could get the 8.55 shuttle bus back to our area.  Because of storms in the midsection of the country, the flight needed to go due east to the Dallas area before turning northeast, and we weren't early.  Even with priority baggage tags, we were just too late to catch that shuttle, and needed to wait another two hours.  When we were on the shuttle bus, we fell asleep often, and we eventually got to our destination for my father to meet us.

I wish the time in Hawaii had been longer, and there were some frustrations, but it was an amazing time.