Since I last posted here, Margaret has visited me twice, the second time to see an opera at the new Performing Arts Center in Kansas City, and we arranged to go to Los Angeles together to join a SlowTrav get-together. Things are well affirmed between us.
I went to my parents' for Thanksgiving when they essentially ordered me to go. Booking relatively late around peak dates, I did a non-Southwest trip on regional jets, on Continental to Manchester via Newark, returning on Frontier from Boston via Milwaukee, opting out of Boston's body scanner, and gate-checking a bag on a full flight.
I generally reactivate the blog when planning for an international trip is under way. When I was with my parents, I established that the house in Italy was available for most of next year. I've been wanting to have Margaret join me in Italy, using my United miles. We've been looking to plan it around a reunion of the school in Rome that we attended, but enough time has passed with no announcement that I was ready to make a booking without regard to a reunion.
Margaret was willing, and I asked the SlowTrav board a planning question based on my general thought that the trip should include Capri, and for a trip in May, which was showing decent award availability. For most United awards, there's better availability if you go through Germany on Lufthansa. I was looking at having Capri at one end of the trip, and so using Naples airport. With Margaret going from Sacramento, many options had flights from the West Coast to Germany, but I was looking for places were I could more easily join her for the transatlantic flight, Chicago in particular. If we had Capri at the start of the trip, I was looking at a flight arriving in Naples at 4.15 p.m. Then I got to think that getting to the port and ferry to Capri after that long overnight series of flights could just strain us too much. It could be better to have Capri as the culmination of the trip, but a 6 a.m. flight out of Naples would mean staying on the mainland.
For my first choice of return date, flying out of either Naples or Rome would mean going through Germany. Some people on the boards were urging me to try for a transatlantic flight out of Rome. The United site wasn't allowing open-jaw booking if partner airlines were involved; I could pay to go through a phone agent or, as the merger gets closer, transfer the needed miles to Continental, which allows this open-jaw online booking.
Before I did this, I tried a round trip to Rome on the United site. By changing the return by a day, I was able to book Margaret on the Rome-Newark flight. That calls for a long Newark layover and a connection through Houston; these are all current Continental routes; I don't know if, once the airlines are fully merged, she could make a more logical connection through the United hubs of Chicago or Denver. I'm guessing the Houston-Sacramento flight has award availability because it isn't so much in demand.
Margaret certainly shows excitement at this trip; I'm hoping I can wait a bit to book my paid trip on the same transatlantic flights. Wanting specific flights might limit my search for the best fare, but I've signed up with Yapta to monitor the fare. My mother may also go, so there's much to work out about details of the trip once everyone's booked.
Showing posts with label Airport security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Airport security. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Return from Berlin: over too soon
I woke up on my own before the cell phone alarm set for 4 a.m. I got everything together, dropped the key in the mailbox, and made my way to the bus stop. With such an early departure, I thought it could be time to go for a taxi, but when I asked on a board about arranging one for that hour, people advised me to go for public transportation, as I'm generally inclined to do. Looking at the BVG site, the best option was to start with a bus on Torstrasse, with a scheduled departure at 4.46. When I left a little after 4.15, there was a bit of daylight and some people out, and reasonable traffic on that main street. The bus showed up, which I took to the end at Hauptbahnhof; a few minutes later the TXL bus showed up at the same stop (I was worried about finding the stop on some train-to-bus connections), and got me to the airport a little after 5.
I found my way to Terminal D and checked in with no wait for my 6.40 a.m. Brussels Airlines flight from Berlin to Brussels. Security was just opening. The agent went through my shoulder carry-on, which had many wires to decipher. I'd taken things out and moved them to my checked bag to better meet the 6-kilo carry-on limit. I was about the last to board, crossing the tarmac, since I didn't hear a general boarding call before the last call. That flight was listed as a regional jet when I booked it, but they changed it to an A319 with lightly padded seats to improve the pitch. There was no SeatGuru chart of that aircraft to check against the seat they assigned me. I found that it was in the back row, in a windowless window seat, but the plane was sparsely occupied and I moved to an empty row in front of another empty row, so I could recline without guilt. They charged for all drinks including water; unusually for a short flight, they had a flight progress map TV monitor; I rested through the flight, and it arrived a few minutes before the scheduled time of 8.
I've been through Brussels Airport a few times, the last in 2000, and it looks largely rebuilt. I arrived at Schengen Concourse A, and followed signs to Concourse B, through retail areas, and finally a narrow passageway with no wait to passport control for exiting Schengen. Then I joined with originating passengers for the security check including shoe removal.
I went to the United transit desk because I thought the boarding passes that Brussels Air gave me must be incomplete, since they didn't include the group numbers that I know the UA passes to have. The agent there said no, they'd stopped having those because they were harmonizing their process with Continental; I remembered reading that today would be "Customer Service Day One." They would just be boarding by rows. Then when boarding time was close (this was a 3-hour layover) they called my name among people who still needed to go to the transit desk, because I'd missed answering questions about the bag that was connecting.
With that resolved, I got my outside aisle seat in regular Economy on this 767 to Chicago, walking past the First Class pods and some rear-facing Business seats. I courteously waited to see that no one else was taking that storage space, and put my bulky shoulder bag in the overhead bin, giving me better legroom. I took the chicken meal choice and got a decent amount of sleep through the 9-hour flight. The long flight listed an oddly precise arrival time of 1.17, and it arrived a few minutes early. There was a short wait at passport control, a longer one for my bag, and I was waved through customs and dropped my bag off. Then the train from O'Hare International Arrival Terminal 5 to Terminal 1.
Then the line for security; I was worried that the TSA might have a problem with my boarding pass that said O'Hare to International, instead of Chicago to Kansas City, but I got through. I got in the left-hand security line when I saw that the checkpoint had a walk-through metal detector on the left and a body scanner on the right. I was still directed to the body scanner and opted out. There was a short wait for a pat-down officer, who was courteous to the extent possible and let me face my belongings.
That pat-down/groping was still not so pleasant, and I was glad that, in my spree of United buying, I'd bought a day pass for the Red Carpet Club. I got there, in the C concourse, after taking the underpass. It was still over three hours before my next flight, and I was glad to settle in with a drink and take advantage of the included wi-fi. I left at around 4.30 to get a cheeseburger at the Billy Goat concession, and went to my gate at the end of the concourse. There was a note on the screen about looking for volunteers to be bumped. I thought momentarily about asking for it as the beginning of a future trip, as this one started with a bump, but I didn't ask, and boarding began. The two seats next to me were empty after boarding, so presumably they wouldn't have finally bumped me, and someone else took one of the seats to have an empty seat next to him. That flight went well and arrived early.
To conclude about the trip: I'm certainly glad I got to take it, originating from the $600 bump last summer. I'd been interested in a trip to Berlin, possibly at the start or end of a trip to Italy, and I'm glad I spent this longer time there, wishing there were more time. I could have explored more even in my neighborhood, an art gallery district with a lot going on. My previous trips to Germany were rushes through, including a time in the 1970s where everything was too fast, on a pass that wouldn't have covered the East German railways to get to Berlin. Now I have an interest in looking for old guidebooks and other sources to see about the logistics of visiting divided Berlin. In previous trips, it was on my mind that I sometimes dealt with people who were adults during the Nazi era, and it's good to see the forward-looking Germany of today. It was fascinating to see the signs of history, including recent times, and such an active city. This trip was part of a long series of trips alone, and now I'm hoping to take more trips with company.
I found my way to Terminal D and checked in with no wait for my 6.40 a.m. Brussels Airlines flight from Berlin to Brussels. Security was just opening. The agent went through my shoulder carry-on, which had many wires to decipher. I'd taken things out and moved them to my checked bag to better meet the 6-kilo carry-on limit. I was about the last to board, crossing the tarmac, since I didn't hear a general boarding call before the last call. That flight was listed as a regional jet when I booked it, but they changed it to an A319 with lightly padded seats to improve the pitch. There was no SeatGuru chart of that aircraft to check against the seat they assigned me. I found that it was in the back row, in a windowless window seat, but the plane was sparsely occupied and I moved to an empty row in front of another empty row, so I could recline without guilt. They charged for all drinks including water; unusually for a short flight, they had a flight progress map TV monitor; I rested through the flight, and it arrived a few minutes before the scheduled time of 8.
I've been through Brussels Airport a few times, the last in 2000, and it looks largely rebuilt. I arrived at Schengen Concourse A, and followed signs to Concourse B, through retail areas, and finally a narrow passageway with no wait to passport control for exiting Schengen. Then I joined with originating passengers for the security check including shoe removal.
I went to the United transit desk because I thought the boarding passes that Brussels Air gave me must be incomplete, since they didn't include the group numbers that I know the UA passes to have. The agent there said no, they'd stopped having those because they were harmonizing their process with Continental; I remembered reading that today would be "Customer Service Day One." They would just be boarding by rows. Then when boarding time was close (this was a 3-hour layover) they called my name among people who still needed to go to the transit desk, because I'd missed answering questions about the bag that was connecting.
With that resolved, I got my outside aisle seat in regular Economy on this 767 to Chicago, walking past the First Class pods and some rear-facing Business seats. I courteously waited to see that no one else was taking that storage space, and put my bulky shoulder bag in the overhead bin, giving me better legroom. I took the chicken meal choice and got a decent amount of sleep through the 9-hour flight. The long flight listed an oddly precise arrival time of 1.17, and it arrived a few minutes early. There was a short wait at passport control, a longer one for my bag, and I was waved through customs and dropped my bag off. Then the train from O'Hare International Arrival Terminal 5 to Terminal 1.
Then the line for security; I was worried that the TSA might have a problem with my boarding pass that said O'Hare to International, instead of Chicago to Kansas City, but I got through. I got in the left-hand security line when I saw that the checkpoint had a walk-through metal detector on the left and a body scanner on the right. I was still directed to the body scanner and opted out. There was a short wait for a pat-down officer, who was courteous to the extent possible and let me face my belongings.
That pat-down/groping was still not so pleasant, and I was glad that, in my spree of United buying, I'd bought a day pass for the Red Carpet Club. I got there, in the C concourse, after taking the underpass. It was still over three hours before my next flight, and I was glad to settle in with a drink and take advantage of the included wi-fi. I left at around 4.30 to get a cheeseburger at the Billy Goat concession, and went to my gate at the end of the concourse. There was a note on the screen about looking for volunteers to be bumped. I thought momentarily about asking for it as the beginning of a future trip, as this one started with a bump, but I didn't ask, and boarding began. The two seats next to me were empty after boarding, so presumably they wouldn't have finally bumped me, and someone else took one of the seats to have an empty seat next to him. That flight went well and arrived early.
To conclude about the trip: I'm certainly glad I got to take it, originating from the $600 bump last summer. I'd been interested in a trip to Berlin, possibly at the start or end of a trip to Italy, and I'm glad I spent this longer time there, wishing there were more time. I could have explored more even in my neighborhood, an art gallery district with a lot going on. My previous trips to Germany were rushes through, including a time in the 1970s where everything was too fast, on a pass that wouldn't have covered the East German railways to get to Berlin. Now I have an interest in looking for old guidebooks and other sources to see about the logistics of visiting divided Berlin. In previous trips, it was on my mind that I sometimes dealt with people who were adults during the Nazi era, and it's good to see the forward-looking Germany of today. It was fascinating to see the signs of history, including recent times, and such an active city. This trip was part of a long series of trips alone, and now I'm hoping to take more trips with company.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Arrival in Berlin
OK, to report on the flights: I had Economy Plus on the United flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. This gave extra legroom, just the way Economy should be. On the inside aisle, I still needed to get up for people in the middle seats. I ordered wine for both pre-dinner and dinner, making one credit card payment. Dinner: choice of chicken or pasta, I took the cannelloni. Maybe from too much wine, I didn't get much sleep. There was a bumpy landing. At the gate, after going through the jetway we needed to climb stairs, and there was a board listing just a few connecting flights, probably those that passengers on this flight had. We seemed to be mingling (that is, in the same area rather than segregated) with departing passengers for non-Schengen flights. The basic advice in Frankfurt is to know the gate numbers and follow the signs. With both my arriving and connecting flights in the A gates of Terminal 1, it meant going to one end of the concourse, clearing passport control, and going downstairs to the Schengen gates. I seemed to enter security in the same area as originating passengers. In my sleepless state, I didn't follow my routine of locking my wallet in my carry-on, I sounded the alarm, and got a pretty intense frisking; I'm supposed to be comforted that these agents are more professional than the TSA. I got to my gate for Berlin, and it went pretty efficiently on that flight, scheduled for 65 minutes, but 45 minutes in the air.
Arrival at Berlin Tegel: their design is something like Kansas City, but it works better, with baggage claim right at the gate. I had my plan to catch the city bus; looking at the map at the terminal, it looked like the bus stop wss just outside the hexagon of the terminal. I went there, and cars exited down a ramp with a narrow sidewalk; my instinct said not to try that. I went into the terminal and down a hall with another exit, where the bus stop was. For this day, I was going to get a day pass. I started to do it at a machine; the price of the pass was €6.30. I was starting to put in a €20 note, as I understood was possible, when a worker of the bus line pointed out that that machine took a masimum of €10. I had two crumpled €5 notes, which the man helped me get to work. There was also a staffed office where I could have done it.
I searched the itinerary in advance at www.bvg.de and, although there were other options, I kept to the one of taking the TXL bus to Brandenburger Tor, then the S-Bahn two stops to Oranienburger Tor. The TXL is named with the airport code but operates as a regular city bus, the airport being entirely within the city. The next stop is posted on a board, so I was helped there, but I would have recognized when the bus turned onto Unter den Linden; then I walked back to the S-Bahn, which still shows on some online maps as named Unter den Linden but is now named Brandenburger Tor; I could only see the gate in the distance. Two stops on that train, and I got to the apartment at 2 p.m., the earliest I said I would. The owner's wife checked me in; it is basically a cheap room with bath; it doesn't have a kitchen. It's a good deal in a nice area. The total cost was low enough that I could pay the cash balance with money left over from my last trip to Italy and some euros my mother gave me; I didn't need to stop at an ATM or get euros in advance at a bad rate.
I stopped at a sandwich shop nearby to get a small sandwich; then I figured I shoudl stop at an ATM. I walked a long time on major streets without finding one; I finally wound up at the main train station, the new Hauptbanhof; I only noticed the ATM in a side hallway when it reflected in the glass of the shop across.
Now it's getting too late in a long day to go into detail about the rest of the day: took bus 100 for a round trip of its length, going by major sites and ending in the central areas of the East and West parts of the city. I went up the TV tower and finally had a full dinner, a pork schnitzel, at Sophieneck. My apartment is in the former East, in a picturesque quiet area. Both parts of the city show a lot of postwar building, and one can contrast the development; I may go into this more later.
Arrival at Berlin Tegel: their design is something like Kansas City, but it works better, with baggage claim right at the gate. I had my plan to catch the city bus; looking at the map at the terminal, it looked like the bus stop wss just outside the hexagon of the terminal. I went there, and cars exited down a ramp with a narrow sidewalk; my instinct said not to try that. I went into the terminal and down a hall with another exit, where the bus stop was. For this day, I was going to get a day pass. I started to do it at a machine; the price of the pass was €6.30. I was starting to put in a €20 note, as I understood was possible, when a worker of the bus line pointed out that that machine took a masimum of €10. I had two crumpled €5 notes, which the man helped me get to work. There was also a staffed office where I could have done it.
I searched the itinerary in advance at www.bvg.de and, although there were other options, I kept to the one of taking the TXL bus to Brandenburger Tor, then the S-Bahn two stops to Oranienburger Tor. The TXL is named with the airport code but operates as a regular city bus, the airport being entirely within the city. The next stop is posted on a board, so I was helped there, but I would have recognized when the bus turned onto Unter den Linden; then I walked back to the S-Bahn, which still shows on some online maps as named Unter den Linden but is now named Brandenburger Tor; I could only see the gate in the distance. Two stops on that train, and I got to the apartment at 2 p.m., the earliest I said I would. The owner's wife checked me in; it is basically a cheap room with bath; it doesn't have a kitchen. It's a good deal in a nice area. The total cost was low enough that I could pay the cash balance with money left over from my last trip to Italy and some euros my mother gave me; I didn't need to stop at an ATM or get euros in advance at a bad rate.
I stopped at a sandwich shop nearby to get a small sandwich; then I figured I shoudl stop at an ATM. I walked a long time on major streets without finding one; I finally wound up at the main train station, the new Hauptbanhof; I only noticed the ATM in a side hallway when it reflected in the glass of the shop across.
Now it's getting too late in a long day to go into detail about the rest of the day: took bus 100 for a round trip of its length, going by major sites and ending in the central areas of the East and West parts of the city. I went up the TV tower and finally had a full dinner, a pork schnitzel, at Sophieneck. My apartment is in the former East, in a picturesque quiet area. Both parts of the city show a lot of postwar building, and one can contrast the development; I may go into this more later.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Building up to Berlin booking
I've been silent on this blog since my return from Italy. I'm back on my original concept of the blog being mainly about my international travel.
The main domestic trip I've taken during this time was to San Francisco; it was so wrapped up in personal matters that I wasn't ready to post about it in detail. After reluctantly joining Facebook, I connected there with most of my small class (where I was the only boy) from my American high school in Rome. I saw one classmate in Iowa at Thanksgiving; during the San Francisco trip, in September, I spent time with a classmate from nearby. This woman and I have connected in a special way during the time we were together on the trip and as we've been in touch since then, and I'm hoping we have a future as, at a minimum, traveling companions. I'm having her join me and my parents in an upcoming trip to New Orleans.
A few developments in the general travel scene have caught my attention. One is the indignities building up in airport security in the U.S., which is really security theater as there are still loopholes for bad guys to exploit. Also, I could mention the curiosity that I looked at a number on the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards screen for my account that was in the 90s; I thought wow, that could reach 100 and I'll have a companion pass for a companion to travel free with me, but I don't normally travel with a companion (if I do with the aforementioned one, we would generally be starting from different places and the pass wouldn't work). Then I saw that count wasn't the credits from one year (where 100 would lead to a pass) but two years, so I wasn't so close. Just as I get this post started, Southwest has announced the revamping of Rapid Rewards, meaning that award trips will now be earned based on the fare paid, rather than a cheap short trip getting the same credit as an expensive transcontinental trip. It's going to be much harder for me to get award trips on Southwest. Between this and security changes, I'll need to rethink my practices of going on casual domestic trips.
But getting back to the main topic of this blog, international travel, I've had in mind that I'd like to get to Berlin, and for now I'm just booking that trip for myself. In my post on travel around the Flo memorials (June 21, 2010), I mentioned that I took an overnight bump on a United flight and got a $600 voucher. A condition of the voucher was that it had to be used on United-operated flights, which wouldn't get me all the way to Berlin; the United itineraries would call for a codeshare, generally on Lufthansa, for the last segment. So I was making plans to apply the voucher to a trip to Munich (a destination I consider preferable to Frankfurt), then purchase a separate ticket (usually looking at Air Berlin) to Berlin. I was thinking I could connect (allowing a reasonable layover) on my arrival day on the outbound, then have a couple of days in Munich on the return.
I then learned from FlyerTalk that there is a way around the restriction of using the voucher only for UA-operated flights. Book a fully refundable ticket on a route that's available for a little more than the value of the voucher (it can have nothing to do with the route that I plan to take), then cancel and apply the funds to the trip I want, which can include codeshare segments.
For a dummy reservation, a fully refundable Kansas City-Cincinnati trip was a little more than $600. The voucher required phone rather than online booking. The phone reservations system is automated, working with voice recognition, and I didn't find any menu options that provided for the voucher. I went to gethuman.com to learn how to get to a person, and got through to an operator, likely in a distant country. I had them hold the reservation; since I was going by Kansas City airport, as I always do when going to the city, I arranged to exchange the voucher there rather than mail it, which in my view would call for the trouble of certified mail.
I got to the airport and made the exchange at the ticket counter. The agent said there was a lower fare that would let me keep one of the vouchers (they were actually four $150 vouchers). I asked if that was refundable as I wanted, and he said yes. I took that; when I got the receipt, and saw the term "NONREF"; I went back and asked him about it; he said "You wanted a refundable fare?" and went back, taking needless time to make the change to the previously quoted fare for this trip that I had no intention of taking, while there were people behind me in line apparently needing to make a change to get onto a flight that was about to take off.
When I got home, I called up my confirmation code on the United site, and it didn't come up. It called for using the code and my last name; I looked at the receipt, and they had misspelled my name. I called to get that fixed. This was in early December, and I needed to figure out when to book the Berlin trip for May. The fare was hovering around $1000; aside from generally needing to decide whether to go ahead with the trip as planned, I wanted to see if low fares turned up in January, as sometimes happens. For low season, there had been options of a fare of $750, or $150 in new money; I thought for my first trip there I should go in better weather, and May looked good.
Although lower, possibly mistake, fares were sometimes showing for other airlines, I wasn't seeing any change for United as I was committed to take, and people were saying not to expect to see particularly lower fares this year. Then on Kayak, which I usually rely on to tap into the airline sites, United's fare was getting higher. My first instinct was to wait in the hope that they would go down some, but then I went to United's site and found itineraries where the fare hadn't gone up. When I see a fare that's gone up on one site but is still available on another, that's when my instinct says it's time to book.
When my dummy ticket to Cincinnati was booked and I was able to call it up on the site, I had been able to go through the steps of changing to the other itinerary online, with them quoting the fare difference without a change fee, and I stopped short of confirming it. This may have been when my name was misspelled; every time I tried afterwards, I got an error message, perhaps because there had been too many interventions on my record. So anyway, I needed to phone to get this itinerary confirmed; the agent said some of their systems were down and they needed to do some of the process manually. She also quoted a $150 change fee; I questioned that, with the previous ticket having been refundable, and she got that fee removed; I have this trip booked with $350 of new money.
I had been looking for itineraries connecting in Chicago rather than Washington Dulles on the U.S. side, and Munich rather than Frankfurt on the German side. I was able to use Chicago in both directions, but getting the lower fare required connecting in Frankfurt on the outbound. On the return, I was able to connect in Brussels, which has a slightly lower tax and I think is an easier airport. All connecting times are comfortable; I extended the trip by a day rather than have a too-tight connection in Frankfurt on the return.
So I have this trip booked; I'd been interested for some time in getting to Berlin, and when I got the voucher on United, with their many flights to Germany, I thought this would be a good occasion. When I learned about the way to use the voucher on codeshares, I could have considered the option to use the voucher to go to Italy with more options than United's Washington-Rome flight. It was certainly something to consider especially with the chance of going with a companion, but for now it feels right to do this Berlin trip this year, and have a good, fulfilling Italy trip in 2012.
Now that I've resolved all this about getting to Berlin, I need to get in mind why I was interested, what I'd like to do, and where to stay, whether it's finally time to get a vacation rental and go more in the Slow Travel style.
The main domestic trip I've taken during this time was to San Francisco; it was so wrapped up in personal matters that I wasn't ready to post about it in detail. After reluctantly joining Facebook, I connected there with most of my small class (where I was the only boy) from my American high school in Rome. I saw one classmate in Iowa at Thanksgiving; during the San Francisco trip, in September, I spent time with a classmate from nearby. This woman and I have connected in a special way during the time we were together on the trip and as we've been in touch since then, and I'm hoping we have a future as, at a minimum, traveling companions. I'm having her join me and my parents in an upcoming trip to New Orleans.
A few developments in the general travel scene have caught my attention. One is the indignities building up in airport security in the U.S., which is really security theater as there are still loopholes for bad guys to exploit. Also, I could mention the curiosity that I looked at a number on the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards screen for my account that was in the 90s; I thought wow, that could reach 100 and I'll have a companion pass for a companion to travel free with me, but I don't normally travel with a companion (if I do with the aforementioned one, we would generally be starting from different places and the pass wouldn't work). Then I saw that count wasn't the credits from one year (where 100 would lead to a pass) but two years, so I wasn't so close. Just as I get this post started, Southwest has announced the revamping of Rapid Rewards, meaning that award trips will now be earned based on the fare paid, rather than a cheap short trip getting the same credit as an expensive transcontinental trip. It's going to be much harder for me to get award trips on Southwest. Between this and security changes, I'll need to rethink my practices of going on casual domestic trips.
But getting back to the main topic of this blog, international travel, I've had in mind that I'd like to get to Berlin, and for now I'm just booking that trip for myself. In my post on travel around the Flo memorials (June 21, 2010), I mentioned that I took an overnight bump on a United flight and got a $600 voucher. A condition of the voucher was that it had to be used on United-operated flights, which wouldn't get me all the way to Berlin; the United itineraries would call for a codeshare, generally on Lufthansa, for the last segment. So I was making plans to apply the voucher to a trip to Munich (a destination I consider preferable to Frankfurt), then purchase a separate ticket (usually looking at Air Berlin) to Berlin. I was thinking I could connect (allowing a reasonable layover) on my arrival day on the outbound, then have a couple of days in Munich on the return.
I then learned from FlyerTalk that there is a way around the restriction of using the voucher only for UA-operated flights. Book a fully refundable ticket on a route that's available for a little more than the value of the voucher (it can have nothing to do with the route that I plan to take), then cancel and apply the funds to the trip I want, which can include codeshare segments.
For a dummy reservation, a fully refundable Kansas City-Cincinnati trip was a little more than $600. The voucher required phone rather than online booking. The phone reservations system is automated, working with voice recognition, and I didn't find any menu options that provided for the voucher. I went to gethuman.com to learn how to get to a person, and got through to an operator, likely in a distant country. I had them hold the reservation; since I was going by Kansas City airport, as I always do when going to the city, I arranged to exchange the voucher there rather than mail it, which in my view would call for the trouble of certified mail.
I got to the airport and made the exchange at the ticket counter. The agent said there was a lower fare that would let me keep one of the vouchers (they were actually four $150 vouchers). I asked if that was refundable as I wanted, and he said yes. I took that; when I got the receipt, and saw the term "NONREF"; I went back and asked him about it; he said "You wanted a refundable fare?" and went back, taking needless time to make the change to the previously quoted fare for this trip that I had no intention of taking, while there were people behind me in line apparently needing to make a change to get onto a flight that was about to take off.
When I got home, I called up my confirmation code on the United site, and it didn't come up. It called for using the code and my last name; I looked at the receipt, and they had misspelled my name. I called to get that fixed. This was in early December, and I needed to figure out when to book the Berlin trip for May. The fare was hovering around $1000; aside from generally needing to decide whether to go ahead with the trip as planned, I wanted to see if low fares turned up in January, as sometimes happens. For low season, there had been options of a fare of $750, or $150 in new money; I thought for my first trip there I should go in better weather, and May looked good.
Although lower, possibly mistake, fares were sometimes showing for other airlines, I wasn't seeing any change for United as I was committed to take, and people were saying not to expect to see particularly lower fares this year. Then on Kayak, which I usually rely on to tap into the airline sites, United's fare was getting higher. My first instinct was to wait in the hope that they would go down some, but then I went to United's site and found itineraries where the fare hadn't gone up. When I see a fare that's gone up on one site but is still available on another, that's when my instinct says it's time to book.
When my dummy ticket to Cincinnati was booked and I was able to call it up on the site, I had been able to go through the steps of changing to the other itinerary online, with them quoting the fare difference without a change fee, and I stopped short of confirming it. This may have been when my name was misspelled; every time I tried afterwards, I got an error message, perhaps because there had been too many interventions on my record. So anyway, I needed to phone to get this itinerary confirmed; the agent said some of their systems were down and they needed to do some of the process manually. She also quoted a $150 change fee; I questioned that, with the previous ticket having been refundable, and she got that fee removed; I have this trip booked with $350 of new money.
I had been looking for itineraries connecting in Chicago rather than Washington Dulles on the U.S. side, and Munich rather than Frankfurt on the German side. I was able to use Chicago in both directions, but getting the lower fare required connecting in Frankfurt on the outbound. On the return, I was able to connect in Brussels, which has a slightly lower tax and I think is an easier airport. All connecting times are comfortable; I extended the trip by a day rather than have a too-tight connection in Frankfurt on the return.
So I have this trip booked; I'd been interested for some time in getting to Berlin, and when I got the voucher on United, with their many flights to Germany, I thought this would be a good occasion. When I learned about the way to use the voucher on codeshares, I could have considered the option to use the voucher to go to Italy with more options than United's Washington-Rome flight. It was certainly something to consider especially with the chance of going with a companion, but for now it feels right to do this Berlin trip this year, and have a good, fulfilling Italy trip in 2012.
Now that I've resolved all this about getting to Berlin, I need to get in mind why I was interested, what I'd like to do, and where to stay, whether it's finally time to get a vacation rental and go more in the Slow Travel style.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Chicago trip
I took a weekend trip to Chicago. At Kansas City airport, I knew that the virtual strip search machines were installed at the Southwest Airlines checkpoint, and I could be facing my first confrontation over opting out of that inspection. The machine was on the left side after you entered, and I was able to turn right; anyway the machine was roped off, not in operation.
With my A34 boarding pass, I found the high-legroom exit row all open, and took the window seat. I have enough drink coupons that I had a cocktail even on this morning flight. On arrival at Midway Airport, I went to the transit station to take the el into town. I planned for my only use of the transit system to be the round trip at $4.50; I knew that the cash machines didn't give change; I saw a machine that sold passes for credit card payment, but the attendant said it didn't sell regular tickets. Anyway, I had $4.50 in cash to buy a fare card, but when I returned I saw that on the back side of the bank of machines, there was one that appeared to sell regular fare cards for credit cards. I took the Orange Line to Roosevelt, and took the rather long transfer route from the elevated platform to the underground Red Line, which I took to Grand. That was close to the hotel where I was booked, the Comfort Inn on Ohio St.
The room wasn't ready yet, and I checked my bags. I'd talked to Sue earlier, and it was established that we'd meet in the late afternoon. It was getting to be 11 a.m., and I decided to have lunch at the Billy Goat, the "Chizborger" place of early Saturday Night Live fame. Then I went across Millennium Park to the Art Insitute, a main interest of this trip being to see the new Modern Wing.
Entering there, there was the main entrance hall; in the galleries to the side, there was a show of photography of the U.S. South by William Eggleston. I went into the main building for the show of Matisse from 1913 to 1917, important in his movement towards Cubism and less objective work; he cited "methods of modern construction." I had a quick look at some American work in the main building. Back to the Modern Wing, designed by Renzo Piano: I didn’t like that there was no clear direction to the galleries. The main way to go was by stairs, on the side rather than a grand staircase, and I suppose that is part of encouraging energy saving. The signs going by gallery numbers were a little unclear about how one should visit the galleries. These galleries had modern art of varying interest to me; some of my favorites were by Balthus and Magritte. The third floor gallery was on the north side, and there was no connection to the Bridgeway from Millennium Park to the third floor on the south side. I went down and up by elevator to exit that way; if I’d entered by the Bridgeway, coming in by a restaurant, it would have been a confusing way to enter. I understand that the concept is that the Griffin Court, the main entrance hall, divides the two pavilions of the Modern Wing.
I went back to the hotel and found my small room ready. I went briefly around shopping streets, got back, and got the call that Sue and Barnaby would be picking me up. Flo had seen Barnaby off for his departure from Port-au-Prince the day before the earthquake; I’d picked this weekend at random for a Chicago trip, and then learned that Barnaby would be there for a conference. They came to meet me, and I learned there that we were going to dinner at Sue’s parents in the distant suburb of Batavia. The expressway out of town was jammed with construction, but it was eventually clear going. Barnaby had taken the small jump seat in the back of the pickup cab, and I learned that he was dealing with tremendous nerve pain.
Sue's parents gave us a nice steak dinner, and I admired how much support they give to Sue for her unorthodox choices. The conversation went differently than I planned, where I wanted to piece together details about the events around the earthquake and Flo's death, but I learned a lot during the drive back. Sue and Barnaby were planning to be at parties well into the night, but I declined to go, ready to be at the hotel at midnight and make a little use of my room.
I got up in time to have breakfast when it opened at 7, checked out, and walked to the State/Lake el station rather than go with a transfer. I got through the turnstile just as the right train was pulling in at 7.50; I got to Midway a little over 30 minutes later. I'd printed my boarding pass at the airport kiosk because the 24-hour mark came shortly after my inbound arrival. The system didn't go right to the boarding pass from my credit card, or my Rapid Rewards number after that; they then asked for my confirmation code, delaying getting in from the opening second, and I got pass B9. This meant that I could go straight from the walkway from the el station to security without going to check-in at the upper level. The TSA directed my line to a checkpoint they'd just opened in an area off to the side.
It was a full flight, not too eventful I'd prepared part of this document offline at Midway and on the plane. At KCI, with free wi-fi, I paused on arrival to copy what I'd written from my netbook to Google Docs. When that was done, the doors out of the sterile area were closed; I was able to get out where there was an agent to ask for assistance; I wasn't about to cause an incident by opening a door with an "Alarm will sound" warning.
With my A34 boarding pass, I found the high-legroom exit row all open, and took the window seat. I have enough drink coupons that I had a cocktail even on this morning flight. On arrival at Midway Airport, I went to the transit station to take the el into town. I planned for my only use of the transit system to be the round trip at $4.50; I knew that the cash machines didn't give change; I saw a machine that sold passes for credit card payment, but the attendant said it didn't sell regular tickets. Anyway, I had $4.50 in cash to buy a fare card, but when I returned I saw that on the back side of the bank of machines, there was one that appeared to sell regular fare cards for credit cards. I took the Orange Line to Roosevelt, and took the rather long transfer route from the elevated platform to the underground Red Line, which I took to Grand. That was close to the hotel where I was booked, the Comfort Inn on Ohio St.
The room wasn't ready yet, and I checked my bags. I'd talked to Sue earlier, and it was established that we'd meet in the late afternoon. It was getting to be 11 a.m., and I decided to have lunch at the Billy Goat, the "Chizborger" place of early Saturday Night Live fame. Then I went across Millennium Park to the Art Insitute, a main interest of this trip being to see the new Modern Wing.
Entering there, there was the main entrance hall; in the galleries to the side, there was a show of photography of the U.S. South by William Eggleston. I went into the main building for the show of Matisse from 1913 to 1917, important in his movement towards Cubism and less objective work; he cited "methods of modern construction." I had a quick look at some American work in the main building. Back to the Modern Wing, designed by Renzo Piano: I didn’t like that there was no clear direction to the galleries. The main way to go was by stairs, on the side rather than a grand staircase, and I suppose that is part of encouraging energy saving. The signs going by gallery numbers were a little unclear about how one should visit the galleries. These galleries had modern art of varying interest to me; some of my favorites were by Balthus and Magritte. The third floor gallery was on the north side, and there was no connection to the Bridgeway from Millennium Park to the third floor on the south side. I went down and up by elevator to exit that way; if I’d entered by the Bridgeway, coming in by a restaurant, it would have been a confusing way to enter. I understand that the concept is that the Griffin Court, the main entrance hall, divides the two pavilions of the Modern Wing.
I went back to the hotel and found my small room ready. I went briefly around shopping streets, got back, and got the call that Sue and Barnaby would be picking me up. Flo had seen Barnaby off for his departure from Port-au-Prince the day before the earthquake; I’d picked this weekend at random for a Chicago trip, and then learned that Barnaby would be there for a conference. They came to meet me, and I learned there that we were going to dinner at Sue’s parents in the distant suburb of Batavia. The expressway out of town was jammed with construction, but it was eventually clear going. Barnaby had taken the small jump seat in the back of the pickup cab, and I learned that he was dealing with tremendous nerve pain.
Sue's parents gave us a nice steak dinner, and I admired how much support they give to Sue for her unorthodox choices. The conversation went differently than I planned, where I wanted to piece together details about the events around the earthquake and Flo's death, but I learned a lot during the drive back. Sue and Barnaby were planning to be at parties well into the night, but I declined to go, ready to be at the hotel at midnight and make a little use of my room.
I got up in time to have breakfast when it opened at 7, checked out, and walked to the State/Lake el station rather than go with a transfer. I got through the turnstile just as the right train was pulling in at 7.50; I got to Midway a little over 30 minutes later. I'd printed my boarding pass at the airport kiosk because the 24-hour mark came shortly after my inbound arrival. The system didn't go right to the boarding pass from my credit card, or my Rapid Rewards number after that; they then asked for my confirmation code, delaying getting in from the opening second, and I got pass B9. This meant that I could go straight from the walkway from the el station to security without going to check-in at the upper level. The TSA directed my line to a checkpoint they'd just opened in an area off to the side.
It was a full flight, not too eventful I'd prepared part of this document offline at Midway and on the plane. At KCI, with free wi-fi, I paused on arrival to copy what I'd written from my netbook to Google Docs. When that was done, the doors out of the sterile area were closed; I was able to get out where there was an agent to ask for assistance; I wasn't about to cause an incident by opening a door with an "Alarm will sound" warning.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Alert about enhanced airport security
I'll step away for a moment from this ordinary account of my travel planning to talk about something travel-related, but possibly in the realm of politics. In the aftermath of the attempted Christmas bombing of a plane, there are many calls to expand use of the Whole Body Imager, a machine that sees through clothes. The device is currently in a pilot program where it's the primary screening method at a few checkpoints, and secondary (for people raising alarms in the metal detector and "random selectees") in others. The Transportation Security Administration says there should be no privacy worries about it, and posts sample views of the image that don't seem like much of a problem. A video at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=972_1262283908 shows a different picture, so to speak, with the screener having higher resolution and zoom-in capability. In the U.K. it's been deemed that images of minors in these devices would violate child pornography laws: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/04/new-scanners-child-porn-laws/print
It's questionable whether this would have caught the Christmas bomber. This device is part of security theater, making it look like major steps are being taken while there are still big loopholes. The image stops at the first contact with skin, so forbidden objects could be kept under fat folds or other ways I'll leave to the imagination. Also it's simply an image rather than any explosives detection. So there are concerns about privacy and the practical worry that people are asked to empty their pockets and leave their belongings out of site in a crowded area. I'm posting this so people can make their judgment, keeping it to "mostly the facts."
It's questionable whether this would have caught the Christmas bomber. This device is part of security theater, making it look like major steps are being taken while there are still big loopholes. The image stops at the first contact with skin, so forbidden objects could be kept under fat folds or other ways I'll leave to the imagination. Also it's simply an image rather than any explosives detection. So there are concerns about privacy and the practical worry that people are asked to empty their pockets and leave their belongings out of site in a crowded area. I'm posting this so people can make their judgment, keeping it to "mostly the facts."
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