The wedding and beyond

I've been waiting to see if Zaka, the designated photographer, would make pictures and video available; in the meantime I'm showing this phone picture and saying what I remember about things around my wedding with Margaret. (And I'd like to get this done before there's news to post about next year's trip to Italy, which should be soon.) The wedding events themselves are in a haze for me. We had a nice little ceremony in my parents' living room in Vermont, performed by the Justice of the Peace, with poems recited by my mother and my cousin Mike.

Margaret and I checked into the guest suite of the Full Circle Studio, a nice spot for ourselves up the road from my parents'. The next day my parents hosted a reception at their house. In this midweek wedding that we fit into the trip based on the flights we booked without planning it as a wedding trip, it's amazing what people made the trip for us. Mike came from Taiwan, making his annual U.S. trip earlier than usual; his brother with lady friend came from Indianapolis. Other cousins came from California (as did Margaret's son), as did others from Maine. There were other longtime friends from Connecticut.

As I said, the events become a haze, and Margaret wasn't feeling well the next day. Even if I tried to think of it as a low-key wedding, it was a great occasion, including the intrigue of interesting connections made among some of the guests.

So then I'll get into some of the travel aspects. The arrival worked pretty well, once Margaret dealt with the reality of spraining her ankle a few days before. In this flight connection that I booked for her, with time on the ground in all four time zones of the continental United States, under Southwest's system we were counting on her being able to save a seat for me as she continued on the flight that stopped in Kansas City. With crutches next to her in row 1, she succeeded. For me it was easy enough, taking advantage of the new non-stop service to Boston.

While Haydee was booked to arrive 30 minutes earlier, her flight had a delay, and both flights were unloading at the same time, but she was out first. We had our meeting at baggage claim, and I took the bus to get a rental car, selecting a Chrysler 200 from the lot. I managed to get it to the crowded terminal curb, pick them up, and be on the road; we made it fine to my parents' Vermont home.

Then the return had complications making for better stories. Haydee changed her return flight and went to Maine with cousin Veronica, then planning to spend more time at my parents'. Margaret and I took off for our final night in Boston at a time that I thought was early for beating rush hour. I stopped at the place that I'd scouted as the place to gas up the car in the suburbs and, feeling good for my foresight, called the hotel and said my wife would be checking in while I returned the car; it was new to be using that term.

Then, as we proceeded towards Boston, the traffic came to a standstill. It crept along, I think two hours to go the last 10 miles, where we eventually crossed the bridge and entered the Big Dig tunnel. Here is the map of the end of our route to the Intercontinental Hotel: I had the words of the directions on my iPad for Margaret to read:

It had been a while since I had looked at the map or directions, and I was so frustrated by how delayed we were, when we exited, I didn't pay attention to how long we were to stay on Purchase St., I turned too soon, saw that we crossed Atlantic Ave., and figured I needed to turn around. I made a U-turn on Seaport Blvd. where there was a break in the median although it wasn't advisable. I was thinking then turn right (go north) and watch for the hotel. Did I miss it without many markings? I recognized the garage where the rental return was, convinced that I'd driven past the hotel. I returned the car to the lot on level 7; this was all while Margaret had felt an urgent bathroom need for some time. We went down the elevator to ground level so she could deal with that in the rental office; we barely made the 6 p.m. closing time, when I was thinking we'd be there over two hours before that.

I took the bags for both of us to walk the few blocks to the hotel while she felt the effects of her sprained ankle. I figured out where the hotel was and what my driving mistake had been, hoping the marriage would survive this. We checked in for the annual free night I get from my credit card at the Intercontinental, getting a nice harbor view room. We kept with the plan I had anyway not to have Margaret need to walk any distance: we took a taxi to the North End and the restaurant Bacco, on the Rewards Network miles-earning list. Remembering that Boston had been shut down for a manhunt just three weeks earlier, it was impressive to see the crowds in the narrow streets, and we had a nice meal although it meant climbing stairs. Then we took a taxi back for a nice night at the hotel.

In the morning, we agreed to have room service breakfast, and take it easy before taking off for the airport in the late morning. We had our separate return flights booked as planned before we knew this would be a wedding trip. I was booked to connect through St. Louis. Before we left the hotel, so about eight hours before the connection, I got a text of a big delay on the connecting flight. A little later, I got an alert of a delay on my flight out of Boston. From the times they'd given, I saw that I would still make the connection; in fact an initially tight connecting time would be extended. Because of the first flight's delay, the skycap sent me to the ticket counter, where the agent confirmed what I'd determined about making the connection.

We got to the gate area and ate at the Vineyard Grill, with a friendly waitress. It was time for Margaret to take off on her involved itinerary, so I saw her off, as she gets ready to move out of her Sacramento area home to move in with me a couple of months later.

There were announcements made about my delayed flight to St. Louis, and they asked people booked to Kansas City to go to the counter to get new boarding passes to connect through Chicago instead. I kept track of the projected status of the flights, and it looked like the second flight was still more delayed. It could be that they were going by the rule that delays can be reduced or eliminated, but then why didn't they say that at the ticket counter? Also, I'd made an effort to get a good boarding number, stopping at a rest area 24 hours before departure to check in, which delayed our arrival in Boston a little (but I don't think we'd have beaten the traffic tie-up), and now I got boarding number C18. Even with that, I got an aisle seat to Chicago, so some displeasure was reduced. I had a long layover there, with more food choices. Perhaps Southwest should be praised for being proactive, but I still would have made the connection in St. Louis with plenty of time, arriving 1.5 hours late, while this Chicago connection made me arrive three hours late.

So there's quite a reflection to make on what has become of me since I started this blog. I started as a guy wanting to post on the practicalities of travel and my experiences with them, which is still a big part of my interests, but I've also had the terrible time of losing Flo, writing on that, and getting people's great responses to that. And then something I couldn't have expected, of the connection with Margaret and it leading to marriage, a great turn in my life, as I look forward with wonderment to seeing what it all means.

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.

Travel planning for memorial

I am looking ahead to being in New England for a memorial show for Flo and to bury his ashes. There are emotions around that, but I'd like to report about the travel planning.

Airfares for the trip on Southwest were getting borderline high; I got two Southwest awards for getting their credit card, and I was thinking of booking an award, which I could cancel if good fare sales turned up. In a matter that I mishandled, I thought I'd wait for the right time to ask my parents about the right dates to travel. I did this when they visited me; then I found that paid fares were getting much higher, and it was very difficult to find any award availability. Although Manchester, N.H., is the closer airport to my parents' home, the only award I could find on the outbound arrived in Boston, and too late to catch the last bus to my parents' area. I booked that, hoping something better could turn up, but there were no awards to find for the return.

So there were the options of making tentative bookings with Southwest, who allows for flexibility, booking an expensive return but hoping for a lower fare or award to turn up, and I could keep the extra funds for future travel. Or I could book a paid trip with another airline, and I'd be committed to whatever I booked (those would entail big change fees). Or, while I kept checking for Southwest Standard Awards, consider my Plan B to convert two awards to a Freedom Award, which I could use on any flight that wasn't completely sold out. I committed to nothing, and kept that as my ultimate back-up, until...

In one forum, someone brought to my attention that American and United now had one-way awards. I don't have much activity with flights on those airlines, but let myself get bonuses and thought they might eventually get to some useful level. It happens that because of a bonus, I'd recently switched my dining miles earning from Delta (which was a merge from Northwest) to United. I was getting very close to the 12,500 miles needed for a one-way award. While Delta had posted dining miles once a month, I figured out that United posted them weekly, on Tuesday. To be sure of reaching the needed miles, I bought a gift card from a local restaurant. A one-way award was showing; I wasn't that confident that it would still be there this week, but I aimed for it in case it was available. Lo and behold, it was, for a flight out of Manchester at a decent time. I also looked at United one-way awards from Burlington, Vt.: they had one with a routing Burlington-Washington Dulles-Detroit-Chicago-Kansas City, all on regional jets, not too appealing if one isn't earning miles and getting status by flying many segments. So I have that United return out of Manchester and, unless something better opens up, a Southwest outbound to Boston at an inconvenient time, but something can be worked out around it.

On Southwest, it used to be that a Standard Award could be used on any flight that had seats available. My experience using the current capacity-controlled awards around the year-end holidays has been that there was good availability; now it's disappointing that awards are unavailable for a big block of time, and Southwest's fares are higher than on other airlines. It would have given me pause to have to use two awards for the type of unrestricted travel that until recently was available with one; it looks like Southwest is very popular with its "Bags Fly Free" and generally good performance.

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.

San Diego, March 14-15 and return

The gathering ended Sunday with a brunch at the Island Palms. Afterwards I joined leader Shannon and others of the group with wine around the pool. OK, this was a nice friendly gathering, less of a production in terms of speeches, videos, etc. than the one in Savannah two years ago. It's nice to see so many people of the group, even though I don't fit in in the best way in social situations. It was an important step to get many expressions of sympathy for Flo without it being overwhelming.

For the practical travel matters that I discuss most easily: we had the Daylight Saving Time change on Sunday (and during planning, I think I was the first to bring it to the organizers' attention on the board) and I had the time right to check in online at the 24-hour mark. Maybe fumbling with the netbook's touchpad delayed me by a few seconds, but I was surprised to see boarding number B14. With San Diego being in the corner of Southwest's network, one wouldn't expect it to be much of a connecting place, but it is. People connecting to this flight (including, oddly, from Tucson), had a head start on me at 24 hours before their first flight.

On Monday morning, I returned the rental car and got to Southwest's terminal. I know from previous experience that their main gate area is cramped, not much fun. Today I found that my flight is from gate 2: gates 1-2 are in a separate area, to the right of check-in at ground area (the jetway slopes up), facing the roadway. Security had no wait, compared to the long line for the main gates. There's a good amount of seating and some concessions. That's where I'm composing this, and I'll go ahead and publish this, reserving the option to add to it if much of interest happens in the flight.

Adding: Pictures

San Diego, March 12

I have arrived in San Diego and I will start posting about travel again. This site is on record for my tribute to Flo, who will remain very much in my thoughts, and I hope it works to have the link to that tribute prominent under the title of this blog.

I'll see how it works to report on activities day-by-day, and report on big trips this way rather than spend a lot of time afterwards on trip reports. I'll start with my flight: leaving midday from Kansas City, my practice is to stop at Subway on the way, rather than pay high airport concession prices, and have a sandwich onboard with a coupon-bought beer if flying Southwest. We didn't have the snow that was possible, just chill and drizzle. As it's the start of Spring Break for many, there were crowds at the airport; this flight also had several people getting a cruise. It's been showing as sold out for a while; they were looking for one volunteer to bump, and it hasn't been too clear to me how that works on Southwest, and I couldn't arrive much later.

When I checked in right at the 24-hour mark, I got boarding pass A41. I took an aisle seat at the front of the rear flight attendant's section, the seatmates were fine, I had my sandwich with a beer, and dozed a bit on this, one of the longest possible flights from Kansas City. Although we were a few minutes late taking off, we arrived 30 minutes early. Although I won't be driving much, there was such a good deal for a rental car from Alamo that I took that, and got to the hotel, the Island Palms on Shelter Island.

Here things were nice in that they upgraded me to a Junior Suite, with a living area and two TVs, but the remote was completely haywire. Also wi-fi wasn't connecting, so I'm writing this first part offline. The key cards needed to be replaced a couple of times.

Then I got help from SlowTrav leader Kim in getting wi-fi to work. I’m back now from the evening event: went to Jane’s house, riding with Roz, and Nico visiting from Italy. So many people showed their support, and it’s an important step in things at this stage. There was a great assortment of small things (antipasti) to eat. Although the temperature was nice from what I came from, it was chilly for an outdoor event, but people were well prepared and bundled. At this late hour, I’ll stop there on this report.

Southwest's ill-timed generosity

Updating my transatlantic booking: Northwest has changed all its flight numbers starting in late October. I got an itinerary update e-mail with new flight numbers, but the flight times are the same.

I view this blog as mainly about international travel, but here's an occasion to report on my domestic travel with Southwest Airlines. SWA has much in its favor: from Kansas City, they have the only non-stops to many places, all flights are the same aircraft type (no jungle jets), and they've given me enough drink coupons that I can have alcohol on all flights, even the early-morning ones. With no change fees, I can often rebook at a lower fare and have the difference as a credit for future travel. If I need to change plans, there's a potentially higher fare and I need to pay the difference, but no change fee on top of that. I can work with their open seating system so it's usually preferable to assigned seating on other airlines; they've added a new wrinkle where I need to see if I should spend $10 for EarlyBird check-in and a pre-assigned early place in line.

I endeavor to earn one award ticket per year with them, to use for the year-end holidays. Since they expire a year after being issued, I've been trying to get them issued early in the year so they're available for that use or any emergencies before that. It's a bit much even for me to take eight round trips a year to reach award level with them; in addition to car rentals, a conversion from the Choice Privileges hotel program helps to top off an award. Ideally I would convert what I needed early in the year. However, Choice has a history of devaluing their conversion rate without notice. This summer, word got out that there was a discreet notice on their Web site that they were about to do a new devaluation. I made the conversion at the old rate, noting that I would need to limit what SWA credits I would get for the rest of the year, so an award wasn't issued too early.

A trip to Baltimore (really Washington) in mid-June had not posted. Enough time passed that I figured that it would not post until I made the request online, and they allow two years to do that. I had my booking to the SlowTrav get-together in St. Louis for $30 each way, less than the price of gas, and a car rental with a coupon for next to nothing, also using a code that would get me double Southwest credit. I would be right there at two credits short of an award, and I would put in for the missing Baltimore credits in January and get the award issued.

On the curious date of September 11, nearly three months after the flight, I got an e-mail that an award had posted with those credits. So next 9/11 is the expiration date of that award, which I was aiming to use in December 2010, and I need to decide whether to use it by the expiration date or extend it for $50. I've thought of the one-year expiration and that fee as unfair, but I've learned to consider it reasonable. My previous plan was also holding me back from taking any more trips this fall, but now I'm open to doing that. I'm kicking myself for not doing the St. Louis car rental without the bonus code, so I would still be a half-credit short. It's mysterious why the SWA credit posted at this late date, but I can't say I have a grievance with them. Their program's been devalued since they offered unrestricted award trips to members who took four cheap round trips. They have a genius at keeping the program attractive, or at least one that can be worked with, as they devalue it. They're delaying the start of Rapid Rewards 2.0, which reportedly will give points based on fare paid, and I'm thinking it will be difficult for me to benefit from that.