Steve Uno is the Master Mind and major contributor to this blog, as we either travel together for pleasure or Steve is traveling for work. This time I am taking a short trip without Steve. I titled this post Reminiscent Journey, but I could have also titled it, quest for Aadvantage Executive Platinum before June 28th. Somehow, Reminiscent Journey sounds more interesting and there is some truth to it as well.
As Steve and I have been traveling quite a bit lately and have some extended weekend (six-day) trips ahead, I realized attaining Executive Platinum would be worthwhile and just barely attainable without any additional flights on my part. Steve is always the top elite level and I get the advantage of traveling with him and as long as our reservation is booked together, I travel with all the perks of his status. This year, American Airlines has changed their Aadvantage program and while it used to take 100,000 miles of travel in a calendar year to attain Executive Platinum, now you need 100,000 EQM. That stands for Elite Qualifying Miles. As an incentive for people to travel in Business Class or First Class, you get two EQM for every mile you travel in Business or First Class. Therefore, I would only need 50,000 miles of travel to attain Executive Platinum. So with that in mind, I decided to come up with a couple of short fun trips to assure I would attain Executive Platinum for myself. The only requirement in my mind was, I had to leave no earlier than Monday morning, so I could still be able to drop Steve off at the airport and be back no later than Friday afternoon so I could pick Steve up at the airport on his return.
Choosing my trips was actually fun and I liked the one I chose for the first week in April, I decided to do it again during the first week in May. The only thing I didn’t plan on was that Steve would be working from home this upcoming week. No Problem! Our roles are being reversed this week. We will be staying at the Orlando Airport Hyatt on Sunday night, so I can be right at the airport for MY 6:30AM departure on Monday morning. Steve would disagree that our roles are being reversed as he would put it, he is still working this upcoming week and I’m NOT! However you want to term it, Steve will drive home from the Airport Hyatt on Monday morning and then pick me up at the airport on Friday afternoon.
During my “short trip,” this week, I will take ten flights and log about 15,000 miles. I chose my flights very carefully. I decided on two main destinations, San Juan, Puerto Rico and Honolulu, Hawaii. Very early on in my flying career, as a pilot, I flew to St. Thomas and also San Juan. My layover in San Juan was in the Isla Verde area, right near the airport. During the late 80’s and early 90’s I flew to Honolulu as well. Seeing each of these places for a day sounded to me to be a fun way of reminiscing of times gone by. Also, the flights I chose were on nice aircraft with comfortable sleeper seats on many of the legs. I would also like to say that I chose as many flights as I could that offered ice cream sundaes for dessert.
Here is my itinerary for this upcoming week:
Orlando-Charlotte, NC Monday 6:30AM-8:10AM (A330-200) sleeper seat
Charlotte- San Juan PR Monday 9:50AM-1:24PM (A-330-200) sleeper seat
San Juan PR-Miami Monday 2:27PM-5:25PM (B-737) Standard First Class seat
Miami- Dallas/Ft. Monday 8:14PM-10:39PM (B-767-300) Sleeper Seat
Overnight Grand Hyatt DFW Airport (Hyatt Grand Bed)
Dallas/Ft. Worth-Honolulu Tuesday 11:05AM-2:39PM (B-767-300) Sleeper Seat
Overnight Hyatt Regency Waikiki (Hyatt Grand Bed)
Honolulu-Dallas/Ft. Worth Wednesday 5:40PM-6:15AM (B-767-300) Sleeper Seat
DFW-Miami Thursday 7:10AM-11:01AM (B-767-300) Sleeper Seat
Miami-San Juan Thursday 12:40PM-3:13PM (B-737) Standard First Class Seat
Overnight Hampton Inn Isla Verde ( a bed)
San Juan-Miami Friday 10:28AM-1:15PM (B-757 int’l) Sleeper-ish Seat
Miami-Orlando Friday 3:28PM-4:29PM (B-757) Standard First Class Seat
I plan on doing my best on posting during the week. As most of the flights I am taking are on mainly Internationally used widebody aircraft, they don’t offer wifi on the flights. I really don’t know how much time I will have with good reliable high speed wifi access on the ground when I am not sleeping. I also might want to do a little bit of shopping from time to time, which should come to no surprise if you know me.
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Your story-telling style is awesome, keep up the good work!