Off to Chicago

Off to Chicago, Frankfurt, Brussels, Dubai, Amman, Cairo, London and JFK!

With another hall pass from my sweetie, I'm off today for nearly four days of flying around the world.   The genesis of this trip was BA's ridiculously cheap CAI-HNL Business Class fare that lets me earn BA Executive Club Gold and second One World Emerald status in one roundtrip.  But how to get to Cairo.   Why not Emirates new 77W First Suites which Emirates operates once a day to both Brussels and Geneva?   Without the time to reposition to CMB, fellow Flyertalker batmandds and idea decided on the cheapest ex-BRU which was much cheaper than ex-GVA.  The cheapest fare we found was to Amman.    Close enough to Cairo and it gave us most of the day in Jordan with enough time to drive down to Petra and back for flights out that evening. 

Saturday morning just before 6am is a great time to drive to LAX.  And easy parking on the lower level of the T4 garage.

I picked this flight as it was cheap ($18 after my free $100 AA Gift Card from Amex) and pretty much guaranteed that my EXP upgrade would clear.

AA's 738 still has excellent leg room although the slider seats that I detest.

Need prood that AA doesn't clean the blankets before they repackage?   No idea what was caused that to stick together, but I didn't really want to investigate too closely.  

It's been months since I've flown an AA midcon but today's flight was excellent, the blanket thingy notwithstanding.   Cabin crews can make or break a flight and today's crew and especially our First Class FA Nicolo was terrific, starting with PDBs.

Another gorgeous SoCal morning.  See you in three and a half days.

Today's choices were steel cut oatmeal or omelet.

Surprisingl, my omelet was very good. 

Heading out over a frigid Lake Michigan before turning back to land.

And into Gate H17 and the lovely Chicago decor.

Heading out for the long trek to the C concourse of Terminal 1.