Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Quick thoughts 4/26/2016

Went down to Orange County for the weekend to spend some time with the family.

Flew Southwest roundtrip.  Mostly leisure flyers on Saturday afternoon and Monday evening flights.  Don't fly WN as often as I used to and today the seat pitch seemed a bit close but got used to it quickly.  On the way down, had the only (or one of the only) empty middle seats, also empty middle seat on the way back home.

Visited The Lounge at SJC for the first time, despite flying out of SJC numerous times.  Went in just as the ANA passengers were leaving, the food spread was cleared out mostly, was able to grab some of the breakfast items still there, things like bacon, eggs.  Good view of the planes from the lounge.  I ordered the miso soup and the tomato soup, which never came.

Crowne Plaza Costa Mesa - fine hotel, again mostly leisure travelers over the weekend, was upgraded to a suite on the 2nd night, an interesting suite set-up with a 2nd adjoining room that is closed off if the room is being used as a regular king room, and opened up with a room with a sofabed (and no bed) + desk, tv and its own bathroom (so 2 full bathrooms) if being used as a suite.  I had booked a cash+points stay so it shows up as an award booking.  Asked for late checkout without specifying a requested time and got a 2PM checkout (vs noon) but left around 12:45PM.  Got 2 drink vouchers at the bar when being upgraded to the suite.  The service from the bartender not very friendly.  All other staff very nice.  Couldn't hear any noise from other rooms, either next door or from above.  Not sure if this is due to good soundproofing or low occupancy.

Visited the United Club at SNA, didn't even take any pictures, very small, domestic lounge in an open space setup on the 2nd floor (you can hear sounds from below in the terminal).

Random thoughts: things to not say outside Flyertalk in real life:
1. "I don't want to fly there in economy." (speaking about going to New Zealand)
2. Currently debating whether I want to spend $200 or 28,800 IHG points (32k pts -10% rebate due to the IHG MasterCard) for Intercontinental Ambassador status.  May do a post on this soon.

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