Greetings from Philadelphia – mythical home to one of the most repulsive commercials of all time, from a company that makes only repulsive ads (just remember y’all, one need not be a vegetarian to stay away from Carl’s Jr.; one need only be a human being so repulsed by their advertising that they will commit themselves – no matter how hungry they may be at the time – to avoid that shithole. . . you can do this, you know you aren’t missing anything. I believe I am not the only one to see it this way, not by a long shot...)
Phew. I like Philly, but this trip really represents a low. My being here today signifies one of the most stoopit endeavors I have ever undertaken. I am here because I needed to fly 5000 more miles on United Airlines before the year ends in order to make 1K status, and a transcontinental routing through Philadelphia was cheapest.
Yes, that’s right! I am here solely because I needed a cheap place to fly. I flew here Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, I have brunch with a chum, then I get on the train to NYC so I can get on a plane at LaGuardia going to Dulles Airport in Northern VA. At Dulles, I connect to a flight out to San Francisco. 5000+ miles in 24 or so hours for no other purpose but making status on an airline.
No one is more repulsed by this than I am. It is repulsive enough on paper, but imagine actually being the person doing it! It is my ass that is to be besored. It is my weekend to be largely wasted. It is my dough spent on this whole stoopit episode. And for what? Airline Status? Yes. Yeah Yeah Yeah. Heap upon me all scorn you can imagine. If you can think it, I likely deserve it. Galileo! Galileo! Galileo Figaro! Magnifico-o-o-o!
Spare me my life for this monstrosity!
There really is a real reason for this, and one which I know justifies it for me (um, I am doing it; duh, yeah I have a “good” reason.) Perhaps it will for you.
Status really doesn’t mean “Status: rank, standing, position, or grade” in this case. There is a little of that, but that isn’t why I am doing this. Surely you know me better. In this case, status = upgrades. Upgrades baby. First class & business class. In recent years, it has become all but impossible to get an upgrade on United without top tier, 1K status. 1K requires 100,000 miles flown in a calendar year, and I have 95k and change. I could either let the opportunity slide, and go through another year stuffed in coach, OR I could shell out a little dough, use some hotel points to stay the night in an east coast hotel, and set aside a weekend to get back to the 100k threshold.
When I started my current job, it was with the understanding that the travel would be minimal. That isn’t how things have been a rollin’. The 95k I do have on United are almost all work related. I would say about 90k to be exact. That is around 7500 miles a month, just on United. If I average 2 visits to NYC a month, that covers down, back, and down. I have also used a few other airlines to fly between NYC and NorCal, so 7500 a month is really not all that far off.
Think of what it would mean to my quest to avoid feeling like shit if I could get even HALF of my trips between coasts to be in an upgraded seat! It makes a GIANT difference y’all. I still get home from an upgraded trip feeling like crap, but nowhere near as bad as I do from trips spent in coach. Even when I can’t get upgraded, top status greatly reduces the chances of me getting a middle seat or a seat that doesn’t recline, and it greatly increases the chance I will get an empty seat next to me, or at least a seat in United’s Economy Plus.
Economy Plus is probably the #1 reason I fly United. If you have status, you can get a seat in that section (9 times out of 10), and that seat has about 5 extra inches of room. That 5 inches makes a big difference y’all. A BIG difference. That section also has a much lower likelihood of having a kid kicking your seat behind you, in full recline in front of you, or screaming like an air horn in your immediate proximity. Making it highly likely I will get in Economy Plus would be reason enough to make this trip for the 100k.
However, I will consider Economy Plus my baseline conquest. Keep in mind, San Francisco Airport is a hub for United Airlines (as is LA & Chicago – places I visit often.) This means they have direct flights from SFO to both JFK in NYC and Newark. This is very important for me. Most of my trips out east are to visit clients in Northern New Jersey, and if I can get a direct flight home late in the evening out of Newark, I can get a full day in with client, then catch the last flight out – which United has going out at 6pm. This saves me from having to spend extra nights away from home. I am going to find myself on United often if only because of the existence of the 6pm direct flight out of Newark to SFO (there is one later one on Continental, which I have also taken – and may yet still, but this is still the minority of the time.)
When I do have time and don’t need out of NJ in the evening, United has loads of flights direct out of JFK, and these flights are configured with lots of business class seats. Again, this all kind of adds up. Tis true, that if I have all the time in the world and can go to JFK for a return, I prefer to use JetBlue so I can go directly to Oakland, but this doesn’t always work out either. If there is any little hiccup on JetBlue and a flight gets screwed up, I get stuck. This is another reason I gotta keep United status in the holster. When you have the top tier, you often don’t even need to call to get re-routed, they do it for you and then call you. This may seem like whitey pampering, which it would be if it only happened to me once in a lifetime, but it happens all the f’ing time. It is a huge help.
Keep in mind – my aim is TO GET HOME. I want to be at home as soon as possible. I love NYC and travel and so on, but I never get to see it on these trips anyway. I want to spend as little time away from those kitties of mine as possible. Again, having top status helps. I get to go to the first class check-in, even if I don’t get the upgrade. This means I can show up at least a half an hour later than I need to on other airlines. That makes a large difference baby. I don’t need to plan to be at the airport 2 hours early, I can get there an hour early and I make it most the time. Status gets me into the fast lane at security. I also get to board the plane first – which means I will always get my bags on the plane (keep in mind, if you don’t need to check bags, it is WAY WAY WAY easier to do standby flights and/or take offers when they are oversold.)
I actually could get way nerdier about why the status thing counts and why this weekend trip to Philly is not really as wasteful as it seems. I hope I have made some shell of a case for why I am where I am. I am catching up on reading, writing, and visiting my aforementioned chum. This all counts to boot. Just know that I am ready to discuss freely and openly the pros & cons of what I am doing. I think there is good reason – even with all the whitey guilt over environmental issues I feel – to be doing this, and it ain’t just so I can look cooler than the poor scum in the Rosa Parks lines at the airport.
Maybe you remain unmoved by my rationale. I guess I can understand that to some degree, however I just can’t relate to it. In fact, to disagree with me here likely makes you a real asshole. Come to think of it, I am SURE it does. Well, I promise to drop you a Pamprin as I breeze past you in the security line on the way to having my ass warm-up seat 2B while you catch influenza back in the hybrid Iron Maiden/Petri dish they call 19E. Suck it ingrate.
Haw Haw. Laff.