Booking
Once again a trans-pacific crossing on Business Class thanks to the wonder of miles. This time around, I flew SIN-LAX-YVR on another one way mileage ticket, and initially I had my return for the 28th, however I found some award availability for YVR-LAX-SIN in April 29th and SIN-ICN-YVR on January which were fixed dates for me. A quick call, or what seems quick but takes about an hour, had those seats booked. I was in a hurry to ticket the flights as at that time the LAX-SIN sector was to be flown by the Airbus 380 in Business Class which for the day was a very attractive proposition.
Plane Changes
As the Japan Earthquake struck, the Airbus 380 was pulled out of that flight, however the other flights available that time mainly the Vancouver – Shanghai – Singapore flight was no longer available, so I had to settle with the six hour layover in LAX and traveling on the 77W, something which I don’t mind but not worth the trouble for to travel all the way to LAX. I kept on checking for availability to change it, and I actually was just looking through the seatmap on expertflyer once when I found out my plane had changed to the 747-400 only for that flight. I got even more excited, and immediately changed my seat to 17K which was available at that time, one of the best J seats on the SQ 744. I looked at it closely, and found irregularities often as SingaporeAir.com would always mention it’s a Boeing 777-300ER, and occasionally the flight wasn’t even listed on expertflyer.com. That got me slightly worried, however eventually an email was sent advising of the plane change, just as I was going to change my flight as availability just opened up. With the email I was quite content that SQ won’t be changing my plane much further.
Getting to Los Angeles
The time came, and after a morning arrival from Vancouver on Air Canada 550, I went straight to the TBIT and through security. At security, the staff did say that Air Canada doesn’t fly from here and you have to go to the AC terminal, which I do believe was terminal 3 but never actually got that confirmed. I had to advise her that in fact my flight was on Singapore Airlines, and after verifying my boarding pass more carefully she let me go.
Security lines were very short in general, with no one in front of me, which made sense as it was too early for flights to Europe and Asia, the two biggest places I thought flights would be going to from this terminal.
Lounge
I headed straight to the star alliance lounge, and checked out the lounge walking through its entirety to choose where to sit. On first impressions the lounge was actually very good, certainly better than some of the other lounges I have experienced, and found a nice place which had 4 seats all to myself throughout the visit. I was advised during the lounge that a Singapore Airlines agent will come looking for you to finish off the checking-in process, which I came to interpret as just giving me my new Singapore Airlines boarding pass.
I went for some snacks, and over the period of about five hours and thirty minutes I had about two sandwiches, some nuts, a lot of water and some nachos (doritos) if I remember correctly. Throughout the time I spent surfing the internet, catching up on the recent airline and general news as I had been very busy for the past month or so from university. I also made a few final calls in Vancouver just to say that I was going now and wouldn’t be back for another four months.
During this time of course I heard my name being called by a passing by agent and was surprised how she managed to identify me. She said I walked through the entire lounge trying to identify who it could be and then I thought it was you. She asked me for my bag tags, old boarding pass, visa and a frequent flyer number. The bag tags and boarding pass were easy, as she immediately replaced the boarding pass. I gave her my frequent flyer number, but couldn’t find my visa. She waited for about five minutes whilst I checked every paper, and I found all my old Singapore visas, just not the latest. I told her I’d show it to her on my laptop, then I’d print it out for arrival in Singapore which she was content with.
As the time approached to leave the lounge, I thought I’d get to the gate early and request for a seat where there wasn’t anyone sitting as by this time you would hope that everyone has checked in. I found an agent in the lounge and asked her if there were any pairs of seats empty in the upper deck to which she replied 17C remains empty till Tokyo. Being content with that she also advised that she is going to announce boarding now and you may want to proceed to the gate.
As I walked to the gate, boarding hadn’t commenced yet even though it was obvious we were all called from the lounge. The security officer whispered something to the gate agent, and very quickly as they were pre-boarding wheelchair passengers we were asked to board as well without a formal boarding announcement. As I approached the aircraft, there was this weird feeling, once again sitting on the upper deck of the Boeing 747, and this time I’d be going home rather than University which I did on the way out. I boarded, turned right and went straight up the stairs to take my seat after putting all my belongings in the overhead bin but keeping my digital camera with me on the side storage.
Once again a trans-pacific crossing on Business Class thanks to the wonder of miles. This time around, I flew SIN-LAX-YVR on another one way mileage ticket, and initially I had my return for the 28th, however I found some award availability for YVR-LAX-SIN in April 29th and SIN-ICN-YVR on January which were fixed dates for me. A quick call, or what seems quick but takes about an hour, had those seats booked. I was in a hurry to ticket the flights as at that time the LAX-SIN sector was to be flown by the Airbus 380 in Business Class which for the day was a very attractive proposition.
Plane Changes
As the Japan Earthquake struck, the Airbus 380 was pulled out of that flight, however the other flights available that time mainly the Vancouver – Shanghai – Singapore flight was no longer available, so I had to settle with the six hour layover in LAX and traveling on the 77W, something which I don’t mind but not worth the trouble for to travel all the way to LAX. I kept on checking for availability to change it, and I actually was just looking through the seatmap on expertflyer once when I found out my plane had changed to the 747-400 only for that flight. I got even more excited, and immediately changed my seat to 17K which was available at that time, one of the best J seats on the SQ 744. I looked at it closely, and found irregularities often as SingaporeAir.com would always mention it’s a Boeing 777-300ER, and occasionally the flight wasn’t even listed on expertflyer.com. That got me slightly worried, however eventually an email was sent advising of the plane change, just as I was going to change my flight as availability just opened up. With the email I was quite content that SQ won’t be changing my plane much further.
Getting to Los Angeles
The time came, and after a morning arrival from Vancouver on Air Canada 550, I went straight to the TBIT and through security. At security, the staff did say that Air Canada doesn’t fly from here and you have to go to the AC terminal, which I do believe was terminal 3 but never actually got that confirmed. I had to advise her that in fact my flight was on Singapore Airlines, and after verifying my boarding pass more carefully she let me go.
Security lines were very short in general, with no one in front of me, which made sense as it was too early for flights to Europe and Asia, the two biggest places I thought flights would be going to from this terminal.
Lounge
I headed straight to the star alliance lounge, and checked out the lounge walking through its entirety to choose where to sit. On first impressions the lounge was actually very good, certainly better than some of the other lounges I have experienced, and found a nice place which had 4 seats all to myself throughout the visit. I was advised during the lounge that a Singapore Airlines agent will come looking for you to finish off the checking-in process, which I came to interpret as just giving me my new Singapore Airlines boarding pass.
I went for some snacks, and over the period of about five hours and thirty minutes I had about two sandwiches, some nuts, a lot of water and some nachos (doritos) if I remember correctly. Throughout the time I spent surfing the internet, catching up on the recent airline and general news as I had been very busy for the past month or so from university. I also made a few final calls in Vancouver just to say that I was going now and wouldn’t be back for another four months.
During this time of course I heard my name being called by a passing by agent and was surprised how she managed to identify me. She said I walked through the entire lounge trying to identify who it could be and then I thought it was you. She asked me for my bag tags, old boarding pass, visa and a frequent flyer number. The bag tags and boarding pass were easy, as she immediately replaced the boarding pass. I gave her my frequent flyer number, but couldn’t find my visa. She waited for about five minutes whilst I checked every paper, and I found all my old Singapore visas, just not the latest. I told her I’d show it to her on my laptop, then I’d print it out for arrival in Singapore which she was content with.
As the time approached to leave the lounge, I thought I’d get to the gate early and request for a seat where there wasn’t anyone sitting as by this time you would hope that everyone has checked in. I found an agent in the lounge and asked her if there were any pairs of seats empty in the upper deck to which she replied 17C remains empty till Tokyo. Being content with that she also advised that she is going to announce boarding now and you may want to proceed to the gate.
As I walked to the gate, boarding hadn’t commenced yet even though it was obvious we were all called from the lounge. The security officer whispered something to the gate agent, and very quickly as they were pre-boarding wheelchair passengers we were asked to board as well without a formal boarding announcement. As I approached the aircraft, there was this weird feeling, once again sitting on the upper deck of the Boeing 747, and this time I’d be going home rather than University which I did on the way out. I boarded, turned right and went straight up the stairs to take my seat after putting all my belongings in the overhead bin but keeping my digital camera with me on the side storage.
Comment