Holiday USA West Coast Road Trip in Aug 2022: Day 14 – Las Vegas (LAS) to Los Angeles (LAX)

By Nige on Wed 17 Aug 2022 at 12:00
Type: Post
Story: Holiday USA West Coast Road Trip in Aug 2022
Tags: American Airlines | Hilton | Holidays | LAS | Las Vegas | LAX | Los Angeles | USA

I was up at 5am having slept pretty well.  No internet on the hotel WIFI.  Someone needs to reboot it!  Planning on catching the 7:30am shuttle to the airport, partly because (as appears to be the norm now), we can’t check in online. We headed down into breakfast at around 6:30 or so and said hello to the waitress that served us two weeks ago.  She said she recognised us when Vick mentioned this was our second visit in recent weeks.  Another decent continental breakfast was enjoyed apart from the lack of muffins!

We had planned on getting the 7:30am shuttle but decided we would be ready much earlier than that.  We moved to the 7am shuttle but the receptionist miscalculated the numbers already booked on that shuttle (max of 12), so we ended up ordering an Uber and headed into T1 that way instead.

Checking in was easy, but the check in agent wasn’t interested in engaging or providing any info on why we couldn’t check in online.  On walking away from the check in desk, it was apparent that the phot page in my passport was starting to fall out.  That underlines my thinking that the passport has been poorly prepared and might explain why it now never works at Heathrow T5 eGates.  I emailed a complaint to the Passport Office about 10 mins later and within a couple of hours I had a response – not bad.

Through TSA Pre-Check and into the Centurion Lounge on the D Concourse.  The lounge was pretty empty which may explain why they allowed us in almost 4 hours ahead of our flight (I think the max you are allowed into the lounge is 2 hours prior to your flight).  I picked up our Starbucks at a humongous price of $19 for 2 drinks!  That’s inflation for you. We wandered over to the E gates just for some exercise.  Then wandered back and Vick had gotten a little bored of the walking around the terminal!

Flight: BA5332 Equip: A321
Sched Depart: 11:15 Actual: 11:06
Sched Arrival: 12:27 Actual: 12:21
Takeoff: 11:32 Landing: 12:13

We left from Gate D8 and there wasn’t too much pushing and shoving today! Other than two Concierge Key passengers, we were on first.  Unfortunately, the two Concierge Key passengers sat in the row behind us and put their cases in without putting them upright (to maximise use of space).  I suggested to them that they could do that so that I could slip our cases in next to theirs.  Not sure the gent was that impressed, but he did it anyway.

Into seats 1D and 1F and Vick snoozed most of the flight.  Need to remember to sit on the other side of the aircraft, since the normal take off flight path provides an amazing view of the strip. We landed early but (of course) our gate was blocked, so we had to wait for 15 mins before arriving at Gate 45.  Didn’t take long for us to be off and heading to the AA Flagship First Lounge.  Lots of work going on at the end of T4 – all of the gates at the end are currently closed – I expect this is part of the proposed new look of T4.

Follow the whole story here: Holiday USA West Coast Road Trip in Aug 2022