Tier Point Run to Cancun in Jan 2014: Day 4 – Las Vegas (LAS) to Los Angeles (LAX)

Woke at 4am – thinking about work who are doing a dry run today. Emails seen this morning so far don’t suggest any issues so I am happy.

Tried checking in for my 7pm flight, but it won’t let me. So may either ring AA later this morning to see what’s wrong, or go to the airport to check in.

Rang AA on their customer service number and they checked my booking and all looks ok – they don’t do telephone check ins but they can put me through to aa.com.

They did this and they acknowledged there was a technical issue with the booking that was preventing online check in (which is helpful – NOT).

So I’ll have to go to there airport early – probably aim to head out on the midday shuttle in that case. Why do I seem to now have problems with my AA flight bookings?

At Starbucks now – I’ve already worked out my routine here in Henderson! I take my laptop over and get my coffee and sit for 30 mins or so in the store. I’ll head back later, finish off packing and will be off to the airport on the midday shuttle to check in.

Checked in at the airport and the agent (who was a lovely woman from CA), printed all of my boarding cards out in one go. I had to acknowledge that I was only staying in Cancun for 1 hour, and I went through the “why?” exchange with her.

We did have a laugh though – it’s nice that the things we do can brighten the day for others! Hopefully they are laughing with me, rather than laughing at me – the jury is out on that one.

The driver of the hotel shuttle was also very interested in finding out about optimising travel for status and benefits etc. She is collecting miles with South West, so she said she would look up FlyerTalk so there may be another convert on the way.

Interestingly the check in agent at LAS offered to put me on standby for the earlier LAS-LAX flight at 5pm, which surprised me since I didn’t think I would be allowed to do that. Anyway, my 7pm flight looks like it is on time at present so I’m not overly concerned whether I get on the earlier flight or not. Nice touch though.

My flight from LAX-MIA is still looking likely to be late due to knock on delays, but nothing too serious at present.

Back in the Centurion Lounge just now – same lunch as yesterday – Chicken Cacciatore which is very nice. I’ll circulate around the terminal taking a few photos later on for something to do!

I ended up on the earlier flight having been successful with my standby request (not that I really requested it to be honest) but that helped me get to LAX over 30 mins early. The same thing happened in mileage run one a few days ago. The earlier flight was delayed by about 2 hours, and the later flight was not far off on time.

Anyway, with my standby request I ended up in a window seat which was fine, and I was dead lucky due to the runway we took off on and the plane banking to the left which gave me a fab view of the strip. Now my phone camera (Samsung S4) is absolutely rubbish – I’ve got it on anti-shake etc, and it’s struggling to cope with the low light, but I got some much better shots this time.

We arrived at gate 40 directly opposite the Admiral’s Club so it took me all of 2 mins to get into the Flagship Lounge. Managed to fit in a Skype call to Vick and then grabbed some dinner ahead of the long flight to Miami on which I intend on trying to get some sleep.

All ok so far!

Follow the whole story here: Tier Point Run to Cancun in Jan 2014