Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Dec 2022: Day 4 – Honolulu (HNL) to Los Angeles (LAX)

By Nige on Sun 18 Dec 2022 at 22:52
Type: Post
Story: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Dec 2022
Tags: American Airlines | Hilton | HNL | Honolulu | LAX | Los Angeles | Trips | USA | Waikiki

So I came to that point in my trip that I had to head back to the UK. Although the weather has been awful today, with downpours, thunder and strong winds, my trip has ended with a wonderful sunset, enjoyed on the balcony of the Hilton Waikiki Beach hotel.

That was an amazing finale. You can’t follow that sort of experience, so there was really only one thing left to do and that was to head to the airport.

I ordered an Uber at around 6:30pm and the trip to the airport wasn’t too busy; it can be a real struggle to get through the traffic on to the highway, but not tonight.

I already had my boarding cards, all the way through to Budapest, so I was good to head straight through TSA Pre-Check, which was relatively busy for Honolulu International Airport – there were at least 7 or 8 people ahead of me in the queue.

Straight up into the AA Lounge and found a comfy seat to see through the final hours of my time in Hawaii in 2022. I’m coming back at the end of Jan for another trip, but the focus right now is on Christmas back in the UK!

The flight was due to leave from Gate E6. Suggestion was that boarding may begin just before 10pm, but on the basis that the inbound flight wasn’t due to arrive until 9:30pm, I would have been surprised if that happened.

Flight: AA0298 Equip: A321Neo
Sched Depart: 22:42 Actual: 22:53
Sched Arrival: 06:15 Actual: 06:10
Takeoff: 23:13 Landing: 06:01

My plan was to sleep as much as possible on this flight. It was going to be about 5 hours of flying and I’m going to make sure I have my sleep mask and ear plugs close to hand to help achieve that.

My flight to LAX was due to leave from Gate E6, which wasn’t far from the lounge, but the expectation set was that boarding would begin 45 mins prior to departure. So I headed down to the gate with this in mind.

The cabin crew were waiting patiently by the gate. The cleaners hadn’t finished! The inbound flight had been 20+ mins late. Eventually, they boarded and a few mins later it was the turn of passengers.

I sat in 01A – I’ve been in that seat once or twice this trip. I was surprised when someone suggested to me that I may be in the wrong seat! I should have been in 01F!

That was the excitement for this flight. We pushed back about 20 mins late and taxiing took a while. During all of this I was trying to sleep. Unfortunately, the blanket provided wasn’t doing a good job at keeping my legs warm, so I felt a cold breeze around my knees. Where did I put those jeans?

I managed to get through about 3 hours of the flight, when I decided I would spend some time on my phone. Dinner had been served but one of the attendants asked me whether I would like to eat. I said I’d like some ice cream. He didn’t ask me whether I wanted any hot fudge sauce on it – darn it!

The ice cream was nice none-the-less. Beautifully sweet. The other sweet thing in my mind was the though of getting my Starbucks fix in at TBIT.

We arrived into Gate 53A and we were a few mins early. It was a fairly brisk walk through the connecting tunnel, to drop my bag off at the Flagship Lounge and then onwards to one of my favourite Starbucks’.

Follow the whole story here: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Dec 2022