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

By Nige on Sun 13 Nov 2022 at 23:38
Type: Post
Story: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2022
Tags: American Airlines | HNL | Honolulu | LAX | Los Angeles | Trips

My Uber arrived – it was a comfortable Toyota Land Cruiser, with a brand new driver to the Uber game.  He was a big Hawaiian from the North of the island who worked in construction but had decided to do some driving at the weekends.  First call today brought him down to Honolulu and he’s been here ever since!  He was hoping for a ride to take him back up north.  He was a very pleasant guy and when he dropped me off I wished him well in his new weekend career.

Flight: AA0298 Equip: A321Neo
Sched Depart: 23:59 Actual: 23:59
Sched Arrival: 07:31 Actual: 07:06
Takeoff: 12:18 Landing: 06:59

I arrived at Terminal 2 at around 8pm and although I didn’t have a TSA Pre Check mark on my boarding pass, standard security didn’t take long to deal with. Up into the Sakura lounge and I settled down for the few hours I would be there.

I popped out to walk through the cultural gardens.  It didn’t look as impressive as I remember it.  But that might just be me with Rose tinted glasses on. Nice all the same.

The lounge turfed everyone out at 11pm, although there were not many passengers left by then.  We were due to depart from Gate C2 so I slowly wandered up there and then realised how far it was.  I had scoffed at the suggestion on a sign that it might take 10-15 mins to get to the C gates!

Once on board, it was a struggle to stay awake.  I think I had prepared fairly well with my sleep during the day to be ready for this moment, but it was still a challenge. I think my body just has its own clock and once I have progressed passed my normal sleeping hour, it complains like crazy!

Luckily we pushed back on time and although taxiing seemed to take a long time, with the 4 hrs 45 mins expected for the flight, the captain expected we should arrive a little early.  The earlier the better from my perspective.  The better the chance of me getting a Starbucks at LAX.  With only an hour between flights and my experience of Starbucks queues at LAX, I’d be struggling to get a coffee and reach the gate in good time. More on that later on!

Unfortunately, I had another goon sat next to me who insisted on putting his feet on the wall.  He even fell asleep in that position.  That did give rise to a very funny moment early on in the flight, when he dislodged his feet with some sort of movement as a result of his dream. In that moment, he gave me a sly look to see whether I had noticed. He was obviously concerned it made him look a bit foolish. Bear in mind we had not spoken at all during our time in row 1. But I had already established a very clear opinion of him.

I dozed as long as I could. Although I didn’t really sleep, I obviously did enough to pass the time. One hour turned into another. So I felt like the end was within sight at 90 mins to go. At this point my neighbour in 01D put his feet down and I took the opportunity to use the facilities. It’s almost a passive aggressive behaviour isn’t it? Although I could ask him to put his feet down, why should I even need to?

Listening to music and playing games on my phone killed the remaining time and we were soon arriving into Gate 51B. Arriving into Terminal 5 wasn’t a bad place to arrive into on the basis there was a Starbucks in Terminal 6 and that might be my best bet.

In the end since I was walking off the aircraft about 20 mins earlier than expected, it made me think I’d have time to head back to T4, drop my bag in the Flagship Lounge, head to TBIT for a Starbucks and get back to T4 in time for my flight leaving from Gate 47B. That proved not to be as straightforward as it should have been!

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