In yesterday’s newsletter, I mentioned that I was in Las Vegas for the first annual IMM Lux conference. It was great to catch up with old friends and make new ones. But when I found out that my meetings wrapped up at 5pm, I called American Airlines and changed my ticket to a day earlier. A lot happened so I thought I would write a trip report.
I was going to cancel my ticket and buy a new one on American’s app but I didn’t want to deal with inputting the trip credit. When I called AA, I could tell right away that the agent wasn’t that swift. The first sign was her tone of voice and second, she was coughing into the phone without hitting the mute button.
I told her what I wanted to do so she canceled my ticket. But when she went to book a new one, she said it was going to be $191. I had just looked online a minute before and there was Basic Economy fare for $161. I said, “How about that fare?” She said that because my other ticket was a regular fare, she didn’t think I wanted Basic Economy. I rarely ever book Basic Economy but since I knew I was leaving in a few hours, she agreed the smart decision would be to book it since I have elite status and the only prohibitive feature is I wouldn’t be able to change my flight or cancel for a credit. It’s truly non-refundable. She started booking it.
When she asked for my credit card for $161, I asked about the $76 trip credit from the flight I had just canceled. She said it wasn’t showing because I was booking Basic Economy. If I’d known this, I wouldn’t have wasted my time dealing with her on the phone. I could have done it all on my own.
To make matters worse, it turns out the agent never even canceled the original ticket, which is why I think she couldn’t apply the credit. Thankfully I checked my account when I landed to see how many miles I had earned and my reservation was still there. I canceled it in two clicks. If I hadn’t happened to log on, I would have no doubt lost the $76 credit.
But back to Vegas: My conference was at Resorts World, which is a $4.3 billion hotel at the north end of the Strip with three hotels in it: Las Vegas Hilton with 1,678 rooms, Conrad Las Vegas at Resorts World with 1,496 rooms and Crockfords Las Vegas with 332 rooms. It’s a beautiful place but it was empty. It felt like a ghost town.
The organizers put us up at The Venetian, which is 1.2 miles up the road. The Venetian was quiet on Wednesday but on Thursday it was a lot busier. What made me laugh is that when I arrived and after I had checked in (there was no line), I got in the elevator and realized I hadn’t followed my own advice. I wrote a tip just last week titled: Pro Tip: The Secret Hotel Elevator Hack That Saves You Time in Large Hotels.
Wouldn’t you know I was assigned the top floor of my elevator bank so I was just shaking my head in disbelief. Fortunately, the hotel wasn’t busy so I didn’t have to stop at too many floors.
A nasty rumor I heard at the conference was that we needed to get to the airport extra early because TSA was striking because of the government shutdown. I told everyone it was BS and when I rolled up to security at 6pm, I was happy it was empty. I mean empty. Agents all told me it’s business as usual for now. If the government shutdown goes on for a while, then things will change.
I use the Flighty app when I travel so I knew our aircraft had landed early. So I was hoping to get into L.A. by 9pm. I watched the Yankees game at the airport bar with two of my friends from the conference and they were going on to Sydney so I gave one of them my upgrade since she had a long night ahead of her. Hers wasn’t even the longest. The guy seated next to us at the bar was not only going to Sydney but he was then transferring to Auckland and then to another smaller city in New Zealand. I felt for him.
Our flight ended up being delayed because of crew scheduling so we had to wait an hour for a new crew. The pilot said that they were all supposed to spend the night in Vegas but they got the call to go to L.A. I felt for them, too. What’s interesting is that the pilot announced that he wanted the flight attendants to stay in their seats the whole time even though there was no turbulence. I’m pretty sure he was just helping them out since they must have been tired from flying Oklahoma City to Dallas to Vegas to LAX.
They also rolled up with Burger King and Subway bags so they obviously stopped to grab food before getting on the plane. I can’t blame them but I wish AA would do a better job scheduling.
I looked at the seat map and the plane was wide open in the back. So instead of taking my friend’s seat in row 19, I went right to row 31 and told my other friend to do the same. We had no one in front of us or behind us so it was like flying on a private plane.
Our flight time was just 46 minutes and when I landed, my wife texted me to say that our house had shaken so hard she thought there had been a huge earthquake but couldn’t find any information about it. I hadn’t received any alerts but I checked X and saw that a large explosion and fire had occurred at Chevron’s El Segundo refinery. The facility is one of the largest on the West Coast processing up to 290,000 barrels of crude oil per day and primarily producing gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. LAX is nearby and I saw the flames while taxiing (photo above). Fortunately, no one was injured but I was extra glad that I had changed my flight and was heading home to be with my family.
I was trying to get home as soon as possible so I ordered an Uber Black so I didn’t have to deal with going to LAXit. But the wait time was 21 minutes, which was crazy long. I tried Lyft too. Same. BTW: Always check both Lyft and Uber prices because they can fluctuate wildly between the two. I walked all the way to Terminal 7 to see if that would help but it didn’t. Instead I ended up going up the escalator to Departures and jumped on the first hotel shuttle I found. Hilton. I tipped the driver and while we were driving I ordered an Uber or a Lyft (can’t remember which one was cheaper) and the price was a third of the fare from LAX and I got home quicker.
