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Flying To and Around Europe

April 30, 2016

NPS flies all the time, and our current airline of choice is Virgin America. We’re sad about the upcoming merger with Alaska which will make yet another crap job of a platypus of an airline. Remember what happened to both United and Continental when they merged? Disaster. But that’s all domestic. We’re talking Europe in this post.

We aimed the points firehose at Virgin America this year and accumulated vast piles of points which we have cashed in to fly West for college looking and East to Europe. Getting a Virgin Atlantic ticket in upper class with Virgin America points was non-trivial but not that onerous.

NPS has flown Virgin Atlantic across the pond and back twice. Upper class does not suck.

Virgin Atlantic

https://twitter.com/noplasticshower/status/718932118009733125

Our special ops NPS spy also flew upper class but 10 days later.

Lufthansa

Internally, after some nice train rides (including the Disney Eurostar to Lille), it was back in the air for Frankfurt to Prague. Being a Star Alliance Gold member does not do diddly for seating on Lufthansa.

When in Frankfurt there is always a large chance of bus.

KLM

To get from Prague to AMS, we flew KLM which was very Dutch about the whole thing. Most uncomfortable flight of the entire trip.

The AMS hop was not much better, but the seating mistake was our fault.

It was nice to get to Oslo and find some modern world again.

We ended up in Bergen via train.

SAS

Complex scheduling craziness ended up with SAS from Bergen feeding Air France. Avoid this complexity even if it costs more cash.

Air France

Then it was Oslo to Paris on Air France, which just plain sucked. The flight was fine, but they lost one of our key bags for 4 days. When they found it, we were already back in the states. Amazing that it took Air France so long to rectify their mistake. They’ll be paying for some clothing and for the very expensive VAT refunds we could not get when we left London since the goods were not with us. Big fail Air France, you are now off the list.

https://twitter.com/noplasticshower/status/724971027940315136

Virgin Atlantic

After 20 days in Europe and perhaps just a few too many cocktails the night before, it was back home on an 8 hour flight from London. Upper class continues not to suck.

Access to the Virgin Atlantic Club comes along with an upper class ticket as does an interesting checkin procedure at Heathrow.

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Manchester Airport Shower Secrets

September 2, 2013

I flew United through Manchester on my way to Munich. Why? Because an upgrade could be guaranteed at time of ticket purchase. Those lie flat seats are too good to pass up when you travel too much. And the way United treats its frequent fliers these days, it’s best not to bet on an upgrade ever. Honest.

The flight over here was just fine on a reconfigured 757-200 with a decent BusinessFirst section. The only problem was we arrived early leaving even less time for sleep.

That transformed an already problematic four hour layover into an even longer 5 hour layover. I decided to seek a shower.

The good news is there is a Radisson Blu hotel situated between Terminal 2 (where United flies in) and Terminal 1 (where Lufthansa flies out). Popping the security perimeter for a shower is easy enough, especially if you are the second guy off the plane. Customs was a breeze.

The Manchester Airport skywalk.

The Manchester Airport skywalk.

The showers in the Radisson Blu are located on floor 0 in the gym/pool facility. I was the only person there.

Changing room.

Changing room.

The shower itself was great. Plenty of hot water and tons of room. In fact, the shower facility itself is better than the Senator Lounge shower in Frankfurt. Of course, United has no Arrivals Lounge here, but what do you expect?! It’s United!

Non-plastic shower.

Non-plastic shower.

The only problem was getting back into the security perimeter through the awful security line at Terminal 1. The line was very long. No TSApre here! Shoes off, belt off, laptop out, plastic bag of liquids separated. You know the drill (and it sucks).

Security nonsense aside, a shower on arrival in Europe is just what the doctor ordered. And the Serviceair shared lounge in Terminal 1 (the Lufthansa lounge) is just fine for waiting out the rest of the layover, especially since I am clean.

Lufthansa seems to have put me in a middle seat on the way to Munich (I switched to a window since no aisle seats are available). Wow, the star alliance is just awesome. Business class half way.

Posted by gem
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