It all started with a notification from United airlines that the Dreamliner portion of our recent trip to Vegas (IAH to SFO) was delayed by 1 hour and 26 minutes. Given that our entire layover in San Francisco was only 1 hour and 20 minutes I knew we had a problem.
This was around 4:30 in the morning. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 7:00 AM on Thursday, the wife and I had booked a room on Wyndham points at a hotel next to the airport so we wouldn't have to drive in. Even in my bleary-eyed state I knew we were looking at some booking gymnastics to eventually arrive at Las Vegas sometime that day.
I should have known there would be problems, after all, we were trying to get a flight on the Dreamliner, an airplane that's got a notoriously sketchy performance record as Boeing and it's partner airlines continue to work out the bugs. Fortunately, that early in the morning, the call to United's MileagePlus service center only required about a 5 minute "hold time" before I was directly connected to an agent. After explaining the situation the agent agreed that, yes, we were going to have to do some creative re-routing to make things work.
After about 20 minutes of searching and looking (including exploring the option of a US Airways first class indirect flight through Phoenix that departed at 5:55 AM) we decided that the best option was for us to throw away our BusinessFirst agenda heading to Las in Vegas and settle for a direct flight with United in Economy Plus. The difference in miles was re-deposited into our account, and we eventually made it to LAS about 2 hours behind schedule.
While we weren't able to get a flight leg on the Dream(Nightmare)Liner, we did get to finally experience United's A320 economy experience with the new SlimLine seats. My overall impression of those is not good. Not only are the seats very hard, but the armrests are not near long enough and it's almost impossible to get in a comfortable sitting position for a 3 hour flight. Rumor is those seats will get better with time as they 'break in'. We'll see. Right now I'd advise avoiding them if possible in favor of 739 or -8 service if available.
The A320 we were on had Wi-Fi available, but I didn't purchase it because I've heard the signal is dodgy. This rumor was confirmed on both legs as people who did buy the system constantly had it dropped on them, forcing the purser to have to reset the signal, causing long delays in availability.
When we arrived in Las Vegas we had a quick cab ride to Treasure Island, where we were immediately placed in our room despite arriving before check-in time. TI is a nice hotel, but very busy and they do charge a $28/day "resort fee" if you want to use any amenities whatsoever so be sure to include that in the price of your room.
Even worse, on this trip, I got hit with either a stomach bug or food poisoning on Saturday, which meant that I spent most of the weekend in my room either lying in bed or visiting our bathroom. On a positive note: this kept me out of the sports books which is a good thing considering the state of my NCAA bracket. That stomach ailment probably saved me a few hundred dollars in bets I would have made on losing teams.
Back among the living on Monday evening, we did get to see Mystere, which is an older Cirque du Solei show that has a couple of weak acts but some incredibly strong ones as well. The strength and balance men in the show are amazing as is the trapeze act. It's a show I highly recommend. Obviously our food during this trip was a wash-out. On Monday I was eating bland so I don't think it's fair to say much about where we decided to dine.
On our return flight everything went as planned. We were on another A320 flying out of Las Vegas, seated in BusinessFirst. This was the first United flight where the purser identified us and called us by name when taking our lunch order. Service in the 16-seat cabin was efficient. The food was a choice between a cheeseburger and grilled chicken salad. neither are real solid menu options but both are edible. I will say this however, for some reason United has difficulty serving bread that is not stale. Overall though it was a fine flight with good service and a staff that genuinely seemed engaged. That is not always the case with United these days.
Sickness aside, it was an OK trip and I was very impressed with United's customer service throughout in what was a difficult out-bound trip. I will go so-far as to say one of the best arguments for retaining status with United, considering all of the recent changes to MileagePlus, is continued access to the Premier customer service line.
I'd still like to fly on the new Dreamliner, but I've a feeling I will not for a while due to how unreliable of a plane it is right now.
And next time: no cream in my morning coffee.
