Meanderings of a Traveler
Paris Trip Report – Arrival and Eiffel Tower
Paris Trip Report – Notre-Dame de Paris, Catacombs
Paris Trip Report – Louvre & Musée d’Orsay
Paris Trip Report – Versailles
As I wrote about earlier, I managed to score a couple of inexpensive (relatively speaking, of course) tickets to Paris that I managed to confirm upgrades on from Economy to Delta One by using my Global Upgrade Certificates. Out of curiosity, I looked at what Economy vs. Delta One tickets would go for across another holiday — the 4th of July. Two tickets in Economy cost almost as much as one ticket in Delta One; not a bad savings, eh?
A few days before it was time to depart, my girlfriend and I received an email to pick our meals prior to departure. I opted for the bass while my girlfriend opted for the beef.
Since we were flying on an international flight, my girlfriend and I were able to visit the JFK SkyClub in Terminal 4 on status alone (my Diamond and her Gold). This offered us a chance to get a quick bite to eat and see the planes come and go from the SkyDeck.
Whenever I route through JFK or ATL and weather permits, I make sure to take a detour to the SkyDeck. As an AvGeek, it is a wonderful experience!
Finally, it was time to make our way out of the club and to our gate. Thankfully it wasn’t a long walk (B38, with the club being at B32), and we grabbed another snack before boarding.
The Delta One cabin on the Airbus 330-300 is configured in a reverse herringbone configuration. I prefer this to the Boeing 767-300 configuration – not only are the seats more comfortable, you have much easier access to personal temperature control and a more user-friendly tray table.
Though the LSTN headphones are not active noise-cancelling, keep in mind that you need to use an adapter if you want to use your own headphones with these seats.
Once we were situated, the purser greeted us and distributed menus. Not all passengers pre-selected their meals so she collected orders and double-checked that nobody wanted to change their minds. Thanks to a helpful tailwind, we made the flight in just over 7 hours.
Icing on the cake: the flight was equipped with GoGo’s Ku (not 2Ku) WiFi.
The food was excellent, as I’ve come to expect from Delta, and the flight itself was smooth and we arrived without any issues at CDG. Though there are a variety of mass-transit options available from CDG to the hotel we were staying at, we opted to grab an Uber because of the number of bags we were traveling with. The route took us right by the Concorde, though!
Hyatt reached out to me a few months ago to inform me that the hotel that I was planning to stay at would be undergoing renovations and wouldn’t be ready for my stay. They were kind enough to rebook us at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile, however, and I was able to modify the booking to a club-level room.
The hotel is attached to the Le Palais des Congrès de Paris, a major exhibition center, and also had easy access to the mall there. It also offered ready access to both the Metro (line 1) and RER (line C). One of the first things we did was pick up a pair of Navigo cards for easy access to all public transport in Paris – since we were staying through Sunday morning, it worked out perfectly.
We knew we would be taking a chance since our flight was arriving at 7 AM and check-in time was 3 PM, but we were very pleasantly surprised that not only was a room available, but it had a view of the Eiffel Tower!
The Regency has two restaurants: Mayo and Windo, as well as a Regency Club. Thanks to the Club access upgrade I purchased, we were able to visit it for snacks in the evening as well as breakfast.
The room we got was on the 33rd floor of the building, with the Regency Club and Windo located on the 34th floor. Given the height of the building, the Hyatt Regency has an innovative elevator solution. The elevator alcove on each floor has a series of touchscreens where you enter your floor number before you get on an elevator. The screen will then tell you which elevator will take you there. This way, the work is more evenly distributed between the elevators and riders get to their destinations in a more timely manner. I hope more buildings take a page from their book and implement similar systems!
A word to the wise: these rooms are fairly tight fits for two for an extended period (particularly for storing clothes), and the bed might be a little firmer than what travelers are used to at American hotels. Overall quite a nice room, though!
The Regency Club offers breakfast, snacks, and Aperitifs throughout the day, so once we were functional, we knew a visit was in order. Needless to say, we were thoroughly spoiled by the convenient access to excellent meat and cheese.
The fitness center at the hotel was more comprehensive than any I have seen. Not only were there treadmills and bicycles, there were also rowing machines, weight machines, free weights (dumbells as well as kettlebells), and a cable cross machine!
Though not visible from our room, the Arc de Triomphe is a short one mile walk from the hotel. We passed it on our way to the Eiffel Tower, though we never ascended to the summit.
Before arriving, I noticed that virtually every visitor to Paris recommended buying skip-the-line tickets to attractions. I cannot emphasize the importance of this. Though not as long at the Eiffel Tower, lines at other attractions (like the Louvre and Versailles) can easily eat up hours of your day. Don’t make that mistake – buy tickets in advance and walk right in!
From the summit, we were treated to expansive views of the Paris skyline. They also offered champagne! Warning: they only take cash.
Back at the room, we managed to see the Tower lit up – truly a marvelous sight.
Over the recent weeks I have had the opportunity to fly WestJet from Toronto-Pearson (YYZ) to LaGuardia (LGA). On these flights, I was able to experience both their Boeing 737-800 and Boeing 737-600 cabins, as well as the check-in process.
Since I purchased these tickets through Delta, the Passenger Name Record (PNR) from Delta was not the same as the one that WestJet sees. Because of this, I had to reach out to Delta ahead of time to get my WestJet PNR to check-in. If you purchase the ticket directly from WestJet, this step won’t be necessary.
As WestJet is a “low cost carrier” (LCC), seats are not assigned prior to check-in unless you call in and purchase the seat in advance. This was a pretty big change from what I was used to from flying with Delta – granted, I was fairly spoiled by Delta. On both my flights, the WestJet Plus (the premium economy cabin, similar to an inter-Europe business class cabin) cabin was completely booked, so I wasn’t able to purchase an upgrade at the time of check-in.
Though no Delta representative was able to offer details on what benefits are available to Delta Medallion flyers on WestJet flights, even with the widely publicized “transborder joint venture”, WestJet support on Twitter was helpful enough to explain that I would receive free checked bags if I provided the agents at the counter with my Delta Medallion information to show my status. I was slightly disappointed that free seat selection for preferred seats was not available for WestJet operated flights as with SkyTeam partners (AirFrance, for example).
A curious fact – with how short my flights were, liquor purchases were not allowed. The beer and wine were offered complimentary, however, which was a nice touch. I sampled both of the white wines offered between my flights and was pleasantly surprised by their quality.
On all WestJet flights, you will be asked to remove all headphones and pay close attention to the safety demonstration prior to take-off, so don’t be surprised if you are asked to take yours off when they start to demonstrate things.
WestJet currently has 13 Boeing 737-600s in service. This and the 737-700s (of which there are 54) make up the bulk of WestJet’s fleet. Both the -600 and -700 share similar layouts within the cabin with no seats having any power. Thankfully, my flight was a relatively short 350 miles, so it wasn’t a huge issue. This would be rather frustrating on a longer flight, though. With how common USB outlets are on planes, I have definitely been spoiled.
The satellite television was a little spotty because we were crossing the border, but I was able to catch the tail-end of an episode of Murdoch Mysteries before we lost signal.
In stark contrast of the smaller -600, the -800 (non-MAX) variant offers individual power in every seat. This is very different from what is available on most planes in the US because each seat has their own 110V outlet, instead of having to share two between three seats. This was a very nice surprise. The downside is that there were no in-seat screens for entertainment, but with available power it is much less of a concern. There was also more under-seat storage on this plane than the -600. As I have been traveling with two laptops and associated accessories, this has become a major concern for me, and was also a very pleasant surprise.
Overall I quite enjoyed my WestJet flights and I can see myself using them again in the future. I will be paying close attention to the further developments for the joint venture between Delta and WestJet for any new perks for elites of both programs (particularly around seat selection). I look forward to giving WestJet’s Plus cabin a go, as well!
This week I received two curious promotional emails from United. One was for a mileage promotion where I could spend $400 for 7,800 (bonus) miles, or $900 for 19,900 (bonus) miles. Certainly not bad for topping off an account! Granted, I have a hard time rationalizing flying on United where my status is complimentary thanks to their relationship with Marriott versus Delta where it’s earned with butt-in-seat miles.
If I were Premier Gold, where the Economy Plus seating was available at booking, and Economy Plus offered the same perks as Delta’s Comfort+ Seating I would definitely be open to taking United up on this offer. It certainly doesn’t hurt that SFO, IAH, and LGA have Centurion Lounges in their United terminals.
The second email I received was from a new partnership between United and BP that allows you to earn miles whenever you fill up your tank. The frustrating thing here was that even though I attempted to register, it insisted that I couldn’t. Guess I’ll stick to discounted gas at BJs!
Has anyone else received these offers? Going to take United up on their offers?
Delta has been sending out letters to inform customers that they have been notified of a security breach of [24]7.ai, the chat service they (and other companies) use. At this moment it’s unclear just how many customers were affected, but there is the potential that it could be several hundred thousand customers.
The good news is that no passport or government ID information was impacted, and the scope of the breach is limited to the customer payment information. The culprit seems to be malware present in [24]7.ai’s software that was present between September 26 and October 12, 2017 that allowed for unauthorized access to form-fields when manually completing a transaction on any delta.com desktop platform at the time. The specific form-fields that were targeted were: name, address, payment card number, CVV number, and expiration date. This breach was limited to the desktop platform. The FlyDelta app, mobile delta.com site, and other systems were all unaffected.
The better news is that Delta has informed us in a timely manner (they were told on March 28th, they released the response website on April 5th, and they have been sending letters to SkyMiles members since). They have also reached out to AllClearID to offer complimentary two year credit monitoring for all SkyMiles members as a precautionary measure.
As always, keep a close eye on all your credit card statements and get in touch with issuers if you see anything questionable!
I’ve gotten some concerned looks in the past about some of the routes and mileage runs I’ve done to maintain my status with Delta, but believe me when I say it pays off.
I posted earlier about some excitement regarding an extremely affordable trip to Paris later this year, and after having received my Global Upgrade Certificates I had one of the smoothest certificate-related calls to date. There was space available on the outbound flight, so I was immediately confirmed for Delta One! I’m still wait-listed for the return upgrades, but all things considered I’m not too worried.
One of the nice things about booking the flights separately is that my upgrade for the JFK-CDG flight is not dependent on any other space. This makes it much more straightforward to monitor with services like ExpertFlyer.
With only a few days remaining on my Global Upgrade Certificates (from my 2017 Choice Benefits), I’ve been using them rather liberally for my recent flights to and from LAX. Since I was automatically confirmed in Comfort+, I wasn’t too disappointed when they weren’t clearing. However, on the last day of their availability, I was delighted to see that my upgrade from LAX to ATL was confirmed!
For this route, Delta reuses their B767-400 that arrives from NYC-JFK, so it is fully equipped with a Delta One configuration, as opposed to the super-cramped B767-300 or a Domestic First configuration. This meant lie-flat seats! Sure it was a short flight (just at 4 hours), but hey… anything that helps my back feel better is welcome!
With a range of over 6,000 miles, this plane was a little bit of overkill for a simple trans-continental route, but again – not complaining! It was one of the smoothest flights I’ve been on in a while, which is saying something. The GoGo was a little spotty, but I’ve noticed this to be a consistent issue of late when flying cross-country. I’m surprised if I have fewer than four outages on such a trip.
Four words: Lie. Flat. Lumbar. Massage.
While most of the features of the seat weren’t a surprise, seeing actual air vents was a relief. Many planes lack air vents in their business class cabin which leads to very frustrated (and overheated) passengers. Thankfully that was not the case here! Not pictured: additional controls (such as flight attendant call) under the silver portion of the right arm-rest.
The only complaint I had was that the LSTN headphones were terrible. They did nothing to reduce the sound of the engines. I wound up going to my Audio-Technica headphones and watching movies using them, instead. Bring your own headphones with an airline plug adapter if you find yourself on one of these planes!
It should come as no surprise to you that I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch, given the consistency at which Delta has been hitting their meals out of the park. Instead of going with the lasagna, I opted for the salmon salad. Though grilled, it was served chilled on a bed of baby spinach with feta cheese. There were also multi-colored cherry tomatoes, peppers with actual heat, and both yellow and purple potatoes. Overall a very well composed entree.
Dessert was a lemon creme cake with shredded coconut layered upon the frosting. As someone with a serious weakness for coconut, this didn’t last long. 😉
It’s not news that I love flying Delta. Between the actually happy flight attendants, excellent food, and ridiculously good operational record, it makes perfect sense for me to fly them. My only complaints are regarding the LSTN headphones (which are actually worse than the Billboard earbuds in Comfort+), and the spotty GoGo for trans-continental flights. Even still, these are small inconveniences in the scheme of things. (Though, let’s be serious… nobody likes their internet being cut while in the middle of a conversation…) I can’t wait to fly Delta One, again!
