A couple of weeks ago, following ResellingDO, my wife and I had a 0600 flight to Miami, with a continuing flight on to Liberia, Costa Rica. The upgrade on the DCA-MIA was at risk, given it was a Monday morning, and it was not clear to me, whether or not the Miami-Liberia flight was truly a complimentary upgrade. So when faced, with burning 2 (of only 4, as I’ve used all of mind for 2016) systemwide upgrades (SWU), which I received by requalifying for Executive Platinum status, I bit the bullet and did it.

American Airlines – DCA to Miami

Our first flight was nothing too special, however, our 737-800 was equipped with seatback In Flight Entertainment (IFE), which was a nice treat. As a result, I got to enjoy 95% of the new X-Men: Apocalypse movie. Having not seen the end, I found it to be interesting. The idea of rebooting a movie series through time travel seems to always make things interesting.

The meal was your run of the mill eggs or French toast frittata. I enjoyed the frittata, but, it wasn’t really the type of breakfast you write home about.

American Airlines Miami to Liberia, Costa Rica

This was a first for us, we were flying out of D60Q. The D60 gates are affectionately referred to as “Ghetto Gates” by some we chatted with. You have to go down an escalator, you wait in a holding pen, then are released to an open air (but covered, thankfully) maze, where we then waited another 10-15 minutes to be permitted to board the plane.

The seats were more than sufficient for a sub-three hour flight, though I would have liked IFE.

The meal was cold. I was concerned about this, primarily, because it was a mid-day flight, and I was quite hopeful for a cookie. I do like American’s cookies (though the older ones were better than the newer ones, but I digress). Alas, there are no ovens on the E175’s, so all was cold, and no cookie. The options were a market salad with a side of chicken, or a curry chicken wrap. Bonus for the Salad with a side of Chicken were the little Grissini bread sticks. The lemony pie was great too.

Wrapping Up

Ultimately, we were quite happy to have been confirmed in the pointy end of the plane, given the busy weekend. It didn’t help that I was fighting a cold too. I think if faced with this sort of situation again, I might not burn a SWU, but, I am glad I did this time. Interestingly enough, on the flight home, we received our complimentary upgrades at the gate in Liberia, at least to get to Miami, no SWU needed. Of course, the flight from Miami to Washington, DC was an entirely different story.