So, I flew my last mileage run of the year yesterday. It was like a Dickens novel except mostly good. It would’ve been a tale of three cities but I didn’t get any good photos of Miami done up for the holidays.

DCA Christmas Tree

Starting out at Reagan National (DCA) at O-dark-30 in the morning was met with a beautiful view of a rather large Christmas tree in the main concourse. I though it was nicely complimented by the American Flag in the background.

I had been hoping for one of the new 737’s with IFE for the flight from DCA to Chicago O’Hare, but alas, I didn’t get that lucky.

Upon arriving in Chicago I had the chance to snap a brief photo of Chicago’s holiday flair (Check out this Office Space clip if you’re not familiar with what I mean with Flair).

ORD Christmas Tree

Flying from Chicago to Miami though was the real treat. Our aircraft was supposed to be a 737, but they had an aircraft swap and we instead were met with what I believe was an internationally configured 757. I kind’ve had the M&M Santa Claus type of response to it. Why you might ask? Because this looked nearly identical to the seat from Up In The Air.

“Up in the Air” seat (forgive my photoshop skills)

Needless to say, I was really enjoying this flight. I watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier, reclined, relaxed, and soon realized the WiFi was either not turned on or inoperative. Alas, I relaxed. It was a great flight.

Once I got into Miami, I really didn’t see a whole lot of Christmas Flair, so I hopped the skytrain to the Admirals club, leaving that to take the skytrain to D17, only to find my flight was delayed 45 minutes, so I went to yet another Admirals club. I haven’t flown through Miami before, but it really wasn’t my favorite. The skytrain was fast enough.

The last flight was uneventful, aside from being late. In fact, this was the only flight (departing about 2:30) that didn’t have a meal service, rather it had snack baskets that included sandwiches. Nothing to write home about.

Conclusion

Overall, the true highlight of the trip was seeing an international business class seat on a single aisle… I know, all the big airlines fly some sort of international configuration between New York and LAX, but I hadn’t been aware of American flying a single aisle 757 (United does). I’m sure the aircraft was on its way to somewhere in South America.