3 Travel Lessons: The Advantage of Persistence, Flexibility and an Upgrade

Travel often seems to teach me lessons I never learned in school.

Of course, when I was a kid -- there were friendly skies to fly, if you lost something at a hotel, you usually got it back, and I had less responsibility.

DON'T GIVE UP
The first two nights of my trip were spent at a Hyatt in Sonoma County. As my head hit the pillow at my second destination in Orick, California I realized I had left the charger for my Canon G10 camera and the extra battery charging in the wall of my room at the Hyatt. It was midnight, so I waited until the next day to call.

The next day, I began calling the Hyatt inquiring whether my charger and extra battery had been found. For the next three days, I kept calling -- once or twice a day. I insisted to both housekeeping and the front desk that my charger had to be there unless the maid had thrown it out, kept it or it had been taken by the next guest in the room. Each time they patiently told me it had not been found.

After I arrived at LAX while awaiting a shuttle, despite having no hope left at all, I decided to call one last time. Much to my surprise, the housekeeping supervisor said: "Is it black grey with a little battery inside?" I said yes, and they said they had found it.

The next day when I called to give them my FedEx number to ship it home to me, Maria said: "I think because you kept calling and I kept asking -- it turned up."

LESSON: If you know you left a valuable piece of equipment in the wall of a hotel room, keep calling to inquire because your persistence may pay off like mine did.

STAY FLEXIBLE

The purpose of my trip was to go elk watching in Northern California during rutting season. I needed my camera to photograph the elk, so I was really bent out of shape when the battery in my camera lasted only ten minutes before dying. My friend immediately gave me her Canon to use. Although I initially whined wishing her camera was the same model as mine, I soon realized how lucky I was to have any camera at all.

More often than not, travel doesn't go exactly as planned. Whining does little good, so adjust and move on (unless you are whimpering and insisting to a hotel that you left equipment behind). I also realized yet another advantage to shooting digital photos. You can borrow someone's camera, download the photos to your laptop and give them back their camera.

THE JOYS OF A $50 UPGRADE ON A SHORT HAUL FLIGHT

These days flying coach often feels more like being squeezed into a can of sardines than a seat. And sardines don't require elbow room and leg room like humans do. Even in coach, however, Virgin America is pretty darned comfortable with its mood lighting and seats with lumbar support in each class of service.

On my last flight from San Francisco to LAX, the kiosk offered me the option of paying $50 to upgrade to First Class, and I turned down the offer thinking "How could a 50 minute flight be worth it?"

This time, since I needed to check a bag (filled with bottles of wine from exploring Sonoma County), I thought an upgrade made sense. Checking my bag on my coach ticket would cost $20, so $30 more to experience first class seemed to make sense.

Wow, was my response. I thought coach was comfy on Virgin America, but First Class makes you want the 50 minute flight to last longer. The Mother of a two year old kid who was also flying first class said her son wanted the flight to last longer too. The buttery leather seat made me feel like I was flying in a luxury Mercedes Benz. The seat reclines without limiting the legroom of the passenger behind you. I will be saving up to travel cross country in luxury. And First Class has a great adjustable reading lamp (which I had thought was some kind of microphone to request service when I noticed it on previous flights as I ambled back into the depths of coach).

The passenger next to me had upgraded to First Class for $25 because he had paid for a premium main cabin seat. He always tries to upgrade to first, even for the short haul flights.

For First Class upgrade info....

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Comments

[Road Hog]

Flying in Flying in First or Business Class can be addictive and makes a huge different on long-haul international flights. But I'm all for finding ways to fly up in the front even on shorter flights.

Using our F/F miles, we flew in Business Class (nearly as good as First) to London in 2006, stayed two days, then flew on to Vienna in Coach and did basically the same thing on the trip we just completed (First Class to London, 2 night stay, in Coach to Prague). London is a great city to visit, a relatively short flight from the U.S., and a major air hub from which you can fly to many cities in Europe in less than two hours. Or ride the Eurostar train under the English Channel and get to Paris or Brussels in two hours.

We flew between Maui and the Big Island in 2007. The First Class fare on Hawaiian Airlines was only a few bucks more than Coach, so even though the flights weren't long we traveled “in style”.

In 2008, we used our frequent-flyer miles to fly in First Class one-way from SFO to Sitka (with a two-night stopover in Seattle with no extra airfare charge), and a $50 companion fare (for Alaska Platinum Visa card holders) to fly one-way from Ketchikan to SFO in First for about the same price as Coach tickets would have been without the companion fare deal.