This.
Also @MashNL I can only go off of my experiences. I did avoid Schipol last summer, but when I have flown thru there it’s been a breeze, I’ve taken the train a couple times, the KLM lounge was fantastic, and I haven’t waited in any lines. Know individual experiences can differ, but I tried to give it a fair shake and was pleasantly surprised.
I didn’t get to Casey’s segment yet, but my 9 year old son and I listened to the pod on a round trip from DAY-CMH.
I have to announce he is now very anti Tron and Cody for their anti AA takes. At one point I’m pretty sure he looked up from the book he was reading and said something akin to “screw these guis”. I’m paraphrasing because he’s the nicest boy ever.
He was a big Neil fan but I think he now prefers Soly.
The other key takeaway was that he really wants to visit NYC and LGA after all the glowing reviews. Will have to make that happen soon.
Delta’s ATL > GLA with the pivot in Amsterdam can be iffy sometimes if there’s any trouble on the layover. Had a friend have to get a room for the night to make our rendezvous in Scotland the next day about a year ago. Probably an anomaly though.
I usually fly British “Premium Economy” (aka World Traveler Plus) to Scotland if the price beats Delta. It’s like a First Class Lite experience. British is probably the most hospitable airline I’ve flown personally, depending on the route. Unfortunately, the BA prices are unfriendly these days.
For the last year or so, every time we’ve tried to use economy parking, the lot has been full, and there is a person there who will give you a voucher to park in lot B (by the terminals, but outdoors) for the economy parking price. It was like $20/day. But you have to at least try to use economy parking to get that voucher that you use on a barcode reader upon exit.
Massachusetts too!
I might have to fly through at some point (for obvious reasons).
Man the Charleston airport is so glorious for parking. It’s like $20 a day max and you’re in your car like 3 mins after exiting the plane with no shuttle. You literally walk across the street, get in and leave.
4hrs on airports and 4hrs on oscars. Trap Draw absolutely bucking its head right now.
I wanna pound the drum more that Houston-Intercontinental or IAH is a very underrated big hub airport. It’s my home airport so I’m semi biased, but I think the food options are overall pretty great, most of the terminals are new or currently being renovated, and delays aren’t a huge issue (though the summer can be killer with thunderstorms). Will acknowledge there’s a fair amount of walking required, and the current construction going on has made drop off and pick up an utter disgrace.
@tron I expect a comment on this (as you know, the United operation in Boston is a disgrace in general)
Not gonna fly British. Just not.
@arydolphin we’re monitoring. The entire operation seems to be in shambles up in Boston, regardless of the airline! Also tell the folks at Boston 25 news to take a look at their grammar.
Also, this was delightful:
Delta having control of Terminal A makes that a nice experience. However, trying to get in and out of Terminals B and C with all of the construction over there right now is challenging, and then Terminal C in general with JetBlue having old and tired gates all over the place isn’t good.
I like jetblue and they are usually first choice since I usually fly from Boston, but Terminal C for the most part is dreadful. If I wasn’t so heavily invested with them due to the credit card and a stack of miles, I would probably look elsewhere. The thought of a merger with Spirit also makes me very unenthused.
I’m the same way: have the credit card, have a good bit of miles as well. Probably going to switch my daily spending from that card to an Amex Gold card so that I can use Amex points in different ways, now that my air travel is going down a bunch as compared to the past 2 years.
I think that is going to be my move as well and switch everything over to the Capital One card. I don’t fly enough for status with anyone so it’s probably for the best.
Yeah, British is not perfect. But, as @Soly put it, I can only speak of my own experience. They’ve done me some real solids in my time as far as in-flight and upgrades.
I will say their one gigantic fuck up for me was once booking me on a layover of only 1.5hrs at Heathrow to go from an inbound flight from ATL and get on my connection to GLA. The issue is, even though Scotland is part of the UK, you still have to go back through customs to board a flight to Scotland—and the lines at that part of Heathrow aren’t exactly run as smoothly as Hartsfield. Long story short, I missed my flight to Glasgow and spent 7 hours in the Centurion Lounge at Heathrow to get on the next one. Pretty good Centurion though.
You might be changing my mind in hindsight LOL
Love IAH, those walks in the soupy summer heat suck so bad though.
The British Airways AUS-LHR flight on the a350 can get fucked.
Also loved the Von Lane shoutout. I ride down to Austin and back from Dallas monthly on it for work. They are also adding college station options for A&M home games as well.
Almost through the entirety of the pod. @tron @MerchCzar A note about LGA. If there is a nonstop LGA-JAC, it would only be on Saturdays. LGA has a 1500 mile perimeter rule meaning no airline is allowed to fly nonstop to any destination greater than 1500 miles. But on Saturdays, that rule is relaxed. The short runways (6500 ft each) also guard against airlines trying long routes. LGA doesn’t have customs, so any international flying is limited to airports that have US pre-clearance (major Canadian airports, NAS, and AUA).
Oh man that first wave of 97 degree heat with 75% humidity hits different when you’re first walking off the plane in IAH after being in actual pleasant summer weather