Yesterday I flew from Charleston to Brussels through Philly on US Airways.\u00a0 The day ended up longer than anticipated due to long weather delays.\u00a0 Living in Charleston, SC means a connection no matter where I go and sometimes connections mean long layovers, delays and frustration at the airport.<\/p>\n
Last year, I only earned Platinum Status on US Airways and in a last minute move, bought up to Chairman last week.\u00a0 It\u2019s not something I had planned to do, but rather, found myself in an interesting position.\u00a0\u00a0 When I travel for business, I have to buy coach, but can use my miles to upgrade myself to business, envoy or first.\u00a0\u00a0 With only international travel on the agenda for this year, I\u00a0didn’t\u00a0see myself needing top status with US Air since most of my trips would be on other Star Alliance Airlines.<\/p>\n
However, for this trip, I found myself booking US Air from Philly to Brussels, direct. However, I quickly learned that US Air doesn\u2019t offer complimentary upgrades on flights to Europe. Status wasn\u2019t going to do anything for me here.\u00a0 So I had to decide, use miles to upgrade, pay cash for an upgrade or fly coach.\u00a0 \u00a0In my opinion, using miles to upgrade to Europe is a bad use of miles \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t use miles to upgrade from the East coast to West Coast and that\u2019s the same flight time.\u00a0 And I really didn\u2019t want to pay for an upgrade.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the US Air representative I was working with gave me a bright idea.\u00a0 She suggested I buy up to Chairman Status before February 29th<\/sup> and by doing so, would get 2 System Wide upgrade certificates \u2013 which can be used to upgrade to Europe.\u00a0 She also noted that on March 1st<\/sup>, I would get 2 more certificates to use in 2012.\u00a0 For the cost of buying up to chairman \u2013 which varies based on the # of miles or segments you need to reach that level (in my case it was $450) \u2013 I got 4 system wide upgrades.\u00a0 I\u2019ve used one for the flight yesterday and I\u2019m hoping a seat opens up before Feb 29th<\/sup> on my return so I can use the 2nd<\/sup> \u201c2011\u201d certificate.\u00a0 Either way, I have 2 more to use between March 1 and Feb 28 2013.\u00a0 That will come out to about $112 per upgrade. Good deal!<\/p>\n Now, the flight – \u00a0\u00a0As I said, I was quite delayed due to weather and my original 3 hour layover in Philly turned into a quick 30 minutes to get to my next gate.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the flight to Brussels also ended up delayed.\u00a0 After spending 7 hours in the airport already, I\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0looking forward to 6 hours in the air.\u00a0 We finally boarded and I was seated in row 3 of Envoy.\u00a0 The flight crew was very friendly and helpful.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019ll go out on a limb and say it was the best service\u00a0I’ve\u00a0ever had on US Airways (I\u2019ve been Platinum or Chairman now for 7 years).<\/p>\n Before taking off, we were offered sparkling wine, OJ or sparkling water.\u00a0 After takeoff we were given, a warm towel (it really wasn\u2019t so warm when I got it), an amenity kit and a dinner menu.\u00a0 The menu offered a choice between an herb encrusted chicken, beef tenderloin or a vegetarian lasagna.\u00a0 I selected the Chicken.\u00a0 We started with an Asian marinated beef, which was okay and a salad with feta and red peppers.\u00a0 The salad was good.\u00a0 When the chicken arrived, I was surprised by how good it actually looked.\u00a0 And, I was even more surprised by how good it tasted.\u00a0 For desert, a choice of flan, Ben & Jerry\u2019s Cookies & Cream Ice Cream or Cheese and Fruit.<\/p>\n After dinner, I turned on my entertainment unit to discover the headset didn\u2019t work.\u00a0 I turned on my laptop and quickly found that the light in my seat was also not working.\u00a0 The flight attendant helped me move to an open seat where the light worked.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t bother with the entertainment center since there was only about 4 \u00bd hours left and I had my laptop.\u00a0 Unable to sleep, I watched a movie.<\/p>\n I quickly realized that I didn\u2019t find the Envoy seats very comfortable.\u00a0 After sitting in one for a few hours, I found them rather hard and lacking room.\u00a0 Aren\u2019t Envoy seats supposed to offer more space?\u00a0 Well, the US Air Envoy seats lose space due to the shape of the center console and the position of the arm rests.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I prefer the Business Class seats on Lufthansa or Thai Airways.<\/p>\n About an hour before landing, the flight attendants offered \u201cbreakfast\u201d at 1:30 in the morning.\u00a0 The plate had a spinach and mushroom quiche and fruit.\u00a0 The quiche was tasty and the fruit was good too.<\/p>\n Overall, I\u2019m definitely glad I upgraded to Envoy, was very pleasantly surprised by the food and a bit disappointed in the seats.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping I get to use my upgrade for the return and we\u2019ll see how that flight goes.\u00a0 I\u2019m still not convinced I\u2019ll do much more international flying on US Air though.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday I flew from Charleston to Brussels through Philly on US Airways.\u00a0 The day ended up longer than anticipated due to long weather delays.\u00a0 Living in Charleston, SC means a connection no matter where I go and sometimes connections mean…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10],"tags":[741,79],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n