USA 2025

Well, I’m back. I guess the good thing about international trips is it usually brings me back to this blog! So as usual, I didn’t finish the last trip (though I did do fairly well I think). I still do have a draft with some more thoughts about Universal, I’m not sure whether I’ll post that or not. This trip is shorter and arguable less happened, so maybe I’ll be able to document the whole trip. Saying that, today is my last day so I am behind already! At the moment I’m in Starbucks (shocker I know) but let’s start at the beginning. I did start typing some of this on one of my flights, so let’s start with that!

Well I’m off again. Actually at this point I’m just under an hour out from landing in Dallas. But it’s the start of what seems to be turning into my annual pilgrimage to the US. That’s not a bad thing at all – FPS has been a part of my life for a long time and I still see a lot of value in the program.

This year is a much shorter trip – travel is not super cheap and while having the airfare paid helps a lot, 3 weeks in the US still adds up. So this year I’m mainly going for the finals. I’ve got a few days after in Indianapolis, but in general it’s a much shorter trip.

So my travel started about 24 hours ago, this point yesterday (the date line is involved so this could get confusing so ~4am 3/6) I was jumping in the shower to get ready after lying awake in bed for about an hour. I went off to sleep OK (with the help of Tamazepam) but I woke about 3 and because the wake up time was soon I couldn’t really get back to sleep.

Nothing exciting, showered, dressed ordered an Uber. I’m glad I didn’t end up reserving one – it cost my $18 while if I had reserved one if would have been $45! I had to quickly thrown the last few things in my bag as the Uber that was supposed to be 6 minutes away arrived one minute after I ordered it.

I was super lucky this time to manage to use points to upgrade to business both from Perth – Melbourne and more importantly Melbourne to Dallas/Fort Worth, but more on that to come. As usual, I was checked in but had to go to the counter because they need to see your passport. They gave me all my boarding passes, including my internal flight DFW-IND on AA. Unusually and some what annoyingly it won’t show me my boarding passes in the app so I have to use the physical ones each time. I did manage to get the AA boarding pass from the AA app, but the other ones aren’t working. Generally I prefer the app because it live updated information – not all of which is available when you leave ~25 hours before your last flight.

Security at Perth was super busy, apparently early morning is a bad time. Even going through the priority line I reckon it took 20+ minutes. As usual my bag was pulled aside, but as has become more common they checked on the computer and I was told it was fine. So upstairs to the business lounge. I had time for a coffee and to look at a few email, less time that I thought and then I was boarding.

Being in business I was in group 1 so on of the first to board and had to find seat 5F – it took my a second because 5F is in the middle, but roughly in line with seat 4 on the window side – go figure. It was an A330, which made business worth it as it was the suites. Unfortunately it was an international A330 which meant no internet, so I couldn’t get any work done. So I browsed the entertainment system and found NCIS Origins. When I watched the Pilot I thought it was decent but hadn’t got back into it. Having watched several episodes on both flights now, I am enjoying it.

Breakfast was served and was typical good business fare. Bircher muesli with berries and nuts and coffee, so I was happy! It was a super short flight they says 2 hours 50 minutes but with no internet I decided to take advantage of business class and had a rest / dose for about half the flight.

Being in business meant I was one of the first off the flight and it’s a very quick walk from Melbourne terminal 1 to terminal 2. Security and immigration were the polar opposite to Perth, it was almost straight through both, basically now wait at all. I worked out where my gate was. This turned out to be conveniently close the the lounge precinct. This was a new experience as whenever I’ve transited through Melbourne it always been inbound, so I’ve only experienced the domestic lounges before.

Melbourne International Business Lounge is nothing to rave about, it’s downstairs so there’s no natural light and the food wasn’t that impressive. The good thing was the internet – it was very fast. I arrived and order a coffee (yes that’s number 3 for anyone counting.) I’m going to pause this entry now as the cabin crew have been told to prepare the cabin for landing so I have to fold down my iPad. This looks lik…

That’s were the post ended and it looks like it’s really long so I’ll end here and pick up with Flight #2.