Like I blogged last week, I’m getting ready for the MegaDo trip that happens a few weeks down the road, and I wanted to plan this trip with the readers and other travel gurus on BoardingArea. First up, I must bring you up to speed with all that happened towards hitting the road 9 weeks down though, and then some questions for all of you!
Booking seats on the JFK-LHR-DFW AA flights – Check
Last week, Pizzaman from the core team responsible for the OWMD put out a post on Milepoint asking everyone who has interest on the optional segment in London to drop him a mail along with the class preference, and AA would get back to us. A couple of days later, AA wrote to me with the scheduled itinerary they had already generated for me. So, for $ 923 I now have a ticket held for myself on the flight to London and then into Dallas on the official flights for the MegaDo. I haven’t ticketed yet, as AA mentioned they required a USA credit card only in their first email. On subsequent email exchange, they confirmed that they will be able to use a local CC also. We proceed on the details next week hopefully.
Like I reported last week, there were some unique events being planned along the way. This includes a dinner with Maya Liebman, the lady who is incharge of the AAdvantage program at American Airlines, but this is something most probably planned in the first class, and we back-benchers don’t know yet on what is coming our way. 😉 As per an email from Randy, about 80 people wanted to go across the pond. That makes it about 40% of the entire MegaDo crew wanting to go to London!!
Enrolling for the OWMD AA Executive Platinum Challenge – Check
I was in two minds about the OWMD EXP challenge. I am top tier on a couple of programs, including the KLM/AirFrance FlyingBlue. This allowed me to challenge for EXP on AA, which is something AA does not offer any more, and reap all the benefits of the EXP tier. I first figured I did not have much use of being on the AAdvantage program, since I lived in India. However, later it came to me how the program benefits could really benefit me well, if I chose to be loyal to AA. Hence, I decided to take the challenge. Now I need to rake up 20K butt-in-seat miles on AA by mid-January. I have about 15K of these miles already planned. I need suggestions from all of you about good 5000 BIS routings in the USA starting from ORD or NYC in the time till mid January! Any help would be appreciated 🙂
The EXP will allow me access also to the AA lounges in LHR on arrival, which will be the hotspot of activity in LHR it seems!
Booking hotels in London – On Hold
Last week, the hotel rooms for London went live. This time, the hotel of choice for the MegaDo in London is the Hyatt Churchill. Though for the love of my life I cannot figure out why do we need to hop into London while we have to spend most of the time at the LHR airport, I guess the Paddington Express might just get to earn 36 pound sterling off me for the round trip to town. I haven’t booked the hotel yet, I found the pricing too steep at about USD 400 per night. However, there are some updates on new room capacity being added to the MegaDo rates, and I will book next week.
A lot of things remain on the plate and I still haven’t wrapped my head around them yet! But I promise to keep you all up to speed with my MegaDo planning along the way! Also, if you choose to open a new AAdvantage account for the MegaDo, you could apply the promocode OWMD and get yourself a cool 500 AAdvantage miles to start with!
Do you want to join the fun on the OWMD? Here is how…
AAdvantage has announced a contest, where by the privilege of being the sponsor on the OWMD, they get 2 seats Y class on the charter for DFW-SEA-LAX. These could be yours by participating in their facebook contest that went up last week, here. You get to hang out with the stars, meet the executives from all the sponsors, make video interviews of them. And whats in it for you apart from the charter? You get free stay at all the hotels, a Flip camera and transport to DFW and from LAX.
The first three runners up all get a 25K AAdvantage miles into their account for this effort! So, game on and try to join in on the OWMD. Check out Gary’s exciting post on how to participate in this contest!
Also Read: 10 weeks to oneworld MegaDo: preparing for seat 33A
Can’t believe the OWMD is only 9 weeks aways. Seems like a lot of time, but I know it will be here before I know it.
Still trying to decide whether or not to do the TATL portion. Either way, looking forward to this experience.
Love your blog. Looking forward to meeting you and everyone else.
Randy (Seat 32F)