Early start at San Francisco Airport – Summer Tier Points
In this… epic.
- When will I learn to jump on a fare?
- Wednesday Afternoon.. off to the airport
- EI273 Birmingham to Dublin Airport
- Into Dublin for some Donuts. And Pokemon
- The Travelodge in Swords, Dublin Airport
- Pre-Clearance fun at Dublin airport, 51st and Green Lounge
- AA291 Dublin to New York JFK – Business Class
- A Manhattan Char Siu Adventure
- Back in the Secure Area, Flagship Lounge and AAdmirals Club
- AA2652 New York JFK to San Francisco International – Transcontinental Business Class
- The Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport
- Do the BART into San Francisco, The Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, San Francisco
- Sausalito: Which ferry to take?
- Halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge
- Fooding around San Francisco
- The Crowne Plaza, San Francisco Airport
- Early start at San Francisco airport
- AA164 San Francisco International to New York JFK – Transcontinental Business Class
- The joy of terminal swaps, BA Pre-departure dining
- BA174 New York JFK to London Heathrow – Club World (Business Class)
- An Early Morning Change at Heathrow
- BA828 London Heathrow T5 to Dublin Airport – Club Europe
- Doughnuts and coffee shops – Exploring Dublin
- Once more with feeling at Dublin Airport
- FR666 Dublin Airport to Birmingham Airport
- 600 TP: Done
Another day, another shuttle bus.
With another ride on the shuttle bus to the Airport via the Marriott, I was dropped off at Terminal 2.
With three flights coming up, I wanted to ensure I had everything for the legs onto Dublin, and that all the logistics of that were sorted.
I headed over to the premium check in to conduct what needed to be done.
Premium
All the branding!
My bag was accepted for travel, and most importantly – checked all the way through to Dublin Airport directly. In addition, all my boarding passes were issued too – cutting down the pain of requesting new boarding passes at each stop.
With those formalities completed, I headed through the most pleasant security experience I think I can find in the USA – the Team SFO security. Whilst things were busy, I was done and dusted from the security process in under 10 minutes.
Not too shabby.
The beauty of the current set up is that as soon as you clear security – the Admirals Club is on the right. Which makes life a lot easier.
Passing every beating moment.
Admirals Club
I was welcomed into the club and buzzed in.
The lounge itself is pretty open and a welcoming space.
The Bar
The power bar.
Business area.
Are you in the circle?
More relaxing spaces
With some time before the flight, I checked out the food options – which were the typical American Airlines lounge food options.
Bagels and bread.
Fruits
Yoghurts.
Caffine.
Cola products.
So I went for some coffee and a spicy trail mix. Yes I’m totally original. That, and I would be eating on the plane soon enough.
With a spot in peace and quiet, I watched the planes do their thing (including some classic Virgin America planes do their thing (which is nice to see – even though the airline is now Alaska Airlines – the innovations the airline made are still being understood by some parts of the industry).
Classic in the Virgin America red.
With time ticking on to departure, I exited the lounge, and headed to the gate
On passed something on the way we need to talk about – the joy of cats with waving hands.
Better known as maneki-neko, it’s a Japanese figurine (also adopted by the Chinese and others) to bring good luck.
And there’s a historical display about them. Which is nice
After passing the beckoning cats, I headed towards the departure gate.
To the gates!
Another heart left in San Francisco.
I arrived at the gate shortly before the boarding procedure boarding begun. This suits me to a tee. Better to be slightly early than to miss the damn flight… which I have done on a couple of occasions.
The waiting A321 to JFK
Once boarding commenced, it was a quick affair to get on the plane and begin the long trek back to Birmingham .
Via everywhere.
Next: AA164 San Francisco International to New York JFK.
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I flew through SFO a couple of weeks ago, and have to agree that security there is much more pleasant (or less unpleasant, take your pick) than most US cities. Although somehow I’ve had decent security experiences at TPA and ISP too in the last couple of months, and TPA TSA tends to be on the surly side (the only bad thing at TPA other than the constant construction.)
I didn’t get to see the museum collection, although I have to admit that at Benihana the cats have always creeped me out a bit.
My main complaint with SFO is the damn rental car centre. From the Delta gates to the unoriginally-named AirTrain* took so long I found myself thinking they needed to install a train to the train. I have mixed feelings about the “consolidated rental car centres” that are all the rage in the US now. Done right, they can be a big improvement (LAS, for example, where the RCC actually makes things faster and easier than the old company shuttle buses.) Done wrong, they just add additional hassle, especially if you’re already tired from a very long day of travel.
* at least it isn’t “Air TrAAin” like the miserable one DFW used to have for the American terminals. That even made the AirTrain at EWR look good by comparison. Good riddance.