Two o’clock in the morning. I love this time of day. Honestly.
More Pleasure, More Business.
In this divided trip report
Part One: The Pleasure
- Part 1
- Two o’clock in the morning. I love this time of day. Honestly.
- The Cathay Pacific, American Airlines Lounges… and a five-hour delay
- AA87 London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare International (Premium Economy)
- Crowne Plaza O’Hare
- A photographer’s paradise? The Central Camera Company
- Hyatt Regency O’Hare
- Airplane Art Extra: From the Balcony of the Hyatt Regency O’Hare
- Back to the Bunny, British Airways Lounge
- BA294 Chicago O’Hare to London Heathrow (World Traveller Plus)
- Wait. My Bag is Re-Flighted???
- Part 2
Two o’clock in the morning. I love this time of day. Honestly.
Actually, that’s a big fat lie, and we all know it. But given a choice of hefting through London the evening before when I’m not prepared or taking the early coach, it’s an easy choice – 2am coach it is.
It also doesn’t help that I had a grand total of two hours of sleep before setting off. This has all sorts of fun all over it.
With two weeks worth of trash, (because I would be taking personal clothes as well as business clothes… and a dinner jacket) I took my large suitcase for one more ride – leaving the spinner at home. This is matched with my ski blade bag of many polls, my Lufthansa Rucksack with my camera gear, and my day bag.
Oh, and one other in the suitcase. Why? We’ll get to that in part 2. Or maybe not…
The trash in this picture. Remember it. There will be tests later…
With a Uber hailed, it was time to head off into the black wonder of a Birmingham night, and over to the wonder to Digbeth Coach Station.
I’m sure I’ve written about Digbeth coach station experience more than once on this blog, but it’s a functional coach station, that’s warm and semi-friendly at 2 a.m. in the morning. If the local taxi drivers aren’t hogging one corner of the place.
Digbeth Coach Station.
Sadly, the coach driver was in their own world, with it departing Digbeth around 10 minutes late – as the driver tried to work out how to work the wheelchair lift in the coach. All sorts of fun.
With everyone on board, the coach began its slow trek to Heathrow, with stops booked at Birmingham Airport, Banbury, Oxford, and Heathrow Terminal Central.
With the coach underway, the driver announced that the toilets were broken.
That was worrying – as there would surely be a few filling bladders along the way, and no doubt – an extra stop on the way.
I was right sadly. Whilst we made it to Banbury and Oxford successfully, the driver had to pull into Oxford services to pause and let people out the motorway services.
Not totally unexpected, but it added another 15 minutes onto the journey.
Whilst this was in play, I was getting alerts about the flight – and not the good kind. Initially, departure was pushed back to an 11:15 departure, before being pulled forward to an on-time departure.
Uh oh.
At least my seating assignment was holding, with the seat showing a Premium Economy seat now.
This did not bode well.
With the driver behind thanks to the stops, we were running a good 30 minutes behind by the time he hit Heathrow Central. At least I had arrived – which would help.
Away with number 210.
I grabbed my bags and began the first great push along Heathrow travelators towards Terminal 3.
Going underground…
Walk this way….
Popping out at Terminal 3, I found things had shuffled around Flagship Check-in in Zone B still, and all other premium check-in services having moved to Zone E.
Terminal 3. With all the pink LED lights.
Only head this way for Virgin, Delta and the Flagship Check-in areas.
That’s all well and good, but it would have helped if the AA check-in staff could be found. And there was nay a member of staff to be found until 5:50 am.
Tum tee tum
Check-in was conducted sluggishly – with a fair few people in front of me. I was seen to, and my bags were accepted for check-in, and a boarding pass issued.
Apparently that this point, the plane was showing as on-time again at this point. Meanwhile, I checked my boarding pass, there were four letters on it – SSSS
No wonder I could not check in, as those four letter normally prevents that process from kicking off.
With a sigh, I headed upstairs to departures and fast track Whilst there was SSSS my boarding pass – there were things that had to be done.
Terminal 3 Fast Track
I cleared security in under 5 minutes (FastTrack seems to be pleasant at 6 am in the morning when there’s only minimal footfall through it) and was happily in the airside area of Terminal 3.
Now, things to do. There were two things I needed to do: –
- Get a bottle of water
- New headphones.
A bottle of water was provisioned by Boots the Chemist, whilst Dixons travel provided some reasonable Skullcandy headphones to keep me going for the next few days.
Again – good to see passenger seats in the public area wired up for power – both UK style and USB A type outlets.
With those in hand, I headed off to my first lounge stop of the day – the Cathay Pacific lounge and the lounge where I would end up for most of the day (without wanting to be…) The American Airlines lounge.
To the lounges!
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