TRIP REPORT: Still for the Friends – Off to Chicago with American Airlines and British Airways

Still for the Friends
Off to Chicago with American Airlines and British Airways

• Still for the friends
• But first. A trip to Liverpool, North West England.  But why?
• To the… daytime Heathrow run?
• Lounging around the usual suspects
• AA87 London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare
• HOTEL: Crowne Plaza O’Hare
• HOTEL: Hyatt Regency O’Hare
• Exploring Modern Photography at MCoP
• Gundam Base, Chicago
• Quick Food Adventures
• An Early Return to O’Hare and the American Airlines Flagship Lounge
• AA882 to Chicago O’Hare to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport
• An Atlanta Transit
• BA226 to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport to London Heathrow Terminal 3 in World Traveller
• Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
• Still for Friends

Editors’ Introduction

It’s time for a Long-Haul Trip Report, with a few bells and whistles that you all enjoy on this blog. With extra bells because I like to make life fun for myself.

That and it’s good to see how the Oneworld Alliance continues to show off, or disappoint as appropriate.

And there’s a fair bit of that in this trip report.

I’m going a little more off-piste than usual in the style of writing and what I do, to give you an insight into a few things I do beyond just flying to Chicago. Because there is life at a destination (of course, not everything… no one needs to know those details).

Whilst I am using Grammarly a lot more than I should (dyslexia is a pig and gets me most days of the week), my usual detractors who moan about my spelling and grammar can read this press release I wrote a few years ago about this inconstancy and how I deal with it.

Still for the friends

With everything that’s going on in the USA, it is becoming increasingly harder to justify going over, putting it bluntly.

But one thing pulls me back – it’s my friends. Even in this time, supporting them in person is never a bad thing. Especially when the world seems to be continuing to go to hell

So, whilst going to the United States of America is not on the agenda for a lot of travellers, for me, it’s still something I do twice a year to physically see people, to ensure they’re well, can unload mental stress, and feed them some choclate thats rapidly getting worse (although most chocolate sn the world are better than a hershey bar, so…).

For this trip, I waited towards the end of the British Airways/American Airlines sale in January, as I was mostly trying to play around with the fares for something “interesting”. Because going A to B is boring without a spicy C at least.

And if I want spicy, I go to American Airlines to book a flight, as the British Airways engine only does “safe” connecting flights.

I was digging around and found a nice route, which would take me through Madrid on the way out. That’s always fun to get an Iberia flight in. However much I tried, I could select the flights, but AA would not proceed to lock them in for ticketing.

Tasty….

To use the term from Wayne’s World… DENIED! 

Borrringgg.

I fiddled around a little more, given that the first flight from Heathrow to Chicago was at Midday from Terminal 5

In the end, I was also checking equipment, too, and found the 12:55 (AA87) would have American Airlines 787-9, designated as the 78P aircraft. That would do, I suppose.

On the way back, I wanted something spicy, so I was sorting by price and stops, and found a nice one-stop that would take me via Atlanta for £1 more, giving me an American Airlines A319 on a domestic segment, and a British Airways Boeing 777-200ER for the journey between Atlanta and Heathrow.

It’ll do.

Heck. Extra segments and miles. I’ll never say no to that.

In total, a bill of £542.89 landed in my Amex inbox. I paid and let it ticket itself.

With that done, it was time to sort out some hotels. As usual, for the bulk of the stay, I would be in the Hyatt Regency O’Hare with my friends. That just left the first night to sort out, with the pool of IHG properties that are in the O’Hare area (as staying downtown can be costly for the sake of being costly). Thus, it boiled down to three properties – the Avid, Holiday Inn/Staybridge Suites and the Crowne Plaza – all in the Rosemont/Des Plains region.

In the end, cost and convenience came into play, so it was the Crowne Plaza for this trip.

Finally, to get back and forth to Heathrow Airport, I booked FlixBus for £32.45 for a ticket, with extra baggage.

So, that’s the main part of travel sorted. Except I took another look at my passport.  With my ESTA expiring and the passport not far behind it, there was a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

So let’s spin forward a few weeks, to Birmingham New Street train station on a grey winter’s morning.

Next:

Liverpool. Morning. This wasn’t in the script.

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