Pick-A-Day

April 2009
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Fortune Favored

As observed yesterday, I had a really good trip to the States.

That said, I am relieved to be back home before the Swine Flu Paranoia hits level six—or is that level 7? The rate at which concern about the disease has exploded is somewhat shocking to me—Of course, I’m writing this at 40,000 feet and probably when I return to the ground, half of Chicago will have come down with the disease and I’ll be patient zero for Weimar.

Anyhow, my happiness with this trip has continued unabated: I was upgraded to business and it’s not really clear to me why I was upgraded.

First of all, I had a bargain basement fare class. One could, two days out, purchase my ticket for 345€; 85€ of which was the fare, with 260€ in taxes. I have never seen Europe to the US plane tickets that low in price. Obviously the economic crisis has hit the airlines hard—and this was before Swine Flu was remotely on the radar. I’m starting to think I should take a vacation to Mexico sometime in the next couple of months; I bet prices are dropping like a rock!

Secondly, the flight was fairly empty, and elite light. When I first looked at the seat map to pick my seats, less than two weeks before the flight, not one of the eight emergency exit row seats in economy class were taken—these are super premium seats with virtually unlimited leg-room and usually the seats are selected two months in advance.

Whatever the reason, I was doubly happy that I had only had a big breakfast, followed by a tiny late afternoon snack from Taco Bell (seriously: only because B./Eurotrippen mentioned it on Twitter). Dinner in business class is a fancy affair and it’s much more substantial than what’s on offer in economy.

Again, fortune favored me—I had a charming seating companion. It was a guy with a personality and easy to talk to. Of course we didn’t talk much—I finished reading a book, ate dinner, listened to Eurovision 2009 tracks, and fell sleep.

Randomly, I might note that this was my first nwa flight in Delta colors.

That might be too geeky for most of you.

3 comments to Fortune Favored