Travel to Bordeaux

Unfortunately the trade off to living in a beautiful place is sometimes the travel isn’t always easy.

In order to have a “simpler” day of travel I was booked to fly to Bordeaux from Boise. This means a roughly a two and a half hour drive in addition to the flight time. In the winter it can take longer avoiding a snowy mountain pass. Fortunately it is an easy drive with little to no traffic except the occasional elk crossing. Unfortunately Boise has been working on their parking for what feels like forever so I end up having to park at the economy lot a short drive away.

Luckily the Boise airport is easy. Nobody in line at check in. Nobody in line at TSA. The biggest bummer is no lounge of any sort. Fortunately I planned ahead and ate along the way.

BOI > MSP

Boise to Minneapolis was a short two hour flight. One thing that I particularly like given that I rarely get upgraded on Delta is that they don’t consider exit row Comfort +, only preferred seating. This means with my low low silver status I am able to snag the exit row which is still extra leg room.

Lounge

I stopped by the Delta Sky Club for some lunch on my way to my next gate. The Minneapolis lounge is one of the more cramped and crowded feeling clubs. It also feels a bit old and tired. There were plenty of food options for a decent meal. I was limited on time so I inhaled the food quickly and headed to the gate.

MSP>CDG

My flight from Minneapolis to Paris was delayed at the time we were supposed to be boarding… Do they do that so you get out of the lounge more quickly?

Either way while waiting, in the crowded waiting area with multiple major international flights and limited seating options (nice work MSP) I noticed that my seat got changed. I only noticed it because of the delay notification. They “upgraded” me to comfort plus. One thing I DO like about Delta is that you can specify that you don’t want an upgrade if it isn’t the type of seat you want. Perfect. I don’t like middle seats so on my profile I have it specified as such. Well guess what, I was “upgraded” to a middle seat from my aisle exit row. I immediately went and spoke with the gate agents. They told me that because it was a completely full flight I was “upgraded”. I’m sorry Delta, but that is not an upgrade and I am not about to sit in a middle seat for 9 hours. They were resistant to fixing it and eventually did so reluctantly. Do better delta.

On Board

Boy was I glad that I made the change (at least at the time) back to my original seat. As I passed my middle seat in Comfort Plus and saw the slightly above average leg room compared to my infinite leg room in the exit row. The one mistake I did make, and have made in the past, was to take the aisle seat. People are oblivious to their surroundings and step on my feet repeatedly. The window in this situation is better because you are more protected and can still easily get out.

Lots of legroom in the exit row. I am surprised and grateful that Delta does not consider this comfort +

Exit row/bulkhead with the entertainment and table in the arm rest makes for a narrow seat

“Amenity Kit” for main cabin seats. It is a nice touch, but it is basically an eye mask. Feels like some wasteful packaging.

The food

The food was your average, bland airplane food. It was a very basic and small meal, though felt marginally healthy. Ordering the chicken dish did feel like it was lacking in, well, chicken.

I was impressed by the way it was served. The dishes felt like compostable or recyclable material. The cutlery was bamboo. It is nice to see an effort to move towards sustainability.

Food was meh, but decent eco friendly packaging and cutlery

Breakfast was an egg sandwich and fruit. Again it felt healthy, but it could really have used something else (sausage, bacon, avo, tomato, something), or at the very least some hot sauce. Why don’t airlines ever offer hot sauce?

 My sleep did not pan out the way I had hoped. I fell asleep before take off, then woke up before the meal. I fell back asleep after the meal, but the flashing light above me distracted me. There was some sort of malfunction with that caused this light to flash at odd intervals in various colors. The flight attendant was very apologetic and offered me some miles as a thank you for being chill. It took everything for me not to laugh given how useless SkyMiles feel to me. Later she made a budget fix and taped some papers to the ceiling mostly covering the light.

At that point I got distracted by the fact that we were getting in even later than expected leaving me with roughly 30 minutes to get from gate to gate. Trying to be proactive I tried to see what I could do in the app. Unfortunately you can’t do a whole lot in the Delta app. You can’t even see the seat map once it gets too close to the flight. My next choice while in the air was to use the messaging feature. I think it is a great feature but still has a long way to go. It took me close to an hour to get through to a human. Then that human told me they could put me on a flight the next day. The next day! First that won’t work because I have work. Second, they said it was the only ‘Delta’ option. Guess what? I had colleagues on 3 other Delta (operated by Air France) flights to Bordeaux later that day so I knew that was a lie. At that point all I could do was hope for the best.

I will say that the flight attendant was very sweet and helpful. When I was initially approached I was a bit salty. But she was generally very kind and tried to help in any way that she could. We had a very nice conversation on the way to the gate and it made a world of difference.

CDG

When we landed I didn’t think I would make it but figured what’s the harm in trying. Part way into the transfer my colleague messaged saying he told them I was on the way and he thought I could make it which stoked my confidence. I ran. I sweat. I tried. I got to the gate right when it was supposed to take off and they told me they couldn’t let me on the plane even though the pilots weren’t even on the plane yet. Lame.

The Air France help desk was great. The line was busy but moved at a brisk pace. When I got to the counter the guy put me on the next flight, said my bag would be on that flight. He then proceeded to give me a 15 Euro food voucher. So far Air France service gets an A+ in my book.

I had a coffee and some food while I cooled down from my run. The missed connection added about 3 hours to my day. I had to sit around for about two hours before my last flight. Then it was delayed a bit.

Once I got on the Air France flight I closed my eyes and woke up a while later in Bordeaux. I couldn’t tell you anything about the AF flight or services.

I grabbed my bag in the tiny baggage claim area, found my ride, and headed to the hotel. It was a long day but got to Bordeaux with plenty of time to have a nice meal in a French square with a nice bottle of Bordeaux wine.

Last thought - Skymiles

I have read a lot about how Delta Skymiles are worthless. I had not really tried to use them previously but having flown Delta a bit the last few years I thought my modest savings might be worth something. Boy was I wrong.

I wanted to use my miles to upgrade to a lie flat seat for the flight to CDG. My first issue is that Delta uses a dynamic pricing system for their upgrades. This means that I saw the price of an upgrade swing by over $1000 in a couple of hours. Supply and demand. They are not wrong to do it, but ouch.

My real issue is that they tie the miles upgrade to the cost of a cash upgrade at a cost of roughly 100:1. While I understand that you are buying the upgrade and not getting put on a waitlist it turns into a very costly upgrade. My flight got up to 475,000 miles for an upgrade on an 8 hour flight! I could fly round trip in business to Asia on a better airline TWICE for that number of miles. Oh and let’s not forget that it was also nearly 140,000 for a 2 hour flight in domestic first. HAH!

Oh well. I guess I will continue to save my miles for the day I can use them.