Saturday morning I jet off from Seattle for my mileage run to Bahrain, stopping in Washington Dulles and Kuwait along the way. All in a quest to earn ~18K EQM PQM in one go rather than stretch my mileage runs over several weekends. Read more about my initial thoughts when I booked the flight.
Unfortunately, I booked this trip only a few days before United announced the March 3 transition to Continental’s SHARES back-end system. This will take place only a few hours before my departure. If anything goes wrong, I will be among the first to find out about it on the west coast. Hopefully you guys back east will learn a few tricks and spread the word so I get a more seamless transition. 😉
I’ve also never taken a mileage run this long before, nor one to such a foreign country. Not that the Middle East is inhospitable by any means, but it isn’t exactly Europe where they glance at your American passport, make fun of G.W.B., and wave you through. I already had trouble getting an eVisa in advance. Hopefully there’s an ATM or they take USD. I’ll pack some extra clothes and bring plenty of work/reading/movies on my iPad and MacBook, but I’ll still be sitting in coach.
My new 1K card has still not arrived. Very big 🙁 We’ll see what this means when I try accessing the lounges because I’ll be needing it, especially in Bahrain. That shower will probably be the only thing that gets me back on the plane home!
I’ll try to keep tweeting and posting as I travel, depending on the availability of an Internet connection and the collective life of my electronic gadgets. Let’s all hope there’s more to say about the destination than any snafus during the trip getting there…
