While the flight from Washington to Palm Springs ran completely by the numbers, the return was a little bumpy. We may have paid a premium to fly home Sunday morning, rather than the dreaded redeye, but nothing in air travel is guaranteed. Say it with me: NOTHING IN AIR TRAVEL IS GUARANTEED. 

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    Sunday morning, after enjoying the glorious Saturday evening wedding, we awoke lazily at our hotel. Our flight to Dallas was departing around 11 a.m. With an hour or so to connect, we were due back into DCA before 10 p.m. That morning, there was no need to rush. The Palm Springs International Airport is easy to navigate, we had TSA Pre-check, and the hotel was less than a 5-minute drive to the airport rental-car drop-off. Let’s just sit around eating yogurt and berries, OK?

 

    Then came the first text: a 20-minute delay. Fine. Instead of an hour to make our DFW connection, we’d have 40 minutes. Plus, more time for Palm Springs poolside berries! No problem. The second text, about 15 minutes later, pulled the rug out. The delay was now nearly an hour, and we’d been pulled from our DFW-DCA flight. But at least an algorithm was doing its darndest to find us another way home. All of those alternatives, however, directed us to the redeye from Phoenix, in economy. That some of these routings wouldn’t have us home till Tuesday was out of the question. (From the prior trip report, you’ll note that the husband was on the host committee of an annual fundraising gala Monday night. Couldn’t miss it!)

 

    The lazy Sunday morning had morphed into un-showered, barely caffeinated confusion. Coincidentally, we suddenly had the worst WiFi connection of the stay. Because of course. Obi-Google.wan/flights, you’re our only hope.

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    Through two American Airlines agents – certainly the first dropped call must’ve been an accident – the negotiations began. 

 

    “You’ve got two later flights out of DFW to DCA. Booked?”

 

    “Front to back. Both flights.”

 

    “I think I see a connection through Chicago.”

 

    “I’ve got one seat.”

 

    On and on, round and round. So, considering we still had the rental and LAX, an American hub, was not so far away, with traffic at merely Sunday levels, I removed PSP from the calculations. Could we still make the daytime, nonstop LAX-DCA? No. So many permutations I explored, but shot down again and again. Finally, realizing the possibilities were far slimmer than I initially reckoned, a routing that would do in a Palm Springs pinch flashed on the screen.

 

    “I’m looking at two seats in first, from L.A., via JFK, a redeye, getting us into DCA around 1 p.m. Monday. Do you see that?”

 

    “Mmm, what’s the flight number?”

 

    “The first flight is AA 30. I’m looking at the two seats on Google. I could buy them right now. Can you put us on that?”

 

    “Mmm…. OK.”

 

    Certainly not optimal, but we’ll make the Monday night appearance. But I’m in 1A? Drat. Bulkhead. I’ll need to put my small bag – the one with the earbuds, iPad, sanitizer, etc. – above me for takeoff, then climb over Fernando afterward to get it back…. It was such a pretentious thought going through my privileged head! I was immediately reminded of Jessica Lange in American Horror Story: Coven, whining in the final episode as she gets her seating assignment from Air France as she plans to hightail it out of New Orleans: “Why do they always put me in 1A??” Seems I’m a bad witch. But, hey, I feel you, gurl. 

 

    My next stop was SeatGuru.com. We were both in A seats, rows 1 and 5. I wanted to examine the layout, not knowing what sort of aircraft this was. I’m sure Google had listed it, but I wasn’t paying attention. In my panic, that was secondary information.

 

    “O, my,” I thought. No need to worry about the bulkhead. We’d just been assigned American’s signature Flagship First pods, a transcon class only available between  JFK and LAX/SFO. Even the business class on this plane would’ve been superior to the seats we should’ve been flying home. 

 

    “Fernando, they might pull these seats from us when we get to LAX,” I warned. While these pods are the equivalent of American’s international, long-haul business seats, it offers only scant few of them domestically. So, when God closes an original itinerary, sometimes she makes up for it with an airborne bed with all the bells and whistles. 

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    First, we had to get ourselves to LAX. Luckily, our hotel had been sold, and this was its last weekend in business. Meaning staff couldn’t care less when we checked out. With an 11:30 p.m. departure, we certainly had time to kill. One last brunch with the family? You bet! One more shower to wash off the Palm Springs heat? Yes, please. Taking our time, we were still on the road by about 3 p.m. Yelling at Fernando every time he passed a car did no good. “We’re gonna have like six hours to kill at LAX. Slow down!” Not possible, apparently. 

 

    Barely two hours later, arriving at the Enterprise return, I was relieved there was a discrepancy regarding the amended-drop-off fee. Good! Some bureaucratic quibbling could kill some time. But by 6 p.m., we were pulling up to the American Airlines premium counter. We’re used to the premium check-in just looking like a counter with a shorter line. Here, it was roped off in a corner with no line whatsoever. After checking the bags, the agent urged us to indulge in the full experience. So did Fernando: “It’s not like we’ll ever be paying for this….” True.

 

    The first novel perk was the security line. Adjacent the premium check-in counter was a dedicated elevator, taking us up one floor to possibly the loneliest TSA agent on earth. “So, this is how Britney Spears travels,” I wondered, dating myself by my choice of hypothetical celebrity.

 

    After security, we walked down a hall to enter the “Flagship” complex, two venues of elitist allure. Checking in with the lounge staff, we handed over the glossy, black dinner invitations – of a sort – we’d been handed downstairs. With these, we could enter the überexclusive American Airlines Flagship First Dining experience.  How exclusive? So much so that the place was essentially an awkward ghost town. We came in contact, barely, with only one other passenger during our visit. She, like us, seemed also to have won the rerouting lottery. “Do I have to eat?” she asked, seemingly confused about this maze of perks. “I just need someplace to sit before my flight.”