Weekly Recap: August 12

Back to a “typical” schedule:

Monday:Flew United CLT-IAH-SNA (credited to US Airways) and stayed this night in the Courtyard near the airport.  I called the hotel when I got to the shuttle area and the shuttle arrived in about 10 minutes.  Check-in at the hotel was fine and I ate dinner at the Bistro.  I have never eaten dinner at a Bistro before and I was surprised at how limited the menu was.  I’ll stick to finding restaurants for dinner.

Tuesday: Meetings.  I was supposed to be at the Courtyard by SNA all week, but my meeting on Wednesday was out in Victorville, CA so I convinced the team to move.  It was also over 50% cheaper.  The dinner options were much different out here.  Yelp said to eat at a local Italian place, but the hotel suggested Mexican so we ventured to El Tio Pepe and were quite underwhelmed.  My room at the Courtyard Hesperia was much smaller than the one in Irvine.  It still had free coffee though.  I wanted to check out the commercial planes they park in Victorville but it didn’t sound like there was a proper way to see them and my coworkers think I’m crazy enough as it is.  Zoom in on this map and you can get a good idea.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=victorville,+ca+airport&aq=&sll=34.536107,-117.291157&sspn=0.347866,0.793076&t=h&g=victorville,+ca&ie=UTF8&hq=victorville,+ca+airport&hnear=&radius=15000&ll=34.584167,-117.384163&spn=0.071946,0.071946&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

A panoramic someone uploaded to google maps of the planes.

Wednesday: After my meetings I couldn’t fly home for a reasonable price so I migrated back to the airport, but decided to check out the Courtyard in Santa Ana since it was cheaper than Irvine as well and claimed to have an airport shuttle.  I ate dinner at a sushi place across the street.

Thursday: Somehow I booked a very late (for the west coast) flight and didn’t leave California until 1 pm Pacific/4 pm Eastern.  I left the hotel around 10 am.  I asked about their shuttle and apparently they don’t actually have on, they just pay cab fare.  Fair enough and I got to the airport, discovered SNA does indeed have PreCheck, but only has United and American lounges and I have Delta membership so I ate at the taco restaurant.  It was pretty good.  I flew home SNA-ORD-CLT on United and ran into a coworker while I was headed to the Sky Club in ORD.  Small world!

Friday: Passport Health and some conference calls

Status Update:

Delta: 68 MQS/54,XXX MQM
US Airways: 4 PQS – 48 PQS/39,XXX PQM – Passed 45 PQS and earned a special dividend
American Airlines: 5 EQS /3,XXX EQM
Hilton: 32 Stays/44 Nights
Marriott: 3 Nights – 53 nights total
Avis: 7 rentals
Hertz: 1 rental

(I take pictures of all of my food for Yelp so I figure I’ll post it here too.  I got bored taking pictures of Hamptons and Courtyards since there is such little variation most of the time.  For speed tests of the hotel Wi-Fi follow me on Twitter)