Today was a travel day that I hope to never repeat. I was supposed to be heading traveling Toronto —> Chicago —> Haneda (ANA first class) —> Bangkok (ANA biz). My flight from Toronto to Chicago was 8am, and I thought that I’d get in ahead of the storm. How wrong I was. My flight was delayed until 11:10am and we had to disembark the plane after sitting for 2 hours. I was worried that I might miss my 4:25pm flight on ANA, so I called AC for options. The options the CSR gave me were horrible and all involved at least 1 overseas leg in economy, which was a hard no. I had to enlist dh to call his concierge (he’s super elite with AC so has access to this service; I’m a tier below and don’t). She was emphatic that there was no way she could get me on an ANA first class flight out of either JFK or Washington (not sure why not because both had open seats). She finally found a biz class seat on a flight from Toronto to Haneda leaving Toronto at 12:50pm, which I jumped at; with this flight I would still make my flight to Bangkok at 12:05am.
I found myself at the airport wondering if this trip was about the journey (I booked the seat in first almost a year ago) or the destination; I decided it was a combination of both. As bummed as I was, at least I am sitting in Tokyo waiting for my next flight with plenty of time. And I still have my flight home, which is Tokyo —> Chicago —> Toronto, which I wIll definitely be on (The leg from Tokyo to Chicago is in ANA first).
Of course I had to torture myself when we landed by checking to see if the ANA flight took off on time. It did not — it was delayed until 11:19pm. If I had taken my flight from Toronto to Chicago (which departed at 11:20am) I would’ve been sitting in Chicago for over 10 hours and then missed my connection to Bangkok, which in turn would have me missing an entire day in Bangkok.
The AC flight was uneventful — we took off on time and landed an hour early. I’m now sitting in the ANA first class lounge (I used my old boarding pass – worst case they would’ve sent me to the biz class lounge next door). I am legit the only person in the entire lounge and it’s a decent-size lounge. I ordered fresh sushi (SO good) and a ramen bowl (it’s small but packs substantial flavor). I have 5 hours here before boarding for my flight to Bangkok. Quite a day!
Since I barely slept on the AC flight I am hoping to get a few hours on the next flight. Somehow when the AC agent was re-ticketing my trip I lost the seat that I had booked (1A, no one in the middle section to my right), so I’m now in 5A.
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