They say ignorance is bliss, and I guess to an extent they’re right cause I’ve been ignorant for some years now. You may be thinking, ignorant about what? Well when I travel I tend to be frugal when I purchase my airline tickets. I want to spend the majority of my money at my destination. I also don’t care to arrive at the airport hours before my flight, thirty minutes prior is perfect time. You arrive, you board, no waiting around! It can be risky at times, and I haven’t missed a flight, but once and only once, to date, I’ve had the plane waiting on me 🤦🏾♀️.
I started to awaken from my ignorance when my job blessed me with TSA PreCheck. You couldn’t tell me nothing! Walking through TSA with my shoes on, glancing at the people in the other line taking their shoes off. And to top it off, American Airlines blessed me with gold status on a promotion; priority status with free first class upgrades! WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING MY WHOLE TRAVELLING LIFE??? And little did I know my travel experience was going to level up even more with my upcoming trip to Jamaica.
My friend, J, purchased our tickets. Since in his words, “I have status with American”. I didn’t know what exactly that meant but I would quickly find out. My gold status ended, and I received an email to renew. I was eager to learn my offer, I opened it and saw $995 for the year! Wait huh? I guess gold status wouldn’t be in my plans. We arrived at the airport checked in and received our boarding passes. We proceeded towards PreCheck when I noticed the misprint on my boarding pass. No pre check 😳. We were now running a little behind and our flight was boarding in five minutes, I had to go back, but J wanted me to go in the pre check line with him. I quickly learned he is a ‘go with it’ guy, but there’s no going with it with TSA. So I went back to customer service, because going through the regular line was not an option. The line was so long and I grew accustomed to not taking my shoes off 🤷🏾♀️. Got my new boarding passes and we were on the way to our gate. When we arrived at our gate J proceeded to board but I noticed my gate had not yet been called. I hesitated, but he insisted I go with him. I just didn’t want to be turned back for boarding with the wrong group…
We landed in Charlotte. Our layover was about 1.5 hours and I’ve never been so excited for a layover. We headed to the Centurion Lounge by American Express where we would sip mimosas until our next flight.
I only heard about airport lounges and seen them on tv, but to experience it for myself; how could I ever go back to being regular. I mean I could take a shower if I needed and then I was informed that the menu was limited due to covid. Limited?? I could only imagine the spread they offered prior.
It was time to depart and I only wish we had a couple more hours, but it was time to experience another lounge. After landing in Montego Bay we headed for Club Mobay while we waited for our other friend to arrive. And the rum punches were flowing!
I‘ve tasted and seen and how could I go back to the airport life I knew before. A few days later I would find myself right back in the airport. I arrived at DCA to board my flight to TPA. And as I mentioned before I like to arrive at the airport just as my flight is about to board, but this time as I was minutes away from the airport I notice a notification stating that the flight would be delayed! OMG, what was I to do. I cleared TSA with hopes of my flight being on time, nope! So I decided to grab a sandwich and get settled. And that’s when I noticed it, the lounge that I could not enter, *deep sigh* this would have been the perfect time…
Do I need to level up my airport game for 2021?
Takiyah Travels 