Yes, This Is Real Life Part 7: Dealing With Dragons

 

View from the DOH-CMB flight

It's the turn-around point!  But first, the story so far:

Yes, This Is Real Life - Preview

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 1 - Location, Location, Location

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 2 - Brits in Beantown

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 3 - Shades On, Wheels Up

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 4 - Welcome To Ghostport

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 5 - When You Layover During Ramadan...

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 6 - Birds In Doha

Welcome to Columbo, for the second time.  Last time I passed through here, I dealt with the trials of getting onward tickets from Sri Lankan for Qatar, and the entirely underwhelming absorptive properties of the towels in the shower at the UL (Sri Lankan airways) lounge.

This time, I had vague plans of actually leaving the airport.  There were a few attractions nearby, and while the CMB airport falls into the 'it's fine' category, it's not an epic lounge destination like HKG.  However, as I went on about previously, mileage runs are trips where you react in the moment to what simply sounds the best.  In this case, what sounded the best....was a nap.  So, we took a nap.

CMB Airport

 As it so happens, CMB is a great place for this because there's a small transit hotel right in the airport that doesn't require clearing immigration to get to.  This was even better, because another large factor in our staying airside was that they wanted someplace around $40 a person for a visa on arrival.  While that's not really all that much in context, it starts to feel obnoxious when there's two of you, and you only really have about 5 hours on the ground to start with.

The transit hotel hallway.  Nothing fancy, but perfect for a nap.

The day rate at the hotel was less than the visa price (bless cheap SE Asia), so we split a room for a shower and a solid couple hours of downtime.  To get there, head toward the exit, past the transit desk and shrine in the center of the terminals, and follow signs to the Hotel.  The rooms aren't anything fancy, but they're clean (enough) and quiet.  The timing couldn't be better for trying to stay away from heavy jetlag, since for 'us' it was still the middle of the night. 



This way...

Feeling better, we did of course go for a little lounge time before our outbound flights.  Here's where some shenanigans started up again.  Now, here's an (exceedingly) rare moment where I'll have to admit I was in the wrong.  I know it's impossible to believe, but stick with me.

The Oneworld rules for lounge access state that a OW Emerald, such as myself, gets 1st class lounge access "when the next onward flight is on a Oneworld owned and operated flight."  The same rule applies to guests.  They don't have to be on your same Oneworld flight, just a Oneworld flight.

There are actually a couple lounges up by the transit hotel, including the Emirates and a small Sri Lankan.  The bigger, better, Sri Lankan lounge is in the main terminal though.

Unfortunately this time, my travel companion and I were preparing to go separate ways after flying together up to this point.  I was headed back to Doha on Qatar, and he was flying back to the US by way of Dubai on an Emirates award ticket.  What this resulted in was us each having good lounge access, just to different lounges, and neither of us could rightly guest the other in.  This is not to say we didn't try at both places.... but it didn't work out.  I was hoping that given that the UL lounge was empty, and he did have his Oneworld card on him, we might slide by.  However, the lounge dragons, after some chatter amongst themselves, thought otherwise. 

As I said, I knew I was in the wrong here going in, so there was no point in protesting.  We said our goodbyes, and each spent a few minutes in our respective lounges before going to our gates. 

Bar at the Sri Lankan lounge.  I like the "airplane" motif.

My time at the lounge was, I'll admit, true to form for my jetlagged-delirious self at this point.  I was nearly the only one there, and there were few staff of any kind.  In a matter of about 30 minutes I managed to spill cylon tea on myself, raid the bar fridge and open my own bottle of champagne, and on account of not reading Tamil well, blow right past the sign that said the buffet was temporarily closed while they changed from lunch to dinner dishes, and help myself to the food, distributing my own serving utensils as I went.  Not super proud, but no regrets either.  Really, they should have let my buddy in as I clearly needed adult supervision.

Yeah.... I went there.

 

I ate whatever this was, even though they weren't serving yet.

After all of that, I said goodbye to Colombo and got back on my next Qatar flight. As was becoming the theme of this amazing weekend, I was once again nearly alone on my flight.  The plane was a 777-200, which Qatar has business class laid out in a 2-2-2 configuration.  On this one I had the entire row of 6 seats behind the bulkhead to MYSELF.  Basically a whole mini business class cabin.  Unreal.

Miiiiiine, all mine...

So I flew out alone, right back to another sleepless night in Doha....

~CruisingAltitude

Up next- A Place Most Exceedingly Rare: My triumphant return to Doha (again), thoughts you didn't ask for about IFE, and a primer on Qatar transit visas.

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 2: Brits in Beantown

 

Well done, BA, well done.

 

Previously:

Yes, This Is Real Life: Preview

Yes, This Is Real Life Part 1: Location, Location, Location 

I did, very eventually, make it to Boston.  I hardly ever fly into Logan anymore, and so it was a sentimental experience to taxi into the B gates.  In many ways, I learned to mileage run because of the Boston airport.  Well, not the airport itself, but because for over two years Mrs. CruisingAltitude and I kept up a Los Angeles-Boston relationship.  Hauling back and forth to see her got me my first EXP status, and I've never wanted to give it up. 
 

Elevator up to the lounge level, follow the signs.

In the last few years, BOS has undergone some big renovations, and it was fun to see the new modern parts of the terminals as we walked from B to E.  The E gates serve international destinations, and I hadn't flown out of there before. We elected to walk through the parking structure, rather than taking the infra-terminal shuttle bus.  We got some steps in, which was good since we had a 12 hr flight ahead of us. 

 

The delay really limited the time I had to do the terminal change, check in with Qatar, re-security, and enjoy some pre-flight lounge time.  As we'd discovered just before this trip, British Airways has a beautiful new lounge at the E gates.  Since a major Oneworld benefit is access to partner airlines' lounges when traveling internationally, no matter the class of service, we headed over to check it out. 

 

Now, let me state again that I consider lounge access to be a major draw keeping me interested in staying loyal to Oneworld airlines.  With all the upheaval domestically with the merger and reduction in American benefits, you have to give Oneworld even more weight.  Where Delta might give better domestic service, and United is launching their "Polaris" class that looks pretty elegant, Oneworld is king when it comes to lounges worldwide. 

Airports like HKG, NRT, and SYD have lounge set ups for top tier flyers that are worth hours of layover time.  The free drinks and food, as well as comfort and services, are a bit part of the benefits of Oneworld status. So, it was annoying and short sighted when we were denied access at the door.  According to rules I'm pretty sure BA just made up, they deny access to Qatar customers, trying instead to send them to an inferior Air France lounge.  This is a clear violation of Oneworld rules, which state that OW Emerald has access to first class and business class lounges when traveling on ANY international itinerary, as long as the next onward flight is on a Oneworld marketed and operated flight.  There are a few very small carve outs to this, but the BA lounge in BOS sure isn't one of them. 

It says so RIGHT THERE, on their own sign!

 

They're right that they can make a non-Oneworld elite go to the Air France lounge since Qatar has contracted with that lounge to take their business class ticketed passengers.  However, we were at BA based on our Oneworld status, not the seat we were flying in that day.  The entrance to the lounge even has the Oneworld Emerald and Sapphire logo on it!  Things got a little heated, which is shameful on BA's part, because we were within the rules, and annoying loyal Oneworld elites shouldn't be a career goal for them.  They have plenty of transatlantic competition with newer planes, and lower taxes.

 

We did, however, prevail and were let in.  However, the entire thing was embarrassing, and the agents there need retraining on Oneworld rules if they really don't understand them.  This kind of issue was happening at the Qantas lounge at LAX when they first opened, and after a refresher, it hasn't been an issue since. 

 

Drama over with for the time being, we did get access to the lounge and had a look around.  The space is decently large for a BA outpost at a large enough, but not massive airport.  The décor is chic and modern, with some elegant touches.  It was, however, packed at this time of day.  This may have been part of the more vicious fight they put up over letting us in (or so I'd like to think).  It's to be expected though, as most transatlantic flights leave the US in the evening, causing mad rushes on the lounges around this time. 

A quick look around showed there was plenty of food, with both buffet and small made to order options.  The offering had a bit of a pan-Asian bent to it, which I enjoyed, though didn't entirely understand.  There were made to order lettuce wraps, and steamed buns, as well as a salad bar/hot bar, and plenty of sweets.

A small business center and showers were also available, and I had hoped to clean up before the long flight, but judging by the crowds and the delay that only left us with about an hour of lounge time, told me I'd just have to hold out until Doha.

We squeezed through the main part of the lounge, and found two seats at the bar.  The views of the sunset from here over the airport and the city were some of the most stunning of any airport lounge in the world. Paired with a glass of champagne, it was a perfect kick-off to the rest of the trip, and I'm still scheming on ways to get back there with the right ticketing for another visit.
  


Dear God, let me get back there again

 

All too soon, the sun disappeared over Boston, and it was time to head out to our plane.  However, this was definitely no great hardship, and the journey was just beginning!

 

~CruisingAltitude

 

Up Next: Part 3- Shades On, Wheels Up