A little before noon, I headed to the Sprecher Brewery to take their tour and have some beer samples. We stayed in the bar talking for a long time and both the 1 o’clock and 2 o’clock tour behind us came through before we were done.

Sprecher Brewery

Sprecher Brewery

From there we went downtown to have lunch and some coffee. The weather was awful with both rain and strong winds, so we didn’t venture far and walked into the first place we found and ordered a Chicago-style deep dish pizza that was very mediocre. The weather improved later, so we walked around a bit around downtown and along Lake Michigan.

Downtown Milwaukee

Lake Michigan

Hoan Bridge

Milwaukee Art Museum and downtown

Since I had a 5am flight in the morning, I went back pretty early to get a few hours of sleep in before leaving the hotel. Since it was close to the airport, I was able to take a 4am shuttle, walk up to the automated check-in kiosk, and go through security with plenty of time to spare. The second segment ORD-SFO looked like it might be oversold the night before as ORD had weather delays and cancellations the day before, but the plane ended up with 30+ open seats and cleared all standby passengers. I guess I can’t get a bump every time!

At any rate, Milwaukee is a nice change of pace from nearby Chicago, and although I wouldn’t go out of my way to go to Milwaukee instead of Chicago, it’s not a bad place to visit.

1K/First Class Check-in Line at SFO

My flight to ORD was on a 757-200, and I had upgraded using a soon-to-expire Regional Upgrade and chosen my favorite seat, 1B long in advance. When priority boarding began, I worked my way past all the people crowding the boarding area waiting for their row number to be called to the priority boarding lane and handed the gate agent my boarding pass. As she scanned it in the machine, it beeped in error, and she said, “Passenger already boarded. Hmm… just get on.” I finally got to the front of the plane to my seat, and there was already a passenger seated there. I asked if he was in 1B, showing him my 1B boarding pass, and he flashed his 1B boarding pass as well. As we took a closer look, he noticed that the 1B boarding pass had my name on it. He was traveling as a family of four with his wife and two kids, and they had been given 1A/1B, and 6A/6B. Their last name was the first two letters of my last name, so apparently the check-in agent had checked them in and saw me in 1B seated next to 1A, and made the mistake that I was the fourth member of their party.

I brought this to the attention of the purser, and he asked me to hang out in the aisle while he asked the gate to get it sorted out. After about five minutes, one of the ground crew came on-board to see our boarding passes again and to ask a few questions. He asked me where I was supposed to be seated, assuming that I had been inadvertently given 1B and it had been double booked, to which I replied that I had had 1B booked for over four weeks. He left the plane again before I can say anything else to try to explain what had happened, and it took another 10 or so minutes before he came back with the proper boarding passes for the family of four, showing one of the seats as 2A. Since the four were already split into pairs, one child per parent, I volunteered to take 2A without complaining. While I do prefer both aisles and the bulkhead, at least I was still in first class so I was happy to do the switch. I was, however, shocked that 1) the check-in agent would give them the boarding pass of another passenger (namely me), 2) they got through security with the wrong boarding pass for one of the passengers, and 3) they made it onto the plane, all without anyone ever noticing the error. Now, I don’t feel particularly unsafe because of this, but it goes to show what a joke airport security is.

The adventure continued on-board: as we were pulling out of the gate, we suddenly jerked to a stop. At first, I thought that maybe we had backed into another plane and thought that we would be stranded for awhile as they would need to rebook us onto later flights. But after we sat there for a good 10 or so minutes, we continued our taxi toward the runway. As we were going forward, I saw an Airbus behind us, and it appeared to be undamaged, and at any rate, it was too far to have been in a collision with us. I guessed that we had braked hard to avoid a collision, and the captain later confirmed this, announcing that the tow cart had slammed on the brakes, which is what caused us to violently stop.

San Francisco Bay

Once we were going, the purser came around for drink service and apologized for the seating mishap. He apologized again when I got up to go to the restroom later, which I thought was nice, although unnecessary since it didn’t really bother me. The flight arrived about 40 minutes early, so I was able to make it to the United Express gates in the F terminal about two and a half hours before my connecting flight to MKE. I noticed that there was another flight leaving soon, but there was no one at the gate so I walked over to the next gate and asked them to put me on standby for the earlier flight. The woman told me that it would be $75, then I told her that I was Premier Executive. She said that free standby was for 1K/Global Services only, but I replied that I thought there was a recent policy change that made it free for Premier Executives. She looked it up, and I was, of course correct, as both United and Continental had sent out e-mails announcing this change a couple of weeks ago. I easily cleared standby on the flight as it was about half-empty, and although the flight went out about half an hour late, I still arrived in Milwaukee over an hour earlier than scheduled. To add to the list of small things that happened that shouldn’t have happened, the gate agent started boarding us before the crew on-board were ready, and since the gate doesn’t use a jet-bridge for CRJ-200s, we were left standing out in the rain while the crew finished cleaning and preparing the cabin for boarding. Again, not a big deal, but it definitely added to the interesting day that I had.

Milwaukee

At MKE, I called the Holiday Inn Milwaukee Airport for a pickup, and they told me to use the Go Airport Connection shuttle connection. Apparently their own shuttle is out of service, so they were sending people over to the shuttle service and paying for the shuttle. Although I am on Pointbreak nights, they gave me most of the Platinum benefits minus the room upgrade, which were outlined in a letter they gave me at check-in: free breakfast, a discount at the restaurant, and some drink coupons.

Overall, it was a very unusual travel experience with many small mishaps along the way.

Holiday Inn Milwaukee Airport

When I returned, I realized that in my haste to catch the parking shuttle, I had left the lights on inside my car and drained the battery. I have a AAA membership, but as I was inside the gates to the parking lot, I figured it would be difficult to get them to help me inside. I found a courtesy phone in the bus stop shelter by my car, and I decided to give airport parking a call to see if they could help me out. I told them I was by shuttle stop F and needed a jump, and they responded that they were helping someone else but would be able to help me out in about 20 minutes. Perfect!

About 20 minutes later, I saw a pickup truck with markings on the side identifying it as airport parking zoom by without slowing down, so I went back to the phone and asked if they were coming to shuttle stop F as I saw the truck go flying by without looking for me. The man on the phone told me someone was on the way and should be there shortly. I waited for another 20 minutes, then called back and asked again if they had sent anyone to shuttle stop F. They told me they couldn’t find me and they would send the guy again. Another 20 minutes pass with no sign of the truck coming back. I call again, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, I called about a jumpstart at shuttle stop F for a blue Subaru. Is that still coming?
Airport Parking: Could you pop open your hood so that the driver can find you? He said he looked around but wasn’t able to find a blue Subaru.
Me: I’m right across from shuttle stop F.
Airport Parking: We went by shuttle stop S twice.

Now when he confirmed my location the other times, it sure sounded like he said F, but this time it was distinctly an S. I knew this must have been the problem, so I decided to clarify.

Me: I’m by stop F, F as in Foxtrot.
Airport Parking: S as in Sam.
Me: No, F as in Foxtrot.
Airport Parking: Right, S as in Sam?

Now, being at an airport, I figured that the phonetic alphabet would be just about the most fail-safe option for clarifying the letter. But that obviously didn’t work, so I thought about common names that start with the letter F.

Me: No, F as in Fred.
Airport Parking: S as in Sam? Can you say another word?

You can imagine what the next work that starts with F that came to my mind was. But I decided that wouldn’t help me, so I thought very hard and came up with:

Me: F as in French fries.
Airport Parking: Ok. F as in Frank.
Me: Yes.
Airport Parking: We’ll send the guy again.
Me: Thank you.

“French fries,” which has two words that start with the letter F, worked. Within about five minutes, the pickup truck pulls up, gives me a jumpstart. I thank the guy, trying very hard not to give him a dirty look, and am finally able to leave the airport about an hour and a half after reaching my car. After all, it wasn’t his fault, it was the guy on the phone. And at any rate, the whole ordeal occurred only because I was a moron and left the lights on in my car. But it really didn’t need to be that painful.

At MXP, there was a contract lounge, but it was a bit disappointing for an international lounge. There was limited food and drinks, it was pretty small, and there were no windows at all. The MXP-EWR flight was delayed by about an hour but I had a three hour layover scheduled in EWR so I was not worried at all. I also had the “mini-cabin” bulkhead (row 16 on a Continental 767), and as the flight was a day flight, it wasn’t all that bad. I was upgraded on EWR-DFW to first class, so that was pretty nice as it was my first experience with CO first class with DirecTV.

I stayed overnight at the Holiday Inn Dallas-Fort Worth Airport South, where they put my on one of the upper floors. The next morning I was back at DFW, using standby to get on a flight to IAH 2.5 hours earlier. As a Platinum, I was the first person on the standby list and cleared easily. I headed to the Crowne Plaza River Oaks in Houston, where my friend had already checked in, so it looked like I didn’t get any of my Priority Club Platinum benefits, but I let it go since the room was paid for by the conference I was attending. Weather in Houston in late March is just about perfect, and although I didn’t get to see much of the city, the area around Rice was pretty nice.

Three days later I was back at IAH flying to DFW on Continental upgraded to first class, then onwards to SFO on United where I was in row 6 on an A319, which is among the best economy seats on United’s fleet. This part of the trip was uneventful, and I was glad to be back home, at least for a few days.

This makes an interesting value proposition for me since I have two nights booked at the Holiday Inn Milwaukee Airport for May 28-30 on Pointbreak nights, which comes out to 9000 points for both days once I factor in my 10% rebate for having the Priority Club Visa. The going rate is $76.99+tax per night, and with Platinum status and the PC Visa bonus, I get 18 PC points per dollar. If I value PC points at 0.6 cents per point, that makes the Pointbreak option and paying for the nights almost even (the paid nights will be about $20 more). Not that an upgrade is guaranteed, but on a reward night, I can be assured that it won’t happen. So do I cancel the Pointbreak stay and go with the advance purchase rate? I don’t have any other stays before August 31 planned, so I won’t be losing out on a potential future rebate.

Corso Buenos Aires

Without much else to do, I took the subway out towards Lotto to see Meazza Stadium, the home of AC Milan and FC Internationale. The stadium was a much longer walk from the Metro station than I expected, and it took me 15-20 minutes through residential areas to get there. After looking around for a bit, I took the bus/tram back towards Duomo and spent some time looking around at shops and food before going to Milano Centrale to catch the Malpensa Express to the airport.

Giuseppe Meazza Stadium

Milano Centrale

Once at the airport, it took me awhile to find where to catch the hotel bus, and I had to call the hotel to get help locating it, but the Holiday Inn Express was a short ride away with regular buses approximately every half hour. The area where the airport hotels are clustered is in a lightly populated neighborhood without much else, but I managed to find a small bar/restaurant where I ordered some pizza to take back to my room. Yes, I ate a lot of pizza this trip, but it was all pretty good, and it’s one of the few decent meals that you can eat on the cheap. The room was small but adequate.

Holiday Inn Express Milan-Malpensa Airport

Milano Centrale

After arriving at Venezia-Santa Lucia station, I dropped of my luggage then started walking, intending to make my way to San Marco Square. I got extremely lost and it ended up taking me almost two hours to get there, but it was a pleasant walk getting lost in all of the narrow alleys and crossing dozens of bridges all over the islands.

Canals of Venice

San Marco Square

After resting for a bit from the long walk, I purchased a Rolling Venice Card for four euro, and with it, I bought a three day Actv pass for 18 euros, allowing me unlimited use of the water buses. In addition, the Rolling Venice Card gave me a few discounts at various attractions around the city. For those who are young enough to qualify for it, I would recommend it. I rode around the water buses for the rest of the day to take in the views, then took the train back to the mainland to get to the Crowne Plaza Venice East in Quarto D’altino. Quarto D’altino is a small, quiet town, and the hotel is pretty nice although I didn’t manage to get an upgrade. But, they did give me a bottle of Prosecco as a welcome gift.

Crowne Plaza Venice East – Quarto D’altino

Complimentary Prosecco

Rialto Bridge

Over the next two days, I hit many of the main attractions including the majority of the museums by San Marco and a few smaller ones around the island. The view from the bell tower Campanile di San Marco was phenomenal. I utilized the Actv pass quite a bit, but I also found it pleasant to walk around the island.

Palazzo Ducale

Looking south from Campanile di San Marco

Looking east from Campanile di San Marco

San Giorgio Maggiore

One of the few Venetian foods I had a chance to try was the cuttlefish with ink served with polenta (corn meal). The ink looks intimidating, but I actually found it pretty bland and had a hard time finishing it because it wasn’t all that tasty.

Cuttlefish with ink

Near the end of my time in Venice, I took a short trip to Murano to take a look at the glass museum, which housed a number of beautiful glass sculptures. There are also a handful of larger sculptures on display scattered across the island, and I looked around in a few shops for something to take home. Unfortunately, things were a bit out of my price range and I was afraid that I would break anything I bought as I had to swing back to by Milano and then Dallas and Houston before heading home.

Glass sculpture at Murano

Quarto D’altino didn’t have much, but a couple blocks away from the Crowne Plaza is a small pizzeria with cheap and tasty pizzas. I ate there two out of three nights and would definitely go back if I were staying at that particular Crowne Plaza again. With some knowledge of Spanish, I was able to pick up enough Italian to communicate an order.

Pizza from Stop… Pizza

Crowne Plaza Milan City

At around noon, I headed out to the Duomo, an impressive cathedral at the heart of the old city, and I went up to the top. Not only are there great views from the top, but the top of the cathedral itself is worth seeing up close.

Duomo

Milan with Alps in the background from atop the Duomo

From there, I walked around the plaza and visited the Piazza della Scala where the Scala theater can be found along with a statue of Leonardo da Vinci. I then proceeded by subway to Castello Sforzesco, which has a number of museums including a special exhibit on Michaelangelo’s architectural work.

Castello Sforzesco

I then took a stroll in the park behind the Castello Sforzesco. There were carnival rides and booths set up all around. As Milan was celebrating the 150th anniversary of the formation of Italy, I assume that’s what they were there for. The park was pretty big and despite the activities, there were some nice and quiet areas to sit down and take a rest.

Arco della Pace

I then took the subway back to find some food and wound up at Fashion Pizza close to Milano Centrale. It was pretty tasty!

Pizza from Fashion Pizza

I called last week to have the United ticket fixed back to the original routing and have the ticket re-issued. Now my Continental record looks something like this:

I guess I should get that fixed… but I don’t have time to do it anytime soon.