Spring Trip to Italy, Part III: Venice

I was able to book a ridiculously cheap train fare from Milan to Venice on Trenitalia Eurostar City equipment (24 Euro round-trip) departing a morning after I arrived in Milan. The trip took about two and a half hours and the seats were okay but paled in comparison to say Deutsche Bahn or Japan Railway seats, having no recline and so-so cushioning. At that price though, I’m certainly not complaining.

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

Spring Trip to Italy, Part II: Milan (Day 1)

Arrival at MXP was smooth, and I took the Malpensa Express to Milano Centrale. Crowne Plaza Milan City was located right above Sondrio subway station, which was one stop away from Milano, so I took the short walk there and checked in in the morning. They were able to give me early check-in, and I was about to settle in to take a quick nap before exploring the city, the concierge came up to my room to give me a welcome letter and drink voucher to use at the bar as a Platinum member. They also provided me with free internet access.

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

Some CO/UA Merger Fun

I had a schedule change hit one of my tickets purchased on United but with segments on Continental. The schedule change ended up producing a re-routing on the United record while the Continental one re-booked me on an earlier flight with an illegal connection as well as my original flight.

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.

Spring Trip to Italy, Part I: SFO-IAD-MIA-EWR-MXP

My trip began at SFO, with SFO-IAD-MIA on United. I arrived at SFO in the morning to find that the priority security line was backed up. Luckily, I wasn’t in a rush since I had arrived pretty early, so I wandered over to the regular security line which was about the same length but had more lanes open and decided to use that checkpoint instead. As I was about to get to the front, I saw one of the airport employees leading about twenty passengers from the priority security checkpoint to the regular checkpoint, taking them through the employees and special needs-only line. A thumbs up from me for doing that, even if I didn’t benefit from it.

Long line at the United priority security checkpoint on a weekday morning

I had used a Confirmed Regional Upgrade earned last year as a 1K to upgrade both segments, so I flew first class even with the small first class cabin on the A319. The purser working first class, although nice, was pretty lazy. I knew the service would be subpar when she didn’t even offer pre-departure drinks. Through most of the flight, she sat on the jump seat, and never bothered to serve the snack which is usually served on this flight. She left the basket in the galley. I had ordered the Asian vegetarian meal which was decent although the bread thing was pretty hard.

Asian vegetarian meal on UA574

The purser on IAD-MIA was much better, although they didn’t load my special meal on this flight. I ended up having the regular meal instead – a vegetarian ravioli – which was fine. I received no compensation for the missing special meal, but I didn’t complain.

I spent the night in Miami at the Holiday Inn Express MIA-Doral Area.

Room at Holiday Inn Express MIA-Doral Area

In the morning I returned to MIA for my Continental flights MIA-EWR-MXP. Although the United to Continental status transfer was supposed to be completed in 7-10 days and it had already been over 10 days, my Platinum status had yet to come through so I missed the upgraded on MIA-EWR. EWR-MXP was also oversold in economy so they were upgraded Platinums to BusinessFirst, and I missed out on that as well. I can’t complain since I wasn’t expecting it when I booked the flight, but it was unfortunate that the status match couldn’t come just a couple days earlier.

At any rate, the flight was average, and I slept through as much of it as possible. I was able to burn through some of my United drink chits to get some alcoholic beverages to help knock me out. I did try to watch the movies during the beginning of the flight and during dinner service, but the video wasn’t working on multiple channels and most of the rest had problems with the audio cutting in and out, so the entertainment was mostly unwatchable. I didn’t bother complaining since I don’t expect Continental will do anything since they are so stingy on compensation.

British Airways 100,000 Miles Chase Visa is Back

The 100,000 mile offer for the British Airways Chase Visa is back, with 50,000 miles after first spend and 50,000 miles after $2500 in spend in the first three months. British Airways miles have gotten less valuable due to fuel tax on awards, but it’s still a pretty good deal to Asia.

I was going to apply for the Continental 50,000 mile card, but I may go for this one instead.

Application link

My First Continental VDB

I’m sitting now at the Four Points by Sheraton at Detroit Metro Airport. My DTW-IAH flight on Continental was oversold, so I volunteered even though they were only offering $200 and first class to Houston tomorrow morning. I had already cleared my upgrades to first class on both DTW-IAH and IAH-SJC tonight, so I lost my upgrade on the longer segment and will need to stay overnight. I tried to see if they could get me to SFO instead tonight, but they were unable/unwilling to. I took the bump anyway and they increased the compensation to $300 and gave me three meal vouchers for $26 total. At the Four Points, I tried to get my SPG number with my Gold status added to the reservation, but they didn’t do it initially so I received no gold benefits, but Wifi here is free, so I’m not too upset.

First class on IAH-SJC is booked full tomorrow, but I did get rebooked into full fare Y, so I am at the very top of the upgrade list. I won’t arrive until 11:20 am tomorrow, but at $300, I don’t feel too bad.

Free bmi Diamond Club Silver Status

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