SFO777 The First Class Travel Blog

Follow our Instagram Travel Videos @sfo777dotcom

The First Class Travel Blog

Off to Augusta

Sincere thanks to Flyertalker Madone59 for arranging a Monday ticket from a colleague.   I was skiing with our SFO son and grandkids at Copper Mountain last Friday when I got his text which said "call immediately".   So I did, from the chairlift… on a frigid April 1st in the Rockies.  LOL.   The grandkids left Saturday morning and headed out for DIA just after noon on Sunday.   With a nearly empty parking garage and no line at PreCheck, I was in the B concourse a few minutes later. 
 

Denver-Atlanta
United 1444
A319
2:24p-7:32p (sked)
2:24p-7:05p (actual)
Lunch
 

Five minutes to boarding and no one has lined up to board?  At United?  Never seen this before in my life.

Excellent DEN-based crew but what a piece of garbage is United's A319.  Two rows of First and with a last minute booking, I was relegated to 1F.
Terrible legroom and spotty Wifi and no power.   It was better than Y and Delta which wanted ridiculous 4 figure prices for an F ticket.  Yikes.
 
 

Meal orders were taken by status.  Fortunately, all the 1K and PM elites chose the dopey chicken salad while the rest of us had the delicious hot cilantro chicken  sandwich.  

The good news is we landed at ATL nearly 30 minutes early.  The bad news is that we landed at ATL and in particular to depressing far end of the T concourse.
Wow, talk about a long walk to the main terminal and then to ground transportation and the train to the Rental Car Center.
 

And up to Avis Preferred where my name wasn't on the board.  No worries, the agent offered me an upgrade to a Mustang.  I must be getting old as I declined and went for a regular full size sedan.  

And we're off for the roughly 2 hour 143 mile drive on I-20 to Augusta.  I thought that the projected ETA was a little optimistic but then I learned why.  A 70 MPG speed limit with cars passing me when I was doing 80.  Welcome to Georgia! 

Sure enough, I got to my north Augusta exit at just after 9:30p and headed to my ticket pick-up location, a rented house on a dark street with hard to read street numbers with the instructions "ticket will be under a cushion on a chair by the round table on the porch".   Fortunately, no one called the cops or worse, pulled out shotgun, when I first went to the wrong house.  Yikes.
 
Second time was the charm and ticket in hand, I headed toward downtown to drive by Augusta National and then back to my hotel for the night, the Staybridge Suites.  I was prepared for outrageous prices but was pleasantly surprised when I found a 3-star with 95% satisfaction on hotwire.com for only $165… with free Wifi, free hot breakfast and free parking.  And only 1.5 miles from the main gate at Augusta National.   Only 3-star at best but friendly staff.   Not remotely Mrs. SFO777  luxurious but clean, spacious and comfy. 
 
 

 

I headed down to breakfast at 7:30a.   Ticket brokers even working the elevators.

Not a bad basic spread with lots of serve yourself options.
 
 

And then up to room to pack and head out, ticket in hand.  :)