Paul T Cottey's blog

I’ve been on a couple thousands flights in my life, conservatively measured, and I have sat in the first row before.  At least, I thought I had.  If the front of the plane is row “1,” then I sat in seat 0B last night!  I was on a Cape Air flight from St. Louis, and, on a lark, I asked the pilot if I could sit in the co-pilot’s seat if I promised “not to touch anything.”  He said, “Sure,” and off we went!

It was not a clear night, and so there wasn’t a lot to see out the window until the end, but I got to watch all the instrumentation and got to see him land when the airport finally appeared about 20 seconds before we landed.  Pretty cool!  Heck, I’ll ask again the next time.  All the pilot can say is, “No,” after all.

Maybe it is because the Bears stopped playing last year (some would argue in October or November, but I meant in December), but none of the games especially moved me this weekend.  The Golden Globes seem to have more highlights and are more interesting.  Except for the bad hairdos and the smugness, of course.

We were coming back to Chicago over the holidays and volunteered our seats in exchange for a direct flight.  We had had a first class upgrade, but figured the direct flight was a good deal, especially for $300 of vouchers!   A family of four made the flight because of that, so we were feeling pretty good.  The agent had promised vouchers and a first class upgrade, but couldn’t make either happen.  She was disappointed that she couldn’t get us A/B coach seats but did get us an E/F exit row, so we thought nothing more of it and happily arrived home.

I checked today and we each got a “Customer Service Bonus” (5000 and 3000 respectively) for our troubles!  Way to go American Airlines and thanks!

Update:  The points were actually because the flight we transferred on to was delayed.  It is still a nice touch, however, and I am not going to look this gift horse in the mouth!