Sorry it’s been a while since my last post, I’ve been on vacation and recovering from vacation since Sunday morning. After my boring trip to Raleigh, NC a few weeks ago Click Here I decided to go somewhere more interesting, New York City seemed perfect. I figured a trip to New York would give me a good chance to check out all of the benefits of the American Express Black Card. I booked my flight, hotel and car rental through the centurion travel concierge, the only problem I had while making the reservations it that I requested the best deal available from either the W Times Square, The Mandarin Oriental or the Carlyle and they tried to book me in the Mandarin Oriental at $700 per night, which does not sound like a better deal than the W at $250.
My departure from Detroit was on a Delta flight at 7:15AM to La Guardia, returning on Monday at 9AM. Four days before the flight I got an email from Delta confirming my free first class upgrade, so far so good. I got to the airport about an hour before the flight, the first class security line let me cut in front of the one other person in line (he didn’t look too happy about it) the Delta Crown Club was very comfortable but did not offer alcohol before 12PM on Sundays, I will definitely be using it in the future (why not if I get in free?). The only problem is that they don’t announce when they start boarding in the Crown Club so I missed first class boarding. I did get to cut in front of the line of about 100 commoners who were still waiting to board for economy class, haha suckers! (just kidding).
When I arrived in New York contrary to the weather forecast, it was raining hard. I got on the Bus to Avis, they asked my name and then told me they did not have me as a preferred reservation so I would have to go inside the Avis building and talk to a customer service rep, this didn’t sound right b/c I have an Avis Presidents Club membership through American Express. I went inside, waited for a half hour and then asked why my reservation wasn’t ready. I was told that the problem was that my wizard number wasn’t given to Avis when the reservation was made, I know Amex has my wizard number and they told me that I was going to get a 2 class upgrade b/c I was in the presidents club so it sounds like they just screwed up. The reservation was also for an intermediate size car, I requested a full size. Because my wizard number wasn’t provided at the time of the reservation they didn’t have a 2 class upgrade available so all they had was a Hyundai Sonata, no GPS available either. I called up Amex and gave it to them for the screw up but they wouldn’t do anything to help, I’m still trying to get something out of them.
Driving in my crappy Hyundai with no GPS I managed to get to my destination using my iPhone for directions, then I went to Best Buy and bought a GPS. I had a couple of stops to make before going to the hotel and every time I stopped I had to park about three blocks away (as usual for New York) I was wearing my brand new Hickey Freeman suit and I had no umbrella, it was raining really hard and by the time I got to the hotel I was completely soaked.
At one of my stops I realized that I left all my cash at home, I called American Express and asked if there was a way they could help. The Global Assist department agreed to wire me the money which would be available immediately (for free), I would have to pick it up from a check cashing store. I asked for $500, they asked me if I was sure that would be enough, feeling like the guy from coming to America I said “maybe we should make it $1000″ they said no problem the money is there you just have to pick it up. The check cashing place turned out to be about 30 minutes away, even though it was only about 2 miles. I picked up the money with no problem at all, pretty cool.
The hotel I stayed at is the W Times Square, right in the heart of the city. I was upgraded at check in courtesy of American Express, and I received an $85 credit to the Blue Fin, the restaurant in the W. The room I had was a “Fabulous” room with one King bed. I requested an upgrade to a suite but they were fully booked. The room was on the 47th floor and had a phenomenal view but that’s the best part of the room in my opinion, everything else was unimpressive. The room was small and the bathroom has a sliding glass door that does not lock, it may seem cool but I found it rather disturbing especially when housekeeping came in while I was taking a crap.
The people that work in the hotel (housekeeping aside) were extremely nice and very helpful, but overall the hotel doesn’t even compare to the Encore in Vegas which costs less per night.
After checking into the hotel I decided to buy some throw away clothes to wear until it stopped raining, the W provided me with an excellent umbrella so I walked a few blocks to the Gap to get some cheap clothes. I got what I needed and went to pay, my American Express Black Card got referred to the fraud department when trying to charge $120. I had to wait 30 minutes before AMEX decided that I was who I said I was and finally let me buy my clothes. By the time I walked out of the Gap the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out. I did a little shopping and walked around the city for a few hours before meeting up with a friend. I had American Express make me dinner reservations at one of my favorite NYC restaurants, Le Marais, even with AMEX calling I still had to wait for a half hour to be seated. I had a great steak dinner when they finally served us, the food alone was worth the trip.
I decided that I didn’t want to come back home so fast especially b/c I wasted half of the day with all the rain. I called Amex and asked them to put me on the 6AM flight Tuesday morning, no problem just a $150 change fee (delta direct charges $200). I had to work on Monday from 9-6 so I went to the Regus Business World office in Rockefeller Plaza, I get free membership through American Express, I also get a free private office for a half day. As usual with Regus they had no idea that I was supposed to get the free office, they didn’t know about the Black card, they said I needed a platinum card, after looking into it they gave me an office for the whole day. In between phone calls (AT&T dropped almost every call I made in NYC) I was able to go out and enjoy the city a bit, I went to the Rockefeller observation deck which was cool even though it took a long time to get to the top with all the lines you have to wait in. I walked to Central Park, checked out some shops on 5th avenue and decided that next time I go to NY I want to stay at the Plaza hotel, it looks like it has real class.
On Monday morning I got an email from Delta saying that I was upgraded to first class for the return trip, sounds good. Sometime during the day AMEX called me to say that there was a problem with my ticket, apparently my credit card was declined and they wanted to know why it would be declined. Yes, American Express was calling me to ask what was wrong with my American Express card. I called American Express customer service and they said no charges were declined, I called Delta and they said I was booked on the flight in coach, they said I was in first class before Amex changed me back to coach b/c I had requested a specific seat. What I actually requested was that they book me a specific seat and attempt me to upgrade it to first class, they got half of the request right. Neither Delta nor American Express could guarantee me a seat in first class at this time.
After a 3PM lunch I started to feel sick and I thought maybe it would be smarter to get on a late flight home, Delta and AMEX couldn’t change the flight without charging another $150, I was not willing to give them any more money at this time so I was stuck until 6AM. I didn’t have a hotel room b/c I was planning on staying out most of the night anyway. From 6PM until 3AM I basically did nothing but walk around and look for bathrooms. I had only slept about 3 hours Sunday night and I didn’t sleep at all on Monday night so by the time I got to the airport at 4AM I couldn’t even stand straight. The Delta counter wouldn’t help me b/c the flight was operated by Northwest, I had to go to the Northwest counter. The “Northwest” counter actually says Delta on it, and they wouldn’t upgrade me or even look at the email I had from Delta b/c “that’s Delta not Northwest, it doesn’t matter what they say”. I ended up getting the upgrade about 10 minutes before the flight and was actually given the same seat as on my original ticket. The flight was pretty comfortable until on final approach to Detroit when we had to go-around and fly a different approach b/c of a bird strike with the plane ahead of us, it was a little scary being half asleep hearing the engine at low power for the approach and then all the sudden full power and steep climb but I got to fly over my house which was actually pretty easy to spot, that was pretty cool. The flight only got in about 10 minutes late and I picked up my car and drove straight to work. When I got home I went straight to bed and slept for over 12 hours but I’m still tired so I’m heading to bed now. I think I’m going to put off 24-hour vacations for a while, too many problems so far.
David
[...] 24-Hour Vacation #2 NYC, First trip with the Black Card [...]