Corinne CrawfordThe next day my flight home wasn’t until the afternoon, so I planned on sleeping in. By 11 a.m. I was ready to go anyway and decided to head to the airport early.
The night before I had made a dangerous financial decision.
About fourteen hours before departure, I upgraded to business class.
After experiencing it earlier in the trip, I had concluded that I could no longer pretend Economy Plus was good enough.
I am now in serious trouble for future travel budgets.
As it turned out, arriving early was a very good decision. First I struggled to find the correct train back to the airport. Then, when I finally checked in, I noticed that my boarding pass still showed my old seat assignment instead of my new business-class seat.
Thankfully I had the upgrade receipt in an email.
It still took nearly an hour for the airline staff to sort everything out, but eventually they fixed it and issued the correct boarding pass. By that point they had eaten into a good portion of my planned lounge time, which I found mildly irritating.
Eventually I made it into the lounge, grabbed some food and a drink, and relaxed before boarding.
Good food, attentive service, and a lie-flat seat meant I actually got some real sleep on the journey home.
As always, the familiar post-vacation depression started before I even got on the plane home. Every trip ends with a mixture of gratitude and sadness—grateful for everything I’ve experienced and sad that it’s over.
But if this trip taught me anything, it’s that there are still countless places left to explore and even return to.
I can’t wait to get back out there.
