United's Customer Service - First Class All the Way

The last flight I took was with my 4 year old daughter. Just her and I, flying home to test some products we had received. It was a great adventure for her to be traveling alone with me and it gave us some one-on-one time.

Because it can be very expensive to fly into our home airport from, well, practically anywhere, we had two parts to our journey. The first part was from Minneapolis to Chicago and the second from Chicago to Des Moines.

We flew United Airlines as they had the best rate. I have a Mileage Plus card, though I haven't flown with them in a few years. Checking in was a breeze with the Easy Check In kiosk. I swiped a credit card and was shown my itinerary and my seats. I was also shown upgrades that were available and the additional cost for those upgrades. They were a reasonable price but I passed because my flights were really just short hops. The staff at the counter were a great help when my very curious daughter decided to touch the screen and try to check luggage we didn't have.

As we were waiting I noticed that we were traveling to Chicago with a rather large group- the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra to be exact- and that my daughter was the only child that would be on the flight. As the orchestra members began requesting early boarding so they could stow their instruments one of the associates at the counter approached us. Because I had the only child on the flight she had noticed that our seats put us directly in the middle of the orchestra seating and asked is she could move us forward. I said, "sure," and handed her our tickets.

When she brought our tickets back she told me to be sure to preboard so I could have my daughter settled before all the instruments came on the plane. As we were boarding she came back to me and told me that she was moving us up to first class since seats were available and that would open up a bit more room in the back of the plane for the orchestra.

Alrighty then...

Let me tell you, those seats are so big and spacious. We were in the first row and the flight attendant was so attentive to my daughter (who was strangely fascinated with the warm cloth presented to wipe her hands). We also had two pilots directly behind us who were very nice and answered a lot of questions for a little girls who wants to know everything about everything. They all chatted with her and answered questions long after I would have told her to shush. She even came home with souvenir cards showing the airplanes the pilots behind us flew.

That flight was over much too soon and our second leg wasn't nearly so memorable. And I think that little taste of first class may nave spoiled me a bit. You can bet I'll be saving for those nice seats for our next overseas adventure. I bet I could actually rest on the plane!

Thanks, United, for the best domestic flight I've had in a long time (and it wasn't just the upgrade!).