We left Kingman this morning to drive back to Los Angeles for our flight. Normally it’s a 5 hour drive, but LA traffic can easily turn it into a 10 hour drive. So we left at 8am, just to be sure.

As it turns out, there was no traffic, and we got back at 1pm. Our flight isn’t until 10.30pm. So we headed down to Manhattan beach and had a stroll along the waterfront and out onto the pier.

We are now in the business class lounge (6 hours early) enjoying a beer.

We managed to get upgraded to business class again, and it made the check-in process so easy. We were fast-tracked through security and were able to check in early.

How did we manage to get upgraded to business class again? Well, AirNz has a one-up bidding system, where you can bid to get upgraded. When I was changing our flights, I asked two different AirNz staff members whether I could still do a one-up upgrade, and they both said it was too late, that if had to be booked 7 days in advance.

So I decided to try it online myself, but I didn’t have enough air-points to bid the minimum, as I had just used my points to renew Koru membership.

But I decided to go ahead and bid the minimum anyway. Next thing I know, our airpoints from London-LA are being added to our account. This doesn’t usually happen until we’ve flown all the way home. I said to Mike, I bet they’re going to upgrade us. Sure enough, they did. Woohoo.