I flew five hours to New York for a two-hour cocktail reception hosted by United Airlines, then flew six hours back. Just another day in the life of a travel blogger.
Jetting To New York And Back For A Two-Hour Event
This has been a very busy year in a way that I never could have imagined when 2025 began. A key role changed in May and I’ve been doing things I never thought I would do, though I am thankful for the professional opportunities I have each day and that my skillset for tackling life, not just a particular career, is expanding.
This blog has had to take a secondary role this year, which is a shame in many ways…I have not been to a new country this year and don’t expect to visit one. Travel has been more limited in years past, and my hotel stays have been even more limited.
United Airlines hosts a reception in New York City once a year, the day it announces new longhaul routes, and I enjoy attending it…it’s an important networking event. I had to miss it last year and did not want to miss it this year, but my family and professional obligations meant this had to be a very quick trip.
I booked a same-day trip on JetBlue because JetBlue offered the latest departure from New York back to LA: 10:30 pm. That would allow me to attend the reception from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm and still get home that night.
At 3:30 am PT, I arose to get some work done, leaving at 5:30 am for LAX. I flew JetBlue Mint on the way out…an increasingly rare I-class seat opened on the early Los Angeles to Newark flight. It was great to fly JetBlue Mint again and I’ll offer a full review of this flight, but note here the breakfast on JetBlue remains the best in the industry, at least among US carriers:
In Newark, I bumbled around (this also calls for a dedicated post…) getting to Manhattan, but finally made it to New York Penn Station at 5:30 pm and walked up to 48th Street by foot, enjoying the sights and smells of Manhattan…it’s such a bustling city.
Before going upstairs, I did a quick change in the bathroom.
The event went well and the two hours flew by…I didn’t consider it a work trip, but a social trip, and I loved hanging out with fellow writers (“content creators”) as well as members from the United team like Patrick Quayle, the SVP Global Network Planning and Alliances, and Matt Stevens, the VP of International Network at United Airlines. Two sharp young men. I had such a nice conversation. I also met a United 777 pilot named Hady Eltokhy and had a great discussion on travel to the Middle East.
8:00 pm rolled around and the party was still going, but by 8:15 pm I excused myself in case of an unforeseen delay in getting back to JFK, and that turned out to be a wise move.
Taking the subway was faster than driving…at least according to the schedule…however, enroute we suddenly came to a stop due to “police activity.” For 30 minutes, we sat on the train between two stations and I began to fear I’d be stranded in New York overnight.
Thankfully, we finally started moving again. Upon reaching Jamaica station, I bolted for the Air Train to Terminal 5, only to find that my flight was delayed…whew.
I changed back out of my suit and settled in for the six-hour flight home, this time in economy class (though I traded someone an aisle seat in the back for a middle exit seat, which I considered a good trade).
I tend not to eat or drink at these receptions, since I wanted my breath to be clean, so I was hungry…I tried the turkey sandwich onboard because it was the menu item with the most protein, and while dry, it was pretty good.
While I intended to get a lot of work done during the flight, I ended up dozing, though woke up about 90 minutes outside of LA and managed to crank out three blog posts.
We landed at 2:15 am, I walked to my car, and drove home, arriving around 3:15 am. After a two-hour nap, the alarm went off and it was off my my Friday Bible study at 6:00 am and then a drive out to Palm Springs.
No rest for the weary…
Was it worth it? Totally. I love these receptions and while I generally turn down these airline invitations (I turned down two this week), this is the annual reception I enjoy most.
Nice of you to visit, Matt. And congrats on the new role! Oh, the irony that you flew jetBlue to a United Airlines reception. (And in their older Mint product, with the thrones, but not the apartment, which B6 occasionally operates on LAX-JFK as well as TATL, of course.) I don’t blame you; Mint has better food than Polaris, any day. If this reception was held October 9, like you suggest, then you got good weather (apparently) and missed out on the Nor’easter we had Sunday-Monday. Lucky guy. Good call on Newark Penn station into the city; certainly more affordable, and probably faster than taxi/Uber/Lyft. Let’s be real, though, there really ought to be an extension of the AirTrain/PATH between the airport and there; would be a game-changer for visitors and locals, alike. As for the TPG, fellow, did you throw some shade at Zach for their ‘giving up’ on the ‘community’ by removing comments on their site (and not always posting offers that match the publicly-available ‘best’? Yeah, not cool.) Oof, and to return in Economy, that’s a bit rough. Glad you made it back safely at least. Nice report!
I’m embracing my free agent role.
Nothing wrong with that at all. As they say, don’t chase status; let it happen. Either that, or you’re going for the somewhat-exciting jetBlue 25-for-25 bonus (or the slightly more modest, 15 for 150K). At the very least, you probably earned enough ‘Tiles’ for initial ‘Perk’ selection (I’m a fan of the 5K bonus points, personally.) Mint is nothing special, until you reach Mosaic 3 (150 Tiles) with the ‘Move to Mint’ certificates. They had a status match a little while ago, which is how I earned some, then used them on JFK-LHR (still gotta pay extra for the Mint Studio, though. Eh.)
Flew JetBlue to attend a United event.
United Airlines, a company headquartered in Chicago, very reasoanbly located east vs. west vis-a-vis population holds an event on the East Coast.
Yeah, it’s almost as if NYC is the cultural and financial capital of the modern world, or something… why’d anyone wanna be there… shoulda hosted the event in Manhattan, Kansas, instead, amirite?
Yeah, I’m not sure you can call NY the financial and cultural capital of the world. It’s certainly that of the Americas, but London is just as important, if not slightly more so, on the world stage. This is a bitter pill for New Yorkers to swallow, because they have an… Elevated… Opinion of themselves and their fair city, but it’s true.
Into Newark, no less! Bah!
So UA has held one event in Manhattan and another at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn… but shockingly not in New Jersey. That says all you need to know about the desirability of Newark as a location for… well, anything. Even Jersey City (nice views of Manhattan!) would be seen as undesirable for people attending these types of events. And the public transportation out of EWR is just awful, especially EWR TA that you presumably flew into on B6. Quite the walk just to get to the ancient air train.
Sorry you got hung up on the subway on the way to JFK, although clearly you should have taken the E to 34th Street and taken the LIRR to Jamaica, glad to hear you are doing well professionally, live a little! 🙂
I’m assuming the swanky pinstripes were for the Yankees, but they did lose the division series that night. Oh well, let’s go Mets!
Gee, that is telling… Jersey City reminds me of the Futurama episode where Fry and Bender are searching for a new apartment, and they find a seemingly perfect one… “Alright, what’s the catch?”…”No catch, although, we are technically in New Jersey.”…”Ugh, not one place remotely liveable.” (With Mets and Yankees out, I’ve already told Steve from Seattle on VFTW that I’ll be supporting the Mariners over the Blue Jays.)
Growing has a good quote – something like I tell the Simpsons people I am working on Futurama, and vice verse, and then I just go to the beach. Best job in the world.
The Dodgers are still a NY team right? Ohtani was on every bottle of green tea I bought in Japan this summer. So I’ll root for them.
My 2 favorite airlines operating in the USA! (My third favorite is Alaska-Hawaiian)
So in other words, you flew to New York to hobnob with a bunch of travel influencers (One of the lowest forms of life on earth) and the asshole currently in charge of devaluing MileagePlus.
What a thrill.
Oof. Cold-blooded. I mean, mah man looked pretty good in the suit, though. Gotta give’m that…
Actually, that Comcast dude avoids me like the plague. So does Bondar these days
Re: “(One of the lowest forms of life on earth) and the asshole …” There you go again, proving without a doubt that YOU Sch*tt Hsuan are in fact the lowest form of life on earth. Thanks for using the asshole analogy which perfectly suits you Sch*tt. Obviously you’re a premier authority on lowlifes and assholes, having been both for your entire pathetic life. Many people avoid those they think to be lowlifes and assholes, says a lot about your psychological issues that you spend so much time with the travel influencers who you write are lowlifes.
Douchebag Dave Edwards & Sch*tt Hsuan & A**hole Alert, proving with your every (too frequent) comments that your nicknames are absolutely accurate and completely deserved and that you have nothing better to do with your pathetic waste-of-oxygen lives than to post abhorrent and revolting comments here over and over again every single day. Thank you for confirming again that you and other MAGAs are stupid hateful racist cretins. Trolling or not, the extent and frequency of your comments are indicative of severe psychiatric and/or addiction problems. Your insults, undoubtedly projection, speak much more to your lack of character than to anyone you attack. You should crawl back under whatever rocks you crawled out from you SHPOSs.
Wow, that was a wild ride!
New here?
“And in other news, a cat in Schenectady caught a bird today, that makes 3 this year for Rocky the Tabby”….. What a boring, non-sensical, self-serving article.
What a boring, non-sensincal, self-serving comment from a dotard named Frank. Thanks for reading, pal.
As a physician, I hope you have consumed enough bottled water (pH: 7-8) for necessary body hydration during and after these moderately long flights at frequent intervals.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
@Un, be honest, this is you, right? Gotta be.
I guess you couldn’t find an empty window seat on your flight home.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Matt, I meant to ask, did you at least get the chance to remind the United folks that they really oughta change that awful ‘blue balls’ safety video? Like, guys, I can handle so many iterations of ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ but, mercy, that blue… freaking… ball. Enough already!
They are casting for a new video.
If you where a real Christian you would fly economy and give the money saved to help people who really need help in impoverished counties.
Now that the hostages are back, let’s see how long before Bibi goes back even harder into Gaza…
The callous disregard you have when you talk about Palestinian lives is really cheap, and, I dare say, un-Christian.
I pray for peace in the region. Israel must do whatever is necessary, however, to protect its citizens and territorial integrity. I see no moral conflict, there.
Loved your photos!
Nice suit!
You ate the plane food but didn’t get your money’s worth in canapes that looked like they had a much higher catering budget? Wild!
That’s a good upgrade. On a side note A lot of people are flying home to India this week ahead of Diwali. And hope you didn’t engage with the TPG bro.
Manhattan reeks of marijuana and you can’t escape it.
Sometimes I long for the good old days where the only offensive odors were garbage and urine.
And a B6 flight that’s running late?
Probably the least surprising thing I’ve ever read.
Although, to be fair, the delays aren’t as bad as when the current CEO was running the operation.
Manhattan (New York City) has smells; always has, always will. Perhaps, in the past, you’d’ve smelt more cigarettes. What a silly complaint. If you don’t like it, please stick to Manhattan (Kansas).
If you’re disappointed with flight delays, perhaps, you’d be in-favor of air passenger rights legislation, like EU261, or Canada’s APPR, which force airlines to compensate passengers for significant delays caused by the airline (staffing, mechanical, etc.), think, $200-600 depending on the duration of the delay and distance of the route. We should have something like that in the USA.
Just posted a response to Matt’s really awful comment above. All my comments seem to require “moderation” – not sure why.
If you use a different email address every time you comment, as you did here, it will go to moderation.