I recently shared a “day in the life of a travel blogger” story and am pulling back the curtain again today on my brief trip to New York City earlier this week for a United Airlines event in Brooklyn. It was not glamorous, but quite a productive day…

Trip Report: My Journey To Brooklyn On United + JetBlue For Polaris Seat Launch

My life is very busy right now and my focus is on other ventures. Therefore, every trip must be carefully planned around my “day job” which requires time and focus, although thankfully not in-person time. United invited me to experience the new 787-9 Polaris seat first-hand and I traveled all the way from Los Angeles to Brooklyn to see it because…why not? Seeing a product first-hand is immensely more valuable than reading a press release about it or just seeing professionally-prepared photos and videos.

If the new seat had been debuting immediately, I might have just waited for a flight to give it a test drive. But since the new seat will not debut until next year, this gives me a valuable sneak peek at what is to come. Plus, it is useful to stay connected to colleagues in this space…it’s a small community of travel writers and influencers I’ve come to greatly appreciate over the years.

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For my outbound, I booked a United ticket from Los Angeles to New York LaGuardia via Washington Dulles. I parked at a friend’s house and walked into LAX, passing a mattress that someone had left under an overpass (with drug paraphernalia on it)…the beauty of Los Angeles.

I reached Terminal 7 just ahead of boarding (I’ve become quite good at perfectly timing my departure from home to minimize sitting around at LAX), and took my seat onboard. Once again, my upgrade did not clear. I ended up #2 on a list of 50+, but that still meant yet another flight in economy class…1K upgrades have been horrible this year.

The flight was uneventful…I managed to sleep a bit.

Landing at Dulles, I proceeded to the Turkish Airlines Lounge, where I got some work done and had a shot of espresso. I spent most of the day working, but met up with some dear family friends I had not seen in a couple of years.

Returning to Dulles, I stopped by the Capital One Lounge and Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse before boarding my United flight to LaGuardia. I was not in the mood for it, but was very impressed the Capital One Lounge had Blanton’s Bourbon.

Again, my upgrade did not clear, but the view of Manhattan on approach into LGA was stunning (I wish my phone had done a better job of capturing how cool it was to fly over the NYC skyline).

Arriving after 11:30 pm and with an early meeting, I chose the Hyatt Place LGA because it was close to LGA and also not terribly far from Brooklyn for my meeting the following morning. The hotel offered a free shuttle that was waiting for me (I had texted ahead) at Terminal B in LaGuardia, making it very quick and easy to get to the hotel.

The hotel is located in Flushing in the midst of Chinatown. The lobby was packed with an Air China crew when I arrived, but I had a virtual keycard and proceeded directly to the elevator and up to my room, a very much cookie-cutter Hyatt Place room.

The breakfast spread the following morning was above-average for a Hyatt, but I just wasn’t in the mood for a heavy breakfast and just had a small dish of berries and went out for coffee, finding a place called Off-Peak Coffee down the street.

The Uber took dreadfully long (morning traffic on the Long Island Expressway is horrible) but I finally reached the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I shared details about the new onboard seating here, but a few more details about the event itself:

• Journalists and bloggers were given about 90 minutes after prepared remarks by CEO Scott Kiby to check out the new seats and other onboard products
• There was a coffee station, ice cream sundae station, and a limited selection of food and drink
• We could even create our own Polaris-branded customized luggage tags (see how United secures influence! )
• Picture it almost like a convention in which United’s product experts were on hand to answer questions and engage in discussion over their specific product areas
• At noon ET, we were promptly dismissed since the same venue would be used to host an employee event in the afternoon to show off the new seats and again in the evening to show off the new seats to select MileagePlus members

I took an Uber to Newark Airport, where I would be flying home on JetBlue. I arrived a few hours earlier, which was perfect: I used the “business center” in terminal A to get some work done ahead of the flight.

Why JetBlue over United? Because all else equal, I know I can count on fast free Wi-Fi on JetBlue and I needed to work for the next six hours. Before boarding, though, I stopped for some lunch: lamb gyro and falafel. The food and beverage options in Terminal A are excellent.

Before boarding (since, sadly, I was not traveling in Mint), I stopped at Bluestone Lane for a double espresso macchiato.

The transcontinental flight was delightfully productive: the internet worked well and I arrived at LAX around 8:00 pm with my work done for the day and having avoided the peak of rush hour traffic.

Oh yes, one more stop. JetBlue has a lot of junk food onboard:

…but I skipped it (took it home for my kids) and proceeded to In-N-Out, where I indulged in junk food in the form of a 4×4 burger with French fries.

CONCLUSION

This was a nice trip…a quick trip that was stretched out enough such that I wound up even more productive than at home plus got to have dinner with friends and experience first-hand United’s next-generation cabins.

This is the life of a travel blogger…nothing fancy, nothing sexy, but kind of fun, no?

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