It is always fun when I get to fly for free. In the last year, I have accumulated over 150,000 frequent flyer miles on American Airlines and I have been wondering how to use them. I tried using them to book trips to Africa or Europe, but the airline taxes have always been prohibitive. It does not make much economic sense to use 70,000 miles plus $400 in taxes on flights you can easily pay $700 including taxes. Beijing offered the best deal, 70000 miles + $35 in taxes. I am serious, all I paid for my flight to Beijing was $35

I flew through Chicago O’Hara airport. It has been heavily congested in the last few days. I got to the airport around noon, though my flight was at 5:45 PM. American Airlines flies out of terminal 3 while other international flights leave from terminal 5. Since I had time, I made a quick trip to terminal 5 to see how busy it was. The lines were long and the security was very slow. It took me about 40 minutes to go through security in terminal 3. Boarding started promptly at 5:10 PM but it was slow. We finally departed around 6:10 instead of the scheduled 5:45 PM. With my long legs, I had asked AA for an exit row seat and they gladly gave me one. AA uses Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner on this route. It is configured to have more legroom in their economy cabins than some of the planes on their other routes. ORD to Beijing is over 13 hours and the extra legroom is super helpful. Seating is comfortable and the entertainment options are decent. There are several TV Shows and movies available. I got to watch Burnt and Sisters. I needed something light and funny to get me to relax. I spent about four hours of the flight reading, six hours watching or listening to music and about three hours sleep.

Shortly after departure, they served alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. I had a glass of red wine. For dinner, they were a choice of beef or fried rice with chicken. I cannot tell how these tasted because I am vegan. I had requested for a vegan meal but they brought me a vegetarian meal laced with cheese. I could not eat it. They scrambled to find food for me and they finally brought a little white rice with some side vegetables. Needless to say, I was starving. I still thank them for the efforts because I have been on flights in which they did not make any serious efforts to get a different meal for me. At around 1 PM Beijing time, they served a snack. I had a vegetable wrap. An hour before we landed in Beijing, they also served another meal. My vegetarian meal was a cold pasta. It looked like it had some cheese and butter in it and so I decided to abstain from eating it. Throughout the flight, they were orange juice, water, and chips available in the cabins for passengers to help themselves with. I will say that the cabin service was decent, not great. On one occasion, I pushed the service request button and never got attended to even though the flight attendants passed by while the blue service light was on.

Going through immigration and customs in Beijing was a breeze. I got cornered as I was coming out of the airport by a taxi company. I know they overcharged me and at first, they were reluctant to give me a receipt. I insisted on one. I paid 280 yuan to the Dongcheng district. My research says it should only cost 100 Yuan when it is metered. I should have followed the other people who were going to the metered taxis. My Charles Schwab ATM card kept declining. I am yet to contact my bank. When I looked at my bank account online, it shows that the transaction went through and was later reversed. This is strange. I have used the same ATM card in Europe, Morocco, Nigeria, Mexico, etc. without ever having problems. Hopefully, I can find out what is going on here. Luckily I had some dollars with me and I had to change them to Yuan. I am roaming my T-Mobile line. I love T-Mobile because of free international data roaming in many destinations. If you are planning on doing any serious work with this data, think twice. T-Mobile cannot guarantee speeds because they use roaming partners. I find that it works much better in Europe than in most other places. In Beijing, I am roaming on China Mobile. The speeds are crushingly slow. With so much work to catch up on, I might have to get a local line here if I cannot find a reliable wifi spot.

Going through immigration and customs in Beijing was a breeze. I got cornered as I was coming out of the airport by a taxi company. I know they overcharged me and at first, they were reluctant to give me a receipt. I insisted on one. I paid 280 yuan to the Dongcheng district. My research says it should only cost 100 Yuan when it is metered. I should have followed the other people who were going to the metered taxis. My Charles Schwab ATM card kept declining. I am yet to contact my bank. When I looked at my bank account online, it shows that the transaction went through and was later reversed. This is strange. I have used the same ATM card in Europe, Morocco, Nigeria, Mexico, etc. without ever having problems. Hopefully, I can find out what is going on here. Luckily I had some dollars with me and I had to change them to Yuan. I am roaming my T-Mobile line. I love T-Mobile because of free international data roaming in many destinations. If you are planning on doing any serious work with this data, think twice. T-Mobile cannot guarantee speeds because they use roaming partners. I find that it works much better in Europe than in most other places. In Beijing, I am roaming on China Mobile. The speeds are crushingly slow. With so much work to catch up on, I might have to get a local line here if I cannot find a reliable wifi spot.