We visited Boston to stuff ourselves in lobster and to catch up with Christine’s cousins.

Flight to Boston

The trip came together after coming across a lie-flat business saver rate award ticket for Boston-LA on American Airlines half a year ago. I booked it with 35k Alaska miles, but a month ahead of the trip, I noticed that they STILL had tickets at that rate and switched to a 27k Avios booking through Finnair.

For the LA-Boston flight, I originally had a 10am flight on AA economy during a sale for 11k AA miles. AA then cancelled that schedule and put us all in the 7am flight. I felt 7am was too early and it would be a stressful trip to the airport. I cancelled it and got us a 1pm flight instead. But a few weeks later I started having second thoughts. This was just a 3-night trip, and by flying at 1pm, we were missing out on Friday completely. I looked briefly into Thursday night red eye flights, before figuring that if we were going to fly overnight, we might as well fly at 7am. By then, the 7am flight was no longer available at that rate. 

I cycled between a JetBlue 6am option and other options before settling for a LAX-JFK-BOS on AA Transcon J with 35k Alaska miles that opened up a week before the trip. I would have preferred to book LAX-JFK J with 27k Avios, but Finnair can’t book multi-segment tickets and it would mean that I would be booking a two-ticket flight separately with just 50 minutes of layover, which seemed like a gamble. The Alaska booking would also help with getting Alaska Gold by the end of the year. 

The LAX Flagship lounge breakfast was amazing, much better than other lunches or dinners before at that location. They had some quiche and jam-covered waffles. The flight to New York was uneventful, and we took a full 4-hour sleep. At JFK, I thought we would be using the SoHo lounge. I figured that since Transcon F gives access to Chelsea Lounge, the next lounge in the hierarchy, SoHo, would be for business. But no, Chelsea is in that weird space where it still requires transcon F or OneWorld Emerald. The food at SoHo was so good.. Having lunch at Greenwich Lounge was okay. SoHo has nice desserts.. Half an hour before the flight, we moved to the T8 Satellite concourse’s Admirals Club which has a guacamole station. Guacamole stations.. I didn’t know that this was a thing at Admirals Clubs. 

Our flight to Boston was delayed 30 minutes, and then as we were taxiing for takeoff we had to stop and wait another 40 minutes due to ATC traffic. Even though we took off very late, we still made it to Boston in 45 minutes. But the flight was scheduled for a 1.5 hour length. That means that AA always budgets an extra 45 minutes for delays on their flights. Surprising.

Lobster

In LA, we had lobster sometimes at Quality Seafood in Redondo Beach, but I didn’t find it too appealing. It was like squishy white fish meat. During our Boston trip we got lobster in Legal Seafood, James Hook & Co, and Alive and Kicking.  I appreciated the seasoned lobster in the lobster rolls much better. 

Legal Seafood rolls were on another level. They come with some salad and fries. I’ve never seen fries cooked so skillfully. The crust is crunchy but not hard, and the insides are still tasty, not soggy. The roll bread was also great. The roll was $43 for a quarter pound of lobster on the roll. We shared it between Christine and me. We felt it was very expensive. The funny thing is that for the next three days we had more lobster rolls, all at $40, but stopped feeling that it was expensive. We also got a $20 crab cake(s). When it came out, Christine gasped: “omg. It only has one crab cake”. I chimed in: “do you see the artful sauce scratch? That was $5”

Google had recommended James Hook Co as affordable lobster rolls with big portions, and so did Andrew. They did not disappoint. Their $45 large size lobster roll was just a mound of lobster overflowing from a large roll. In this one, the only attraction was the lobster, which tasted great. The bread.. was just basic bread that didn’t add much to the experience. We also ordered lobster pie. It has a mix of lobster, bisque and panko inside and is covered by charred panko. Usually the lobster rolls didn’t take more than 3 minutes to come out, but the pie added some 10 minutes to the cooking time.

After hearing that we were satisfied with James Hook, Andrew recommended Alive and Kicking Lobster, a spot in Cambridge that, he explained, has a good balance between quality and price. We walked there in the rain, and found a lot of young people eating their lobsters under a little hut. We got the $55 set item of 2 Lobster Tails, some Mussels and Corn Cob. This would easily have been $120 in Redondo Beach. We got a lobster sandwich to go and ate it back in the hotel with their free clam chowder.

Hyatt Regency Boston had a lobster frittata as a breakfast option. It’s a steamed egg with chunks of lobster and goat cheese. It was.. okay, we were getting free lobster with the globalist breakfast benefit. They also gave us free vouchers for a bowl of clam chowder, which we can eat at the restaurant or take to go.

At Canopy by Hilton Boston, I got US-style seafood and chicken paella. No lobster there but it had plenty of scallops.

The City

We caught up with how Christine’s cousins Andrew and Albert have been doing since moving to Boston. Andrew had very detailed recommendations on how to make the most of our 3-day visit to Boston, what’s going on in the harbor neighborhood, and restaurants to not be missed. 

On Saturday, we walked along the harbor from the city center to North Station, then took the tram south and walked around Public Garden and Boston Commons. At the start of the Freedom Trail, we saw a statue dedicated to friendship and collaboration but also looked like something else altogether from behind, especially because the person on top looked naked. And some graffiti from a conspiracy theorist who was arguing that Stratospheric Aerosol Injection was the new chemtrail.

After checking in to Canopy by Hilton on Sunday, we checked out Quincy Market and Fanneuil Hall but they were not at all what we expected. What we saw was a national brands shopping mall, vendors selling “I love Boston” sweatshirts and various fast food adjacent vendors, like milk tea, hot dog, chocolates, and lobster rolls. Doing some more research, it seems like Haymarket on Saturday would have been what we usually expect from a city market/farmers market, or at least the Boston Public Market that takes its place on other days.

Flight to Los Angeles

On our flight back, we got on the new American Airlines A321XLR plane, with its infamous business class suites with doors. Everything the flight crew has been saying is true. The dining table slides front and back, but when it’s in the back position, it’s too far for the crew to be able to reach it. They would extend the bread on a tong, and I had to get it from them. To reach the table, the crew had to step into each cubicle. 

My headset wasn’t working. It had a loud static noise that only went away when I kept the plug manually pressed against the audio jack. Also, if I flipped the “Noise cancelling” switch, there would be no sound coming through. The dining tray was flimsy and it would sag on the left.

The right hand side has a strange contraption – it has a little 2” armrest that you can extend or fold. Also, the monitor swiveling a few degrees downwards was a nice touch, I imagine it makes it easier to view while lying in be mode. 

These details make me wonder – they had the foresight to think of all this but couldn’t see how the extreme angle of the seat makes it hard for the crew to reach the passenger? This is pure greed. If the airlines had agreed to angle the seats less to the sides, like 40 degrees, then the center walkway would not be awkwardly narrow, the distance from the hall to the dining table would be less. But that would mean one less row of seats. That’s why they pushed for this extreme 50 degree angle. To squeeze more seats and make more money.

The 60W USB-C charger is a lifesaver. It charges everything in minutes. I can’t imagine wireless charging being practical without a magnet. It often gets misaligned as it’s right next to your body, and its charging speed is too slow. I watched Jaardgur: A Witch in Mongolia without sound, as I didn’t bring my own headsets. When the FA handed me a replacement headset to try out, I noticed that this one was not a 3-prong jack. It was a regular 3.5mm jack. I pulled up my USB-C adapter but then I realized that my adapter didn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack. 

One of the most generous benefits of OneWorld is that with a ticket that gives you access to a lounge, you get access for the entire day during which the flight takes place, both before and after the flight. After landing in LAX, we went to the Flagship Lounge again, got breakfast, and waited 30 minutes for their lunch menu. They had a sushi roll “action station” during lunch time. They did not look very authentic, but still tasted fine. I tried out all 5 of their desserts between breakfast and lunch. 

Costs

We spent $550 and 254k credit card points, which covered flights and hotels that would have cost $6,000.

• $10 + 70k Alaska miles for LAX-JFK-BOS AA J
• $10 + 54k Avios for BOS-LAX AA J
• $0 + 40k Chase points for 2 nights at Hyatt Regency Boston
• $0 + Hilton free night award (80k) for 1 night at Canopy by Hilton Boston
• $450 Food
• -$50 Hilton Gold food credits and Hilton destination credits
• $0 Blacklane Taxi pickup from airport with Citi Strata credits
• $70 Taxis in Boston
• $10 Public Transit
• $50 LAX Airport Parking