Booked the ticket through United's website the night before less than 24 hrs before the trip time. Despite that, the round trip ticket was still $158. It doesn't get any better than this, as you log on and get the flights you want, get the seats you want to sit on, including the aircraft types that you want to fly in. My original itinerary was : AIR> Jun 7 UA# 1085 BDL --> ORD 5:19 pm 6:54 pm AIR> Jun 7 UA# 1548 ORD --> CMH 9:00 pm 11:10 pm I returned the rental car at Budget and headed to the terminal area via the Rental car shuttle. Checked in through the First Class and Premier counter even though there wasn't too many people standing in the line for the regular economy class ticket. After a smooth check in I decided to carry everything with me, which turned out to be a smarter choice for the second leg of the flight. Extremely high level of security was interesting at BDL. Much higher level compared to last week. Besides the regular "take your laptop off, put them in the plastic container, etc" drill everybody with blue shirts and khaki pants were ordered to step aside to go through more security. I didn't have a blue shirt on, but tell me who is not wearing khakis in this day of business casual environment. When my turn came I was told to empty my pockets, put everything in the little plastic container. Then the security guy asked me if I minded if he searched me. He did the regular handheld security device thing. Then my belt buckle was beeping, so he asked me if it was ok for him to check behind it. Following that I was ordered to take my shoes of, they went to the x-ray machine to get x-rayed. All this happened when my laptop was still sitting at the end of the x-ray machine. I told him that they should come up with a way to give the laptops back to the person before they go through the search, otherwise they will have incidences of laptop robbery. He didn't seem to care. I headed to the gate A3 for the flight to ORD after this whole thing was over. UA 1085 BDL 5:19 pm ORD 6:54 pm A320 N442UA Seat 11F (second over wing exit row) Ch. 9 ON Gate A3 area was full of people. The flight was coming from ORD and it was pretty full. It took some time for the United people to get the plane ready for departure, while people from Signature fueled the plane. We boarded the plane at 5:08 pm. While we were at the gate the clearance people told us to plan for a wheels up time for 2139Z (539pm local) and clearance was void if not off in 10 mins. We pushed back at 21:25Z (5:25pm local) and headed to runway 33 for a west bound departure. According to the f/a's announcement in the cabin the flight continued to Omaha. The nice thing that F/As did in this flight was to make all the announcements over the public announcement system, rather than cutting off Ch. 9. I love it when they do it like that! :) At 2137Z (537pm local) we were told to taxi into position and hold (line up and wait for our JAA readers). We lifted off before the runway 6 intersection and around 1600 feet Bradley Approach cleared us to 10,000 feet. As we took of from runway 33, an American Airlines flight bound for O'Hare (AA 1945) was about to take off from runway 6. I figured we would be at the freq. together. After 8,000 feet Bradley Approach handed us over to Boston Center which cleared us direct SYR (Syracuse VOR) and told us to keep our climb up to 17,000 feet. Passing 13,000 feet we were told to give a call to the higher sector of Boston Center at 121.35 and those guys assigned us FL230. As we were climbing AA 1945 was in trail so they were getting the same altitude assignments for us with a 5 to 10 min lag. As a final altitude we were assigned FL350 and AA flight was given FL 390 ( I am guessing the AA equipment was B737-800 as I have never seen an MD-80 fly that high). After about 10 mins or so, Boston Center told both of us to stop our climb at FL330 for traffic. Turned out that traffic was US 782 flying at FL 350. While we were in contact with Boston Center at 123.87 they were dealing, what I speculate , with a lost aircraft. It was C-MIFC and the controller asked the pilot if he/she was around Ottawa. Finally he told the pilot to tune to Watertown VOR at 111.10 and tell him how many miles DME and which radial he was on. I couldn't really figure out what was going on as the other aircraft was talking to the same ATC guy in a different frequency. After level flight drinks and food was served. Even though the departure time was suitable for a dinner only drinks and snack mix was going to be served. However, as the F/As pointed out, there was a special treat to Eli's cheesecake chocolate chip cookie. That was one of the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever head in such a long time, that when the F/A went around for a second time with a bucked of cookies , I decided to grab another one. :)) Out flight followed with a flight over Canadian airspace. Eventually we climbed to FL350 and we were in some cirrus layers. So it was a bit bumpy at the altitude but the amount of bump that I can handle versus the amount of bumps pilots report it's not always the same. Of course, they have to think about people who are not used to bumpy plane rides; and that's fine. We contacted Cleveland Center at 120.62 and Toronto Center at 134.92 in that order. We then went back to Cleveland Center at 126.52 which told us to descend down to FL330. Once we contacted another sector of Cleveland Center at 133.87 they told us to slow down to 250 KTS for spacing. Once they told us to descend to FL310 we were told to speed up to 280 KTS. Chicago Center at 126.12 told us to descend to FL280 followed by FL200. Passing 25,600 feet we called Chicago Center at 132.20 which took us down to 15,000. The weather is Chicago couldn't be better, which meant an on time arrival to ORD. It was my lucky day. :) Once at 15,000 feet we were cleared to 8,000 and told to contact Chicago Approach at 124.35 which told us to intercept the localizer for runway 22R. Approach first told us to slow down to 210 KTS and then we were told to maintain 170 KTS or faster till the Ridge (??) outer marker. We contact the tower over the market when our F/O asked if we could roll all the way to the end of the runway. This was done to minimize the taxi time, and worked out perfect. After a nice landing we were at the gate C25 3 minutes ahead of schedule. UA 1752 ORD 7:15 pm CMH 9:30 pm B737-300 N344UA Seat 20F (the row before the last) Ch. 9 ON While I was in the previous flight I got suspicious about the long layover in ORD and voila I discovered that United had an earlier flight leaving O'Hare at 7:15 pm. My luck during the day continued, as the gate of departure was almost across the arrival gate. As I was on standby status for the flight I didn't care much about the seat, it turned out that I got the last open window seat. The plane was 99% full, except the middle seat between me and the girl at 20D. As I said before it was my lucky day :) Listening to metering, I was feeling bad about people going to MSP as there was a ground stop for those flights due to some thunderstorm activity there. We pushed back at 1752 local and we were told to taxi to runway 14L via B-A6-J and holding short of 9L. We contacted tower at the 9L hold short point and we were cleared to cross the runway. During our long taxi I noticed that there was a nice run up facility in the middle of the field for engine run-ups. There were no signs on it and I am wondering if it's owned by the airport or one of the major airlines in ORD (AA or UA). I also noticed a B1900 with United Airlines colors at the airport, I thought Great Mistakes , errr Great Lakes, stopped serving ORD some time ago. Of course, I could be wrong on this. We took used the real estate on the runway until the 22R intersection. After lift off we turned heading 100 , contacted the approach and flew to the east passing over the north side of downtown. That was a moment of regret for not having my camera with me, but with all the hassle of carrying a camera, I think it was a right decision. We were cleared to 13000 feet north of downtown. Then we turned heading 090. By the time we were to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan we were at our cruising altitude of 23000 feet. Chicago Center cleared us direct to Gipper (is this a VOR or an intersection?) Once we were at the level flight, flight attendants came out and served drinks and regular snack mix. Since the flight was short and the plane was full of pax, by the time they came to me we were already at the descend. Chicago Center told us to descend to FL210 with 320 KTS or better and they switched us over to Indy Center at 128.07. This frequency was extremely busy with Jetlink (Continental Express) and Comair call signs. We were first told to descend to FL170 followed by 10,000 feet. Indy Center told us to maintain a good rate down to 13,000 feet. Passing 10,000 feet we contacted Columbus Approach at 125.95. We were followed by a Northwest flight (couldn't catch the flight number) and were assigned runways according to our gates: us 10L and NW 10R. After a smooth touch down on runway 10L we rolled until taxiway E1 and directly proceeded to our gate B11. OVERALL : - I got really lucky with stand-by and a good weather at ORD. - United is still my favorite domestic airline in US because of Ch.9 and Econ +. - Cannot beat $158 r/t less than 24 hrs before departure time. ORD = Chicago O'Hare BLD = Hartford/Windsor Locks, CT CMH = Columbus, OH