Normally what you’d find here is a review of my recent flight from Chicago to Portland. After all, I was excited to write about my first ever complimentary upgrade to domestic first class. However, Mother Nature had other ideas! So I’m not reviewing the cabin and seats, the amenities or the food service (hint: there was none). Instead I’m going to share the craziness that began with a complimentary upgrade, was interrupted by a tornado and ended with a redeye flight to Portland.
The Upgrade
Once American Airlines gamified their rewards program in 2022, earning elite status became more about spending than flying. That change made elite status attainable and I set out on quest to attain status to see if it was worth having. In June 2022 I attained Gold elite status. In January 2023 I attained Platinum elite status and did again in February of 2024. I’ll continue to have Platinum elite status through March 2025. Before this trip, I’d only used my elite status for priority check-ins and boarding and picking Main Cabin Extra Seats at booking.
So as I always do, I booked Main Cabin Extra seats for the flight to Portland. As the trip got closer, I started monitoring the first class cabin for open seats. As of the night before the flight, there were five open seats in first class! So I was cautiously optimistic that both Annie and I might get upgraded.
The morning of the flight, I received an email from American Airlines confirming upgrades for Annie and me. I was really excited about this, but not because getting domestic first class on a two hour flight is so amazing. It was just fun to finally have my Platinum elite status secure an upgrade.
Cue the Delays
The trouble starting during the course of the day as I got several notifications from American Airlines about flight delays. Sometime earlier in the day, the plane we were scheduled to be on had been delayed on one of its legs. That delayed each subsequent flight, so every few hours my flight was delayed by 20 minutes or so. By the time we headed to the airport, our flight had been delayed an hour in total. But it could be worse…and soon will be!
The Tornado
The flight got delayed again as soon as we sat down at our gate. The weather service had been forecasting the possibility of severe weather that evening, but I was hoping we could still make it out beforehand. Our final “official” departure time was set for 8:45pm.
Annie and I were the first to board the plan and we took our seats in 4D and 4F. As per usual, the plane sat at the gate for quite a while after boarding had been completed. I was still hopeful we’d beat the weather but was getting more anxious with every passing minute.
Finally, the pilot gave the “flight attendants, prepare for takeoff” call and we taxied out to the tarmac to get in line with the other aircrafts. We sat out on the tarmac for another 20 minutes or so and didn’t move an inch. Eventually the pilot got on the intercom and informed us that we had to return to the gate due to severe weather approaching. But we didn’t go anywhere, the plane just stayed on right where it was.
It wasn’t even raining yet, but an ominous feeling spread over everyone knowing a bad storm was coming. Then I was startled when everyone’s phone made that jarring emergency alert sound. Our phones urged us to take shelter now! The incoming storm prompted the evacuation of the FAA control tower at O’Hare and passengers in the airport took shelter. That led to a ground stop, causing all planes to stop moving on the tarmac.
So instead of going back to the gate, we had to wait out the storm inside the plane. Within a few minutes it started raining hard. Then the wind kicked up and the plane started to rock forcefully back and forth. The wind gusts were so strong it actually felt like we were flying and going through strong turbulence.
I started feeling more vulnerable when my daughter texted me to say that the local news channel was talking about tornadoes on the ground at O’Hare. According to some reports, there were a total of 27 tornados in the Chicagoland area that night. It was also confirmed that an EF-0 twister is what blew through O’Hare, reaching peak wind gusts of 80 miles per hour.
I’m really not sure how long the storm lasted. But once the tornado warning expired, the air traffic controllers returned to the tower. At that point they had us return to the gate and deboard the plane. Once back in the airport , we were hoping there’d be an agent around to tell us what would happen next. It was probably around 10:45pm at that point, so the only people around were the cleaning crew. There was nobody to ask questions to, nobody to help us.
The Redeye
As we waited at the gate to see what was going to happen, my initial thought was a pessimistic one. I figured we’d wait at the gate like idiots before American finally cancelled the flight. So I called them to see what options we had. The agent on the phone could see that my flight hadn’t been cancelled yet and put me on hold. While on hold I realized that any new flight she would book us on would be the next day. So Annie and I agreed that we’d rather take a chance and see what happens with our original flight.
It was radio silence for long time. We’d get excited when an employee would walk toward our gate and be deflated when he or she kept on walking. Finally around 1am, an agent finally informed us that they received approval to fly to Portland. They announced that we could board once they completed a quick cleaning. Everyone audibly moaned because there was nothing to clean! All we did that night was board and deboard the plane. A few minutes later the agent announced they wouldn’t clean the plane and we could reboard in a few minutes!
We eventually took off at 1:45am. At that point in our evening, Anne and I just wanted to get as much sleep as we could. So did everybody else. The crew didn’t bother to do food service in first class and didn’t serve drinks to anyone. I didn’t mind not getting the typical domestic first class experience since sleep was the first priority. It’s just kind of ironic that my first ever upgrade didn’t amount to much.
Bottom Line
The last piece to the story is that when we landed in Portland it was 4:45am. I’d rented a car I was supposed to pick up at 10:30pm the night before. The rental car companies didn’t open until 6am, so at that point we had to take a seat and wait for them to open. We finally got our car and headed to the hotel, sleepy but with a unique story to tell.
Trip Report Index
- Using Points and Miles to get to Maine
- Flight from Chicago to Portland
- Canopy by Hilton Portland Waterfront
- Bar Harbor Inn
