I guess mileage running is a crime

I receive email fare alerts from that wonderful deal-finding website FareCompare.com. Earlier this summer, I found some great deals from my hometown of Anchorage, Alaska to various far-away, exotic places on the east coast: Charlotte, NC, and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. (Hey, at least they were exotic to me, since they're on the opposite side of the continent.)

As I began to look into the travel possibilities, I noticed that the trips would net me about 9,500 airline miles each, and so three trips would get me to Alaska Airlines MVP status. So I made haste and booked three trips: two to Charlotte (one for the end of August and another one in December, figuring I could jump in a car or on a train and go somewhere more exciting than Charlotte itself) and one to Charlottetown. According to Travelocity's flexible dates feature, though, there weren't a whole lot of dates with seats left, so I found a pair that worked: leaving here on 9/6 and returning on 9/8. The trip was as much of a mileage run to help me achieve elite status for the first time ever as it was a trip to actually see the destination. Besides, I love whirlwind weekend trips: nothing like someone asking what I did last weekend and telling them, "Oh, I was on the east coast of Canada." It's always funny to see them do a double-take.

I left and had a wonderful 22 hours there, during which I drove around downtown Charlottetown before heading across the great Confederation Bridge and down to Halifax for the night. I left Halifax the next morning, chanced upon a perfectly-timed stop in Truro to see the world-famous bore tide come up the Salmon River from the Bay of Fundy, and rushed in the Charlottetown airport with just 50 minutes to spare before my flight.

Fortunately, Charlottetown is a small airport, and there was no hint of a line through security. But my first inkling of a problem came when the friendly Transport Canada inspector asked me to step aside. First, he passed a metal-detecting wand over my entire body, and then asked me if it would be all right if I let him pat me down. Of course I wasn't going to say no (I had a feeling it was a rhetorical question, despite the pleasantly-surprising politeness and joviality of Canadian security), so he donned a pair of gloves and proceeded with a full-body pat down. I passed with flying colors, of course, and proceeded to wait in the seating area for my flight to Boston.

Once we arrived in Boston, I began to understand why so many people call Logan Airport one of the worst (it seems there's a competition between Logan and Dulles for which is more hated). First of all, apparently no one gave our Delta/Comair flight crew copies of U.S. customs forms (whether that's the fault of Comair, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, or Logan operations isn't clear), so we were unable to fill out forms prior to our arrival. Second, we sat on the tarmac for a good 10 or 15 minutes before we were allowed to disembark from the small 50-seater CRJ and proceed onto the shuttle bus from our gate at Terminal A over to Terminal E (supposedly we were waiting for some paperwork). Once we arrived at Terminal E, we were herded up the escalator and into the customs and immigration hall. Of course, none of us had filled out our customs forms, so we all huddled around a small table and shared pens while we watched three 747s-worth of passengers arrive through the door and get in line for Passport Control ahead of us.

Finally, after waiting for 20 minutes in line, I was thrust in front of the passport inspector. He slid my passport through his computer and asked me a few brief questions about my residency and where I had come from. Then he asked me how long I had been in Canada.

"One day," I replied, although I wasn't sure if my 22 hours should have been counted as two calendar days.

Pause, followed by a suspicious look at me.

"Where do you live?"

"Anchorage, Alaska," I replied, probably a bit tentatively.

A rapid fire response: "Where do you work?"

"Um, at a car rental agency."

Again, without hesitation? "Which one?"

I told him.

"Are you a student?"

"Yes," I replied.

"What are you studying?"

"Journalism," I replied, beginning to grow a bit anxious and a tad bit annoyed.

"Why did you only go to Canada for one day?"

"Uh, the fare was cheap and it was the only day I could get off," I replied, now truly concerned. I know it's not good form to snap back at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer, but it took every fiber in my body to stop myself from screaming, "I'm not a bloody terrorist! I was just trying to qualify for elite status on an airline!"

He then thumbed through my passport, which only has one other stamp (from my trip to Australia--my old passport with all of my European stamps had expired). I don't know if that made me look suspicious, but at that point I think he pressed me for another couple of questions, wrote a big check mark on my customs form, and sent me on my way.

I proceeded downstairs and collected my bag from the carousel, where a Delta agent had been watching it while she waited for my interrogation to be completed. My connection time was starting to get tight, so I threaded my way through the crowd off of an Alitalia flight and waited in the Green: Nothing to Declare line.

At the front of that line, another customs agent examined my customs form. "Sir," he said, "I need you to go wait over by that 'stop' sign there."

Uh, sure, I guess--who am I to question an agent of the federal government? Maybe I had been selected for a random inspection even though I had nothing to declare.

Even though there was no one in line in front of me, I waited a full five minutes before an agent finally called me over to her line. I handed her my customs form. "Sir, I need to see your passport," she said. I was surprised, since my recollection was that once I had passed Passport Control, I didn't need to produce it again. (Not that I was opposed to it, but I pride myself on looking like a seasoned traveler and always having exactly the right documentation ready to produce at exactly the right time.)

"Where are you coming from?" she asked.

"Canada," I said.

"What were you doing in Canada?"

"Just visiting. I found a cheap airfare."

"Do you know anyone there?"

"No," I said, now feeling like I had done this before.

"How long were you there?"

"One day," I said, and the same thought about calendar days passed through my head.

"That's a pretty short time to travel to a foreign country," she said. Uh oh.

"Uh, they were the only days I could get off," I stammered.

"Sir, I need you to put your items on the belt for inspection," she said. I proceeded to do so. "This is a lot of stuff for a one-day trip," she said as she proceeded to open my backpack, which contained my laptop and reading material, and my small rolling suitcase, which contained my toiletries and a change of clothes. (I would have stuffed everything in my backpack, but with the liquid ban, I figured I'd better take something I could check.)

"Um, it's mostly, uh, German homework in case I have time to do it," I said. Wow. What a dumb response.

She proceeded to leaf through my backpack. She unzipped a compartment I had forgotten about and pulled out five or six burned CDs. "What's on these disks?" she said as she glared at me.

"I don't know...uh, they're probably audio CDs or something? I forgot they were in there." Suddenly, I was struck with visions of her associate grabbing me and slamming me on the floor and slapping a pair of handcuffs on me. The last place I wanted to be was in a Boston jail, although that would have made a pretty cool excuse for why I could not show up for work the next day.

"Where do you live again?" she asked.

Phew, an easy question. "Anchorage, Alaska," I said.

"Who do you work for?"

I told her.

"What do you do for them?"

"Um, customer service, and I'm a manager." Oh, like she cares that I'm a lousy shift manager. Whoopdedoo.

She conferred with her associate for a moment and proceeded to hand back my passport. "You're all clear."

I sort of stood there in shock for a second, but when I noticed her associate eyeing me, I decided I'd better get out of there before I did anything else suspicious. "Uh, thanks," I stammered as I zipped up my bags.

Once safely out the door and back in my home country, I tried to console myself with thoughts about them just doing their jobs to prevent terrorism or that my quick trip must have flagged something in their computer or that it was just the legendary East Coast or Bostonian sharpness. Still, I couldn't help but think that the good ol' U.S. of A didn't feel quite as welcoming as it should have.

So far, though, the INS folks haven't broken down my door and carted me away, so I think I'm safe for the time being... :P