As many of you may know, the second annual meeting of the Boarding Area bloggers (BAcon) is currently happening in Las Vegas. To get there I found a good fare from Dublin, via the Dominican Republic and LA, to Las Vegas.

Booked many months ago, American Airlines then rescheduled their flights so that I could not get to Punta Cana on the same day as I arrived in the US. Having stayed overnight at Miami Airport Hyatt House, I was on an early flight to Punta Cana.

The crew were probably the grumpiest I had met on AA in a long time.

My connection time, just over an hour, was going to be a challenge as their in no transit facility here. Despite emailing the airport and the station manager no one was offering to help me short circuit the process.

So, once the door opened I sprinted off the plane, and down the stairs to the tarmac. Directed by a member of staff to walk along the edge of the apron I came across immigration in about 2 minutes. A 3 minute wait to pay the compulsory $10 tourist fee, I was then had to join a queue for immigration. 5 minutes there.

I went as fast as I could through Customs – stopped by a Customs man who had a couple of questions as I seemed not to have enough luggage. I had been advised to leave by Exit B and about 10 minutes later was in the departures part of the airport.

Here at least I was able to use the FastTrack queue – and whilst waiting to put my stuff through the machine I could fill in the exit card. A 10 minute wait at Immigration was cutting my time close.

Through I then had to walk to Gate 10. This was forced through at least 2 Duty Free shops and then I was at the gate! Phew. About 15 minutes after boarding time, I squeezed on to the second of three buses going the 500 yards to the plane.

I bounced up the stairs, there was still overhead space (phew!), and I was back in the same seat as the on the way back. Queue surprised air crew.

As you can imagine there was no time for photos but I think I lost a couple of pounds racing around the airport.

Needless to say, it’s not a Mileage Run target airport for anyone.