The flight was at 5 PM and I didn't make it. Simple as that. Standby giveth, standby taketh. The same system that got me here for almost nothing on a Friday red-eye looked at my Sunday departure and said no. I stood at the gate, still running on whatever fumes remain after a sunrise at Space and four hours of sleep, and watched the plane push back without me.
The responsible move would have been to find a seat on the 6 AM Monday flight, set an alarm, suffer through it. Instead I opened the Hyatt app, typed "Miami Beach," and booked two nights at the Andaz on points. Twenty-five thousand a night. Cash rate: seven hundred dollars. I wasn't going home yet.
The Uber was twenty minutes late. Then it showed up as a black SUV. Free upgrade. The most Miami sequence possible: chaos followed by an inexplicable luxury escalation. I climbed in, gave the address, and closed my eyes for the fifteen-minute ride to Collins Avenue.
I should say something about the Andaz because it deserves it. This is not a points hotel in the way that phrase usually lands. It's brand new, art deco bones with a modern intervention that actually works, and José Andrés is running everything you eat and drink. Bar Centro in the lobby. Aguasal on the ground floor. The Bazaar coming soon. Two pools, beach service, orange and white umbrellas on the sand two minutes from your room. It's the kind of place that would be genuinely cool at full price and happens to also be bookable with points, which is the exact sweet spot where strategic and luxurious meet.
Monday, 11:30 AM — I woke up wrecked. The weekend catching up all at once. And there was a work deliverable due. A critical one. No extensions, no excuses. The problem: my laptop charger was in Utah. Left it at my sister's house during the ski trip the week before. My laptop had been running on battery since Salt Lake City. It was dead.
So I finished the report in Excel on my iPhone. Lying in bed at the Andaz Miami Beach, squinting at a spreadsheet on a five-inch screen, formatting cells with my thumbs. It was tedious and absurd and I got it done and hit send and then I went directly to the sun.
The spa attendant let me into the sauna for free. Globalist thing, or maybe just Monday-morning kindness. Either way I sat there in the steam and felt the weekend leave my body in layers. Space at 4 AM. The cotton candy sunrise. The missed flight. The black SUV. All of it dissolving into heat and quiet.