Roll with it

 

Extended travel has some interesting challenges not the least of which are travel surprises.  There is a reason you are advised to be ready to roll with sudden unexpected hiccups because these can be really stressful.

Our trip to Newark airport in New Jersey had been great.  We had missed the earlier overland train from New Haven to the magnificent Grand Central Station, and the next one ended up being really packed, but we heard someone in the isle chatting away in Afrikaans and then an engaging couple sitting with us started chatting about travel - the husband is an art teacher and was reminiscing about traveling as a student.  He had taken a lot of heavy art materials with him and then his mother had kept adding “you have to take this” items to his luggage until it had become impossible for him to carry them all by himself!  He ended up having to shuffle the bags in relay two at a time. 

We arrived at the airport at 11:30am for our 1:30pm first leg to Miami en route to Mexico City.  I’ve not had good luck with transit through Newark so it was with sinking hearts that we heard that our 1:30pm flight had been cancelled in September and we had been moved on a 5am flight instead - all of which was news to us.

The American Airlines customer support person (Cynthia) was an angel in a uniform.  She put a hold on two tickets two days later and said she would wait 15 min while we contacted Expedia to see if they could remedy the problem for us.  She was seeing no other options for flights to Mexico for us.

So there we are sitting off to the side - me sitting in the only available chair near an outlet, which happened to be an airport wheelchair, surrounded by our luggage.  I was struggling to connect to Expedia on their web chat using my phone’s hot spot.  You may know that trying to actually call Expedia is the most frustrating way to NOT get your problem solved so web chat has been the go-to, with mixed results.

After 30 min of the person on the other side repeating the obvious - “we see that your flight was changed In September and you were a no-show this morning” - I needed to go to the bathroom and left Anne on the computer chat, never a good idea as she would more than likely rage against the poor impotent faceless person on the other end.  

On my way back I saw panicked messages from Anne who had lost the connection to my hot spot and therefore to the chat! 

I raced back and we managed to reconnect but the person we had been talking to had gone from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde: the apologetic “I’m looking into how to help you” was replaced by a “screw you” tone.  We had been reconnected to a new, less sympathetic person under the original name.

Cynthia had been coming over every now and then to say she’d wait five more minutes but by this time we were out of luck with Expedia (“your tickets were forfeited”) and so Anne went to see if Cynthia could get us on the split flights she had found, one the next day and the other two days ahead (they were all full). 

Cynthia in the meantime had been working some magic and in another few minutes had managed to shift someone else’s economy seat to 1st class to get us two seats on a flight the next day.

The net effect was that we had to get  a hotel room in Newark overnight where we had a minor panic at reception because the reservation had been set for the following day!

I insisted superstitiously on getting to the airport 4 hours early the next day because we had heard that the TSA was going to strike.  The upside was that we sat in a small restaurant watching the World Cup final with an animated mix of French and Argentinian supporters.

The downside was that when our AA flight had to pull back into the gate because of a problem in the cockpit, we’d been at the airport for 7 hours and now faced the problem of missing our flight to Mexico in the evening.

All flights were fully booked to Mexico from all of AA's connecting cities but we met another AA angel who found us seats on different airlines to Austin that night and then to Mexico the next morning. 

This time Expedia was out of the picture (thank God) and we left the desk armed with a hotel voucher and vouchers for food and a taxi to JFK (a hectic 2 hours away in rush hour traffic).

The boarding time for the flight to Austin came and went and then the dreaded announcement that this plane was also grounded due to problems.  A replacement airplane brought us to Austin after a 4 hour delay where our hotel voucher bought us 2 hours of sleep before we had to go back to the airport for the final leg to Mexico City.

Not to be outdone, we asked the air hostess during check-in to verify that our bags were checked through and  it looks like they hadn’t been because she contacted someone who found them and loaded them on the Mexico City flight for us.

This last flight was also delayed (no surprise this time,  only resignation) because the pilot didn’t show up until 15 min after we were supposed to be boarding -  it turned out to be a minor delay and we were off to Mexico with this amazing smoking volcano not long before the final approach into the city.

Cosmos what are you trying to tell us? 

 

Lessons:

• If you book a long time ahead check your flight information a week before and again the day before.
• If you changed airlines between legs verify that the luggage made it onto the new airline. 
• Never ever use expedia again.  Always book directly to avoid being told that you have to fix this with your third party booking agent.
  
• Consider your carry-on luggage a safety net for your checked luggage getting lost - a change of clothes, essential medicines etc. should be part of your carry-on where possible.
• People in Austin are really nice.