Flying Is for the Birds, Part one

Please welcome Cynthia D'Alba, award winning author. Cyndi will make you laugh with her example of Murphey's Law of Air Travel!

First - Major thanks to Mary for asking me to blog with y’all. I am excited and thrilled to be here.

Next – Major thanks to Maureen Child. When I told her I would be blogging here and wanted to give away a couple of her books to back bloggers, she insisted on sending them to me, rather than me dipping into my personal Maureen Child stash. So, a huge thank you to a very special lady. You’re a gem!

Lately, the airline industry has been in the news. High ticket prices. Required payments to check a bag, even the first one with some airlines. Broken down luggage sorting systems. Passengers held hostage on the tarmac. Late arrivals. Late departures.

Flying has lost its luster, at least for my husband and me. We rarely fly these days, opting for motor home travel instead. But sometimes the distance and the time for travel require that I fly. Thus the predicament I found myself in the last time I flew for a week long writers’ workshop. It was not the dream experience advertised.

I was traveling on frequent flier miles, another scheduling nightmare these days. When I booked my flight, I entered my departure date as February 28 and my return date as March 5. The website system took it easily. That should have been my first clue. Historically, redeeming frequent flier miles has never been easy. I figured it was a sign from the heavens that this trip was meant to be.

The night before I was to leave, I did the “last minute check all your reservations” dance that all travelers do. Looking back, I probably should have done it a month earlier but hindsight is 20/20. My departure date and time was exactly what I requested (February 28th). Then I noticed that the return was NOT on March 5th (as I had entered into the ticket request) but on March 7th…a full two days after the end of the retreat and condo reservations.

Not panicking (yet) and definitely not telling the husband (yet), I placed a phone call to American Airlines Aadvantage desk. (Remember, this is frequent flier miles so I have to go there for help.) “Tammy” at the Aadvantage desk was ever so nice as she crushed my hopes of getting on a Sunday flight home. First, there was only one flight out that day (7:30 a.m.), and second, there were no frequent flyer mile seats on the flight. And there were no seats that could be bought. Plane was full.

I asked about Monday. I figured I could kill a day. Once again, Tammy had to tell me how sorry she was. While she was happy to report that there were flights out of Savannah, none of them had frequent flier seats left. If I wanted to buy a one-way ticket home on Monday, it would cost $582. I think that included tax, but no matter. Couldn’t do it. I asked her about just redoing the whole trip, putting my miles back in the bank and buying a round-trip ticket. Good news finally! She could do that.

”Let’s see,’ Tammy says as I hear her typing away on her computer, “it will cost you $100 to re-bank the miles for later use and, um…$1260 for a roundtrip ticket.”
I gasped. I don’t think my first car cost $1260! So, thank you Tammy, but no thanks.

I went to all the advertised hotel sites and started checking hotel rooms for Sunday and Monday nights. Days Inn had a room for $49 a night…somewhat better than the option Aadvantage-Desk-Tammy could offer me, so I booked a room. My plan was to stay over on Sunday and throw myself on the mercy of the American Airline desk on Monday morning to see if someone there would rebook me home. More on that later.

If you’ve flown using FF miles, you know the airlines will give you the worst flights known to man. When I booked, the flight out of Little Rock was scheduled to leave at 4:50 p.m. and arrive in Savannah at 10:10 p.m. But, I rousted the husband out of bed at 6 a.m., told him to get dressed and drive me to the airport. There were two earlier flights out of Little Rock that would get me to Savannah by 4:30 p.m. instead of 10:10 p.m. A really nice guy named Nathan put me on stand-by for the 9:38 a.m. flight and on stand-by in Dallas for 1:05 p.m. flight. It worked! I would get in early. Finally, something was going right.

But wait…there’s more.

The 9:38 a.m. flight from Little Rock left 45 minutes late because the plane was late arriving. That was fine with my schedule. The flight from Little Rock to Dallas is only about 60 minutes. It’d get me to Dallas in plenty of time to get on a 1 p.m. plane, even stand-by.

First leg (Little Rock to Dallas) – no problem. Nathan even assigned me a first row seat. By the way, for those of you who fly out of large airports and have never experienced a small regional one, Nathan checked me in at the reservations desk, then ran up to the departure gate to do the ticket collections. Little Rock is a small cozy airport.

I arrived in Dallas, no worse for the wear and excited to be getting to Savannah early. I went to gate B12 as instructed. After sitting there for about 30 minutes, the gate attendant announced that the flight to Savannah had been moved to gate B-9. So a horde of luggage-wheeling passengers rose in mass and headed down the terminal. Being a good stand-by, I found a seat near the desk so I could hear my name called for a seat. (Optimistic, wasn’t I?) Finally, the overhead speaker blared my name and I hustled to the desk. Yes! I had a seat on this early flight…Seat 18…last row. Didn’t care. I’m on.

Stay with me…there’s more.

Come back tomorrow for more details and laughs and another book giveaway!

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