I found myself in the airport trying to get home after a long hours week of working. Now, for this to truly be understood I need to add some more details. Typically, I travel Monday morning at the crack of early and come back Thursday afternoon/evening on the last or next-to-last flight back. That was the case here, my ticket was booked for exactly this - Monday morning out and Thursday evening back.
Now, occasionally I have issues of the personal nature that would be somewhat minor to others, but to a traveler it can be a huge deal. This was one of those things, I HAD to be at a lawyer's office on Thursday. Now, this meant I needed to take a Wednesday night flight. No problemo, I talked to the client, management, coworkers, hell the janitor at the facility even. Everyone was cool with me taking an earlier flight. Well, except for Delta that is.
You see, to take a flight on another day you're going to pay a "change fee". It doesn't matter if you're Mr. Delta himself, you're stuck with a $150 "rape" fee. So, i'm prepared for that. What i'm not prepared for is that Delta apparently CAN NOT change just the return portion of a ticket, but instead needs to redo the whole thing from the ground up. A quick primer on ticketing:
>30 Days = Cheap, because no one books this early
15-30 Days = Cheap, because no one does this either
7-15 Days = Optimal, still cheap but also so close that surprises don't screw you up
3-7 Days = Ouchie, the same ticket is now twice the cost
0-3 Days = Daddy Wants a New Porche, WTF Prices are in full affect
With that in mind, my return ticket is in the 7 day window..but my new outbound ticket is in the last set of values...or, for the logically challenged: Delta wants 1300$ in fees ON TOP of the 150$ change fee!!! So, I point out my $100,000 a year spending history with Delta but to no avail. They wantz the moneyz. The Delta rep, no joke, says "Perhaps you should just buy a return ticket on Southwest".
So, instead I get creative. One-way Return ticket on Wednesday with FF miles? 25,000 total. I earn that accidentally in a month, so life is good right? Heh. Wait for it.
Now, Wednesday arrives and I'm at the airport, through security, and overpaying for some water in plenty of time for my flight. In fact, i'm hanging out at the agent's counter as the flight starts to unload ready to whisk me away to my home in time for all this legal garbage. And that's when I get that feeling....anyone who has been there, knows it . . . something isn't right. I see this douchebag of a pilot walk out amidst the passengers (first sign) and head straight over to the gate agent (second sign) and start flirting heavily (thus, the declaration of douchebag - see I don't profile). I listen to this idiot prattle on a minute or two, then I hear the words: "Well, some fat ass broke the toilet handle so I'm not going anywhere. Want to get some food"
Yes, you read that right. Someone broke the toilet. Broke. The. Toilet.
So, douchebag gets blown off by the gate agent, who also just realized that this flight ain't happening, and heads over to feed his defalted ego with a cheap airport burrito. I immediately jump into action, knowing how this ends. "I need to get to Atlanta. I don't care if I tour the country in the process, get me there tonight!" The gate agent, Tena, is awesome but she can't help me..yet. Reason? Apparently Delta (even though the agents say this happens MONTHLY!!) won't admit the flight is going to get cancelled. For those that didn't know, a 2 hour flight with no toilet is an FAA no-no. So, I stand there and wait. Watching each departing flight leave for other cities much closer to Atlanta while we wait for maintenance. Finally, this maintenance dude shows, only to tell us that he needs the pilot. Who is stuffing his face and not caring about passengers right now, so clearly he's busy.
Agonizing minutes later, Delta cancels the flight. Ok, rebook time! I got a nice American flight through NYC to Atlanta arriving at 1am. Not ideal, but better. Problem is, ASA (the owner of this plane) hasn't updated their system yet. So, after half an hour of retrying, they clear the flight for rebooking...just as the AA flight leaves. Which leaves me in OK for the night, my only hope is that 5am flight the next morning. I get a ticket to the Sheradin Four Points and 18$ for my troubles. Yeah, that is ALL.
So, onto the Sheradin shuttle and over to the hotel I go. What a sh#thole. If you have the option of staying at the OK Sheradin or a tenament under a bridge...the bridge is nicer. This place was dirty and smelled of foot.
And that 18$? Well, after waiting TWO HOURS to get a menu, I finally orderd a burger with water. Sadly, even with my $18 credit, this meal costs me $23. Yeah. And that burger sucked.
So, 3am arrives and I'm up and waiting on the shuttle. Guess what? The Sheradin didn't think anyone would want to leave early like that to catch the 5am flight. No joke. Our ENTIRE plane worth of people are on this flight, but the hotel didn't think we would need a shuttle.
I get in, and go to check in to the flight at the Delta kiosk and..guess what? Remember earlier how I said I had a ticket originally that returned on Thursday? Yeah. Now, I have two. My original and the FF ticket I cashed in for. Both from OK to ATL, both on thursday, both for me. That means Delta can't find my reservation, since they don't know which is which, and I can't check in.
I'm on the phone with them immediately. I'll save you the blow by blow, but at some point their development group was on the phone trying to fix my problem. They couldn't cancel one flight without canceling both. They couldn't remove me from one seat without an upgrade or standby immediately getting that seat. It was in a word, unreal.
I made it though. I literally closed the boarding door behind me, but I made it. And the flight? Typical craptacular flight. Loud children, people kicking my seat constantly, someone with horrible BO. But...I was home.
Maybe I'll write up a review of the OKC scene in a bit. For now, I feel dirty just typing this up and need another shower.
F You Delta. Just F You Hard.
-J
No comments:
Post a Comment