Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

This post is a long time coming. I started it shortly after we got home from Christmas travel and have been slowing adding to it. It’s really long, but there are some valuable travel tips to learn if you’re (very) patient…

For Christmas, Crissy and I had our usual “visit both families” trip. Our flights were all booked on United airlines. First we’d go to Crissy’s house; the plan was to fly from Seattle to Kansas City (with a plane change in Denver). Then fly Kansas City to Denver to see my parents. And then finally fly back to Seattle after the New Year.

It was a fairly straightforward plan. But the travel gods had other plans. Only some luck, knowledge gained by lots of travel experience, and persistence made it work out somewhat smoothly.

Our trip started ominously, as my usually punctual town car service to the airport was 25 minutes late (the service claimed the dispatcher mistakenly canceled our reservation). We rushed to the airport and learned that our flight out was now delayed at least an hour and a half.

As a result it was impossible to make our connection in Denver. The United ticketing system caught this and when we tried to check our luggage, the service agent started the process to book us on a later Frontier flight. Unfortunately, the service agent was having problems getting the re-booking on Frontier.

20 minutes into trying the re-booking, she mentioned she couldn’t “save” the changes. I realized out that the automated system probably already started the process of re-booking, acquired a “lock” on the ticket, and was waiting for manual invention to re-book us on Frontier (these airlines have separate systems, so you often have to call to confirm the re-booking). The problem was that the agent was using a new process to re-book the ticket and couldn’t get a write lock for herself.

Who would have known that all that software design knowledge would have real world application? :-)

Finally after another 25 minutes on the phone, she was able to unlock the ticket and give us our boarding pass for the first flight and paper vouchers for the second flight.

The transfer in Denver was easy. I was nervous that the Frontier flight would be overbooked and we wouldn’t get seats. But the flight was mostly empty and landed smoothly in Kansas City close to midnight.

Originally, we had planned to rent a car and drive into Columbia that night. But the night before, I decided that it may be better to spend the night in Kansas City and then take a shuttle to Columbia the next day.

Luckily that was a good choice because by the time we got to Kansas City, I was way too tired to drive for 2 hours.

Plus on top of that, our luggage didn’t make it. We were patiently waiting for our luggage, when the lady came out and said, “That’s all the luggage.” We both did nothing. We both heard it, but pretended that we didn’t. Perhaps if we waited it would appear?

Plus there were about 10 other people still waiting (on a flight of 60). The lady confirmed that all the bags came, so we all went to the counter to file missing baggage claims.

Guess what, everyone else whose luggage didn’t made it came from Seattle too. We filed our claims and were thankful that we used all our carry-on suitcase space for (1) Crissy’s family’s presents and (2) a change of clothes for each of us.

Note: We mail most of our presents to our parents’ houses before we leave. If there are any more presents, we carry them on. You can’t trust the baggage system.

So we stayed at the hotel in Kansas City and went to the airport in the morning to catch our shuttle to Columbia. Our shuttle left at 9:00 am, and at 8:55 am the baggage office opened. Good news, our bags were found and were on the incoming flight! We could either wait for them (and take the next shuttle 2 hours later), or they would deliver them to Crissy’s house.

Given the problems so far, we decided to wait for the bags. We got lucky here, only 3 bags of the 20 or so reported missing came on that flight. 2 of those were ours! This was in part to Crissy tying large bright green bows on each of the suitcases, which made it easy for the airline people to find our bags. Yay for colorful bows!

The visit at Crissy’s was great. The only bad part was when at midnight before Christmas, I checked my voicemail and heard an automated message from United: “Your flight to Denver on Dec 26 is canceled. Please call for re-scheduling.”

Oh great, we need to schedule flights for the day after Christmas? No good can come of this. So I call United and get a customer rep in India. I know people hate talking to reps in India, but usually I like it. It’s nice to talk to someone that doesn’t ask how to spell or pronounce your name.

But in this case, no such luck. The rep not only can’t spell my name, but pronounces it “bann-gar-ra”. This bodes ill. And, indeed, over a 40 minute phone call, I learn that all direct flights on the 26th are booked and the best they can do is schedule me to fly on the 26th via US Airways from Kansas City to Denver via North Carolina.

Instead of flying all over the country on the 26th, I opt to take a flight a on the 27th. As I’m about to hang up, I asked the guy why the flight was canceled. His answer was lack of crew. Leave it to United to be unable to schedule crew for a flight the day after Christmas.

After talking to him, I remember I have a Premier membership with United. So I call the Premier line hoping that they have a special block of seats for frequent customers.

Instead I get the same story (and same incompetence). Finally, I ask about traveling on Christmas Day. We’d get one less day at Crissy’s but still get to have a reasonable length visit at home.

Strangely, I’m told that all flights from Denver to Kansas City on all airlines on Christmas Day are booked. At point I know I’m being lied to. There are always openings on flights on Christmas Day. Clearly the agents are lying and I have no idea why.

Next I ask about compensation for the all the inconvenience. I’m told that the delay was weather related and out of their control, so we get nothing. I mention that the earlier agent said it was do to lack of crew and it’s well known that both United and Northwest have to cancel tons of flights due to lack of crew.

The agent changes her mind, “Oh I’m sorry sir, it does indeed say for crew, I was mistaken.” She says that best she can do is a $50 voucher per person. I said that’s ridiculous; after all, if you volunteer to be bumped, you get at least one free round trip flight. She said the best she could do was make it $100 each and if I wanted I could write customer service to get more.

I realize I’m not going to get anywhere and decide to call when the day shift comes in.

So the next morning I call. And the guy I talk to seems a bit smarter. He books us on a direct Frontier flight on Dec 26, just one hour after our original departure. After I hang up, I realize I never got the new confirmation number. I call back and the new guy I talked to said that there was no record of a re-booking on Frontier, and now that flight was sold out.

Somehow I don’t start screaming; I patiently explained that the previous agent probably started the booking and didn’t finish it. I asked the new agent to call Frontier and see if the reservation was started but not finished. This agent told me that never happens, but I pushed on him and he finally agreed.

After 25 minutes on hold and he comes back and says that exactly what I described transpired. This agent then finished the reservation and gave me a confirmation number. Woo! Just to be safe, I call Frontier and they say, “We don’t have a reservation with that number.”

Sheesh. Fortunately, when the agent looked it up using our names they found it and we were finally good to go.

Finally after our visit with my family, we headed to the airport to come back to Seattle. This flight left late and was very overbooked. Fortunately, we got bumped up to first class. It wasn’t that great though; the plane was very old and dirty. When we arrived in Seattle, I asked the town car company to give us a discount on our ride home because of the earlier problems and he did. Yay!

So what did we learn? First, never fly United. From now on, unless the ticket price difference is very substantial, I’m willing to pay extra for anyone but United. I booked 4 segments with them and they could only fulfill 2. And the 2 they did fulfill were an average an hour late.

Also, ask for a discount when you get bad service. Or if the offered discount is small, ask for more. You don’t get anything without asking.

And for luggage: don’t check anything that you will need in the next two weeks. In fact, a lot of business travelers FedEx their luggage to their destination rather than trust the airline. And if you have the same suitcase as the rest of us, make it unique somehow- tie a bow or something to it.

So, to summarize: avoid United like the plague.