Last November I booked a flight for a secret vacation for Laura and I. I didn't tell her anything until the day of. In fact I told her with only about 12 hours to prepare. More on that later though.
The morning of, we'll call it R-Day, I got a phone call from a mysterious phone number, naturally I ignored it. I happened to be sitting at my computer and saw an E-mail from Delta, Your flight from ATL - SJU has been canceled, You can rebook this online or call to make the change. So I call and get on the waiting list. This is great because I don't have to listen to hold music for 4 hours nor do I have to call every 3 minutes hoping I'll get through. I was expecting my callback at around 11.
At 1-ish I got my call. Yay! I tell my agent, Hey I Iive between my original booking (chicago) and (Indianapolis) If you can find a flight to San Juan from either spot I'll just be tickled pink. My helpful agent pulls through and finds me a nearly absurd flight, IND-BOS-JFK-SJU Indianapolis to Boston to John F Kennedy to San Juan, about 13 hours of flying and waiting.
So after the R-Day festivities completed I told Laura, 'well, actually we aren't leaving quite yet, we got delayed a day.' It sucked because I had booked a super cool walking food tour during our now (14 hours of) flying day. But oh well, I eventually got over it. Until later that night when I was making hotel adjustments.
Oh shit! We are going to come home to a different airport (Midway in Chicago) than the one we took off from (Indianapolis)! It's just a three hour drive to our car in Indy, no problem. But honestly the blame is shared here, I should have mentioned this to my friendly agent and she should have noticed I wasn't coming home to the same place, granted this situation isn't uncommon, but it should have been at least addressed.
I call again, this time at about 8pm, the fancy message thing says wait for only more than 5 hours. So we slept with the phone in our room on loudest just in case someone from India would wake us up I would only have to move a few feet.
Alas, no call.
I went to work today, planning on working a half-day and driving to indy. Today is a bonus day for me so I do something aside from my usual and work on painting some new walls in the loft area above the tasting room. Laura is paranoid and sending me worry texts every hour and I've still got my phone on loudest so Chewbacca is roaring all over the place.
So this part I'm painting required a bit of effort, I climbed out on a couple of big beams that (also hold the floor up) stretch beyond the floor to paint the wall behind it, I'm 15ish feet up. And of course at 12:25, while carefully painting a wall with no ground below me I finally got the call I had been waiting for! JOY!
Hello Delta person!
Oh hey Tony.
I'm not landing in the city I'm taking off from, can we change this?
Sounds like you're special, and I can't help you with you, let me just put you on hold and I'll transfer you to the department that can.
Sure! (oh shit! I've been "on hold" since 8 last night! NOOOOOOOOOO)
So I put my phone on speaker and finished painting my wall in the air. I then finished another little wall and thought OK I've been on hold for 20 minutes, I REALLY have to pee. I'm going to go.
I grab my phone that is still on speaker and head for the head.
I pull it out and pee for no more than one half of a second. (Remember, I really had to go so it's not a trickle) and someone breaks into the hold music and says Hello?
AAH! SHIT! I pinch it off poorly, tuck myself into my trousers, pee a little more, some on my hands, pull my phone out and shout HELLO! HELLO! I'M HERE!
No flushing, a quick rinse and a dash to a place with reception.
Hello Delta Person! I've got this issue, here is my confirmation number that I've got memorized now.
Oh Hey Tony, I'm looking at your reservation, why aren't you landing where you're taking off?
That's why I'm calling actually.
Oh well you'll be sad to hear me mumble under my breath that your Boston to JFK flight has been canceled then.
Let me reschedule you looks like I can find you a direct flight on the 15th from *CLICK*
...
[Checks Phone]
Call Disconnected.
(insert heartbreak emoticon here)
Waits a minute, staring at phone, screen dims, does not light back up...
Finishes peeing, Washes hands, leaves work for the day.
Gets home, changes underwear.
Knowing full well I've got another 8+ hours of hold time ahead of me I call Delta back quickly (at 12:30) and get back on "The List". Laura calls this time as well to be extra safe. So I'm now a mixture of sad, depressed, stressed, and angry. As most of you know these are not typical emotions from me so you might be finally understanding what it takes to get me down.
(SURPRISE LAURA! A VACATION TOMORROW! to...vacation?)
But I got a bright idea, I know gate agents at airports can change flights, who doesn't know this, I mean everyone has seen Home Alone, Kevin's Mom makes it back to Chicago, from Paris like two weeks early (on Christmas!). Our nearest Delta friendly airport is in Bloomington, IL a bit over an hour from our house. Weighing the time, we decide if we drive there and back and still need to end up in Indy, it's possible, and we probably won't hear back from Delta by then. They also had flights going out today so we grabbed our bags (just in case) and headed to the airport.
After talking to Scott who is sickeningly intimate with the Delta customer service system "You're Screwed" we got some good tips and stayed the course. The reason? What if we didn't hear back from Delta by the time our 6am flight occurred and we no showed that flight? would we still get rescheduled? Would be we be out our money? Who knows.
So we walked into the airport expecting a zoo, and there is almost no one around! We stroll up to the counter and quickly get handed to a veteran. I've learned from doing Hotel time and experiencing life that smiles, kindness, a joke, and a perception of happiness along with mutual respect gets you places a lot quicker than expressing the frustration that is actually just simmering below the surface. After a few possible flight and connection ideas (all along the east coast) are shot down we get sat down. "Figure out what you want and come back after I've helped these people who need to leave today."
So we took a time out, flicked through the Delta app, discussed life, watched some people, and came up with a solution. Scott was right, rebooking on Saturday was really the only option...is a two day wait the magic number? Are MSP and ORD really the only airports that fly direct to San Juan outside of the east coast? So after some more waiting, some pleasant conversation and stories, we finally got my surprise vacation for Laura rebooked on Saturday...four days after the original reservation.
We then drove home, made some dinner, I rebooked nearly our entire vacation, and started writing this story. At 9:11 pm I got my callback. I was happy to ignore it and get someone else bumped up in line a few minutes quicker.
The best part of todays effort was this:
Everyone, please cross your fingers for us. We need all the luck we can get at this point.
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