Be warned… this is going to be a long one…
Sometimes I wonder why I continue to fly US Airways. I have this loyalty to them that I can’t explain. Maybe its because we both share our roots in Pittsburgh. Anyway, today’s adventures have me frustrated as hell.
My MS has been giving me grief and I’ve been completely wiped out this whole conference. So I decided to leave right after the conference instead of staying a day later. Keep in mind that I had been waitlisted for first class on my San Diego to Charlotte flight but had been confirmed in first class on my Charlotte to Providence flight. Read back a ways to find my grief about that upgrade.
I called US Airways and got an agent who spoke very poor English. All I wanted was to see if the first class cabin was full on my first flight. She said that it was. All I wanted then was to get a better seat since I was in the very back of the plane. Fine. It was a waste of ten minutes, but I got what I needed. Then Jim called and said that he had some stuff going on and wouldn’t be able to see me tonight. I completely understand. While I can’t sympathize with what he’s facing, I do respect it. So I thought I’d try to get home early.
I called US Airways again to see what my options were. The agent told me that she could send me back through Philly but the only seat was a center coach seat. No, thank you. There was another flight through Charlotte that had a first class seat available but I’d have to pay the fare difference. Since I already had a first class upgrade, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. However, she said the fare difference would be based on paying the A-fare for a first class seat. The difference would be about $800. No, thank you.
This is where my aviation geekness comes in handy. I asked if there were any options utilizing America West. This should be an option since they just merged. Well, low and behold, it worked. She could put me on an America West Express flight from San Diego to Phoenix and then US Airways flights from Phoenix to Charlotte to Providence. Better yet, she could give me the first class upgrades on the US Airways flights. Since the first flight is on a regional jet, there are no first class seats on the plane. I’m okay with that. At first, she said I’d have to pay an $84 fare difference. I was okay with this. Then she said there was also a $100 change fee. That means getting home would cost me $184 but I’d be saving about $170 on the hotel room. This is perfectly acceptable to me. So I went to my last conference session thinking all was set. Mother History, being the great teacher she is, told me to make sure everything was confirmed once I got to the airport. The thing that gave me pause is when she said there wouldn’t be any fees or fare differences after all.
After my last session, I checked out of the hotel early and learned that they owe me money. My company had pre-paid my hotel bill, so now they will be sending us a check. This is always something that makes the accountants smile.
After getting to the US Airways ticket counter at Terminal 1, they told me I’d have to check in at the America West ticket counter since I was starting on an America West Express flight. That makes sense, so I went to Terminal 2. When I got to the America West ticket counter, the woman hands me a boarding pass for the San Diego to Phoenix flight. She says that she wasn’t able to give me the boarding pass for the other two flights, but they should be able to take care of it at the US Airways gate in Phoenix. Immediately, alarm bells started sounding in my head. I went to the US Airways ticket counter in San Diego to see what they could do. I figured that I had reservations for a first class seat across the country, but if I didn’t have the boarding pass in my hands, I could easly lose those seats. I trudged back to Terminal 1 to get this resolved.
Tom at the US Airways ticket counter was really funny about this. He explained that he had no idea what the woman at the call center (in India, he thinks) did, but she didn’t reissue the ticket for my flight. That means I had reservations but no ticket. It took him forever to figure out what had happened, but he straightened it out. Ultimately, he had to convert my e-tickets to paper tickets and then attach them to the boarding passes. That’s fine, as long as they got me home in a comfortable seat.
As I walked back to Terminal 2, I was looking at the paperwork and noticed that my boarding pass for the first flight said “Flight coupon attached.” That’s an indication that there is a paper ticket attached, but my boarding pass had nothing stapled to it. I went back to the America West ticket counter and presented my situation. She asked where my paper ticket was. I told her that I had no paper ticket and she looked at all of my paperwork to understand what had happened. Finally, she went into the back and issued hand-written paper tickets and attached them to my boarding passes.
Keep in mind that this has all happened before boarding the first flight. I’m afraid to ask what can happen the rest of the trip. I’m just glad that I’m an experienced traveller. To a novice, they’d probably be riding in a luggage compartment on a flight to Kansas City.