Every good story has a backstory. This one is no exception, assuming it’s a good story.
When Michelle and I were planning yesterday’s trek to New York, we made changes to our plans no less than three times. Carol, our travel agent, was probably getting tired of me by the time I changed the plane tickets to train tickets. That turned out to be a smart move.
My boss and I talked today about my training class in two weeks. Due to lack of interest in Boston, I could either use their distance learning technology or go to their site in Philly. His first thought was that I should stay here in Boston. But then we concluded that the training itself was paid for by a grant. On top of that, being in a different location from the instructor and the rest of the class just doesn’t have the same impact. When you’re in a training class, you get to interact with the rest of the students that’s part of the experience. We agreed that I should go, provided it wasn’t cost prohibitive. That’s when I called Carol.
“Hi, Carol, Mike Hillwig from Shawmut.” I could hear the panic/fear/dread in her voice. I thanked her for her help in our everchanging travel plans and said that everything went smoothly yesterday. She said she had checked to make sure it had and saw that we made it okay. She warmed up a little bit. I told her that I was just pricing a trip to Philly. I explained that we were looking at price and gave her the dates. She told me what the airfare would be, slightly less than the Acela. Then she gave me a couple of hotel options. The cheapest one was a non-refundable hotel rate and she advised me to avoid that one. “Why Carol, are you trying to tell me something?” *laugh* I laughed. So did she. But she was right. If I’ve learned anything over the years of travel, it’s to always trust your travel agent. I told Carol about my friend, Rick, who saved my ass when I called him from a train station in Frankfurt, practically in tears because I couldn’t find a hotel. So we’ll be going on Carol’s recommendation.
After hanging up with Carol, I went into my boss’ office and told him what the hotel would be “three nights at $x.” “Plus airfare.” he added. “Plus rail” I corrected. I told him that I’d be leaving from work and it would be easier to get to South Station than Logan during rush hour. I said that the rail was slightly more than the airfare, but when you factor in cabs on both sides, rail is certainly cheaper. I’ll still need to take a cab from 30th Street Station in Philly to the hotel, but that’s only a matter of blocks instead of the $35 flat rate from the airport.
Anyway, I still need to write my “Confessions of a Travel Geek: Riding the Rails” story for our company intranet. For people going between our Boston and New York offices, especially if they live in Boston’s south shore, I truly believe that the Acela is a better option. Maybe I’ll post that here, too.
Then I booked myself on an Acela train for the trip. This actually will take longer than flying, but it will be cheaper. And it will give me a few hours to work on the train, with only a cell phone (or two) to bother me. I’ll be going right from work on Tuesday afternoon, so maybe not.