Travel Hell Light
Dec. 1st, 2005 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerisullivanI've had a long day of Travel Hell Light, getting from Toad Woods to Smofcon in Portland, OR. The worst bit came at the beginning, when I double-checked my reservations at 2:45 am, a last thought as I was going up for a one-hour nap before the hour-long drive to the airport. My 7:10 am flight direct to the connection in Salt Lake City no longer existed, and they'd rebooked me on a 5:45 am flight to Cincinnati to catch a plan to Utah to connect with my original flight from there to PDX. Instead of having time for a one-hour nap, I was a half-hour late in leaving for the airport. The morning's adventures continued in a similar vein, especially the part where they could print boarding passes for the last of the three flights, but not the first two. Three counter agents and 25 minutes later, and I had boarding passes for all three flights.
The first one was all but empty. Much as I was hoping it had something to do with flying a bankrupt airline (though not the one that's both bankrupt and on strike), later flights were jam-packed, so I'd say it was that 5:45 am departure time.
All of the planes took off on time, both of the connections worked exactly as scheduled, and people were friendly every step of the way -- airline employees and fellow passengers alike. But the sardine effect is appalling, especially 6.25 hours of flights turn into 8, with an extra load-unload step thrown in for good measure. Arrgh.
The good news is that when I made the award travel reservation, I gave 'em an extra 10,000 miles to fly back home in First Class.
As for today, the people were good, but there are broken bits at the core of the system. 'Cause the ticketing problem wasn't just my using miles from one program to fly on one of their partners. I met a family at the off-site parking facility who bought their tickets via Travelocity, and had known about the schedule change since late October, and the airline had the exact same problem printing their bording passes. We were on the same flights to Salt Lake, then they headed to Jackson Hole, WY. We're all on the same return flight Monday, and ended up all seated in the same row from Cincy to Salt Lake. It was beginning to feel like the Twilight Zone....
So, Travel Hell Light. It had all of the markers to rival my Travel Hell trip to Calgary last summer, but turned out to be merely long, cramped, and tiresome. And it was going to be that anyway, just not to that extent.
Onward.
The first one was all but empty. Much as I was hoping it had something to do with flying a bankrupt airline (though not the one that's both bankrupt and on strike), later flights were jam-packed, so I'd say it was that 5:45 am departure time.
All of the planes took off on time, both of the connections worked exactly as scheduled, and people were friendly every step of the way -- airline employees and fellow passengers alike. But the sardine effect is appalling, especially 6.25 hours of flights turn into 8, with an extra load-unload step thrown in for good measure. Arrgh.
The good news is that when I made the award travel reservation, I gave 'em an extra 10,000 miles to fly back home in First Class.
As for today, the people were good, but there are broken bits at the core of the system. 'Cause the ticketing problem wasn't just my using miles from one program to fly on one of their partners. I met a family at the off-site parking facility who bought their tickets via Travelocity, and had known about the schedule change since late October, and the airline had the exact same problem printing their bording passes. We were on the same flights to Salt Lake, then they headed to Jackson Hole, WY. We're all on the same return flight Monday, and ended up all seated in the same row from Cincy to Salt Lake. It was beginning to feel like the Twilight Zone....
So, Travel Hell Light. It had all of the markers to rival my Travel Hell trip to Calgary last summer, but turned out to be merely long, cramped, and tiresome. And it was going to be that anyway, just not to that extent.
Onward.
