Did I hear you say Colorado?
This morning we got up at 7:30am bright and early, to make sure that we were on time at the airport to get our 12:15 flight to Rapid City SD. Our travels to the airport were very light, we got there with minimal traffic, parked our trusty Jeep at the ’express south’ parking spot, and made our way directly to the B10 gate where our flight was scheduled to take us to South Dakota. We got at the gate at around 8:20 - oops, a little bit earlier than expected, but hey fine, we can wait, it’s a good change from all that driving we’re doing.
OK, so we sit, wait, flip through the internet, get bored, wait some more, do some walking instead of sitting, call Marina and Alexis (who, again, was watching a movie and stating she had no desire to converse …), and then it was time to board - 11:45am. We rock up to the gate, show our boarding passes, and then thunder strikes: the flight is overbooked, we are the last ones to board, and we do not have a seating assignment.
Wait, what? We bought our tickets in March, got our boarding passes yesterday, and got at the gate about 17 million hours before departure, and you’re telling me: WHAT?
Well, of course there’s no fighting american airline companies, and although both of us are already excited by the new travel opportunities ahead of us, we played it cool as ice, and put on our pissed-off-faces. The girl comped us $200 each in AA travel vouchers, and rebooked us via Denver CO and on to continental through to Rapid City SD… the total delay is around 3.5hrs, on account of a 1hr layover in Denver.
But hey, we figure: we have screwed AA more than they have screwed us! We both paid less than 200 bucks for our ticket, and we now get two flights for the price of one (but to be honest, I am not sure if I really like this prospect), we get to see more airports, and burn more fuel. Paul also mentions that we get more dots on the map when the Droid finds GPS and tells Google all about, our where, abouts (did you note the Austin Powers reference?).
All in all, we are cheerfully claiming we get the better part of the deal. We’ll celebrate with a wonderful dining experience at TGI.Fridays at the A terminal in DFW :)
The weirdest thing though: I briefly had a very strange set of emotions. On the one hand, I was quite pissed off at American for screwing up the flight and overselling it, letting those who committed early suffer. And on the other hand, I was pretty excited because on a road trip with Paul and Pim, we thrill at the sight of excitement like this :)
Our new flights:
- American 441: Dallas leaving at 1:45pm, to Denver arriving 2:50pm.
- Continental 7789: Denver leaving at 3:55pm, to Rapid City arriving 4:58pm.
ps: we do not have a seat assignment yet for the second flight. I’m sort of counting on them saying “sorry, we’re overbooked, but we can fly you back over our hub in Dallas tx if you’d like?”
Location: Dallas, TX
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 10:26 AM
Blogging at 15.000ft
Well well, our little detour to Denver Colorado was very enjoyable indeed. At DFW, when we got out of the TGIF’s, we were met at the gate by Lisa, the AA employee that broke us the bad news over at gate B10. We feare for the worst, thereby double-jinxing it, and she explained that she had made a mistake which her supervisor told her to rectify….
The thing is, the $200 voucher we got, should have been a $315 voucher! Additionally, we could also opt to get a $208 check in the mail! Paul chose eggs for his money (sic), and opted for the check. I had dollarsigns in both of my eyes, and chose the voucher.
Lisa then asked for Pauls mail address, and tried her best to get my voucher printed. This of course took for ever, with apologies all around, and some calling of techsupport. But eventually, she pushed the correct buttons on her terminal, and the printer did its thing. Paul was told that his check would be waiting for him in Denver.
Then we flew to Denver and when we got there, Paul asked at the gate if he could get his cheddar. Of course, this was hard, because the girl at the desk was not authorized to hand out checks. So in stead of risking yet another delay or missed flight, we went over to B56 in Denver where our connecting flight was.
We looped around ticketing to get our boardingpasses, which were given to us by a friendly guy called Glenn. We chatted a bit about the Icelandic ash, and made our way to the gate.
This plane is tiny! It seats 50 and looks about the same size as a school bus :) but I am happily blogging at 15.000ft altitude.
Location : 1490 John St, Rapid City, SD 57701
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 5:26 PM