Day 11: Rapid Incompetence

Rapid Incompetence - 5+5=10

This cup of “coffee” is very important to me. Today has been a wonderful display of bad luck. It started in the early morning and stayed with us like the odor of a dead skunk. This blog post will be sarcastic. It will be a display of bad language. The reason is that I just don’t know how to use good words to describe what happened to us today. Please forgive me in advance.

1. This morning started out kind of alright. We got up at 8-ish and decided to go to the Wendy’s for breakfast. The funny thing is that when Marina and I were in Hawaii I was caught on (a youtube) video mixing up Wendy’s and Denny’s while we were enjoying lunch there. Today, I mixed it up the other way around; I made us go to Wendy’s (a burger joint) while in fact I wanted us to go to Denny’s (a diner with eggs/bacon semi healthy breakfast). So we detoured and went to the Denny’s, which obviously, was about 2 minutes walk from our motel. Obviously we didn’t mind, but here is where the Bad Day started.

2. After breakfast, we went off to find a USPS because the clerk in the Walmart had the hardest time finding us a set of stamps for europe when we bought our postcards. We used The Googles to find it - it said that there was a USPS office on 500 East blvd, so we punched it in only to find out when we got “there” that there was a rather empty lot and nothing to do. So we ended up driving around for 30 minutes finding a USPS - we eventually did and mailed our cards (to our families and relatives, so no, you’re not getting one).

3. It was only 10am now, and our flight leaves at 2:10pm so we have oodles of time. Plenty, I tell you. HA! I now hear you thinking “oh they screwed up and missed their flight because they thought they had plenty of time”. No. This is not what happened. We played it all by the book, but more about that later. Please bear with me while I build up the climax storyline. We decided to go to a place called “The Chapel in the Woods” - I had seen a picture on Google Maps’ localtrends, and it looked kind of nice. I figured I’d go out and take my own pictures.

When we got there, we were greeted by a gentleman of age, who explained to us that this was a norwegian chapel from about 850 years ago which was rebuilt in Rapid City in 1969. It really is beautiful (see picture), so I took out the fisheye and the wide angle DSLRs (yes, I have two, isn’t that jetset?) and rocked up to take some nice frames. Oops - no memorycard. Shit! I must’ve forgotten them in the motel, because this is the first thing we’ve done today, and yesterday night I uploaded a bunch of pictures of the Black Hills. So I call the lady at the motel and ask if she would please check up for us. She checks and says that they cannot find anything. With all due respect, I ask her if it’s okay if I come over myself to look - I am 99% positive that they are in the room somewhere, say, behind the bed.

We take some Android pictures, me feeling a bit sorry for not having better kit, and knowing I’ll probably never be back here again, and drive back to the motel. It must be my lucky day (but later, I’ll find out it’s in fact NOT my lucky day). They found them behind the bed indeed, and give’m back to me. I’m very happy, and we set off for the airport at noon. We fill up the car with gas and drive to RAP. This all goes well. So far, so good, eh?

4. We arrive at the check-in desk at 12:30pm. The reason I know this, is that the self-service check-in kiosk kindly told me to see an agent, because they could not assign me a seat. I remember hearing this before… and the gentleman before us, a canadian hockey player, was just being told while all of this happens, that there are no more seats available and that he’ll have to go on stand by. So are we. We are being told, again, for the second time in 72 hours, that we are not going to be flying on a plane that we bought tickets for in March, and we checked in for several hours in advance. Oh my fucking god.

Now the problem with all of this is that American (Eagle) just started flying to RAP on the 6th of April. They even had a banner boasting a non-stop from RAP to ORD and DFW - so obviously they are proud of this achievement. The ground crew seems fresh as grass, and everything is moving very slowly. This is not their fault, and actually it doesn’t matter much because there’s absolutely nothing to do at the gates, so we’re patient and wait together with the Canadian dude who is consierably more upset than we are.

In Dallas, on the way out here, the attendant (Lisa) was very quick to rebook us to United Express to DEN and on to RAP. It took her all of 5 minutes, and she apologized and offered us a $200 voucher as a compensation. She then ran out to the other terminal to find us, to tell us that actually it should’ve been a $315 voucher, or $208 check. As we flew out to DEN, the check was not there, we’d have to go out to the main terminal, get the check authorized by a supervisor, and risk missing our flight. So we had a note set in Paul’s itinerary so that the check would be handed out in RAP.

OK, so here we are, at RAP, without a flight and with a check to write. Unfortunately for us, for the first hour or so, nobody seems to be able to actually perform this task. They are calling left, right, and center, and are even namecalling on the phone (not to us, but to their compadres elsewhere who are trying to help them settle this). Finally, about an eternity later, we are seeing a supervisor being dictated by phone what to write on the check. She hands it over, happily.

But now, we still have the matter of the second bump of the week. We make our way to gate 7, where we are being put on the standby list. It turns out, like in Dallas on Monday, there is only one seat. I decline - it makes no sense for me to fly to DFW only to get there not knowing when, and if, Paul will make it too. This is silly. Another passenger walks up and is trying to get on - so the flight is now fully booked with 50 people and all is well.

In the mean while, and this is amazing, there are three people trying to get us another flight. I walk over to gate 3, where there’s a man from united checking in a 3:40pm flight to DEN, and I ask him if the flight’s full. Nope, he says, and he’d be happy to put me on that flight and connect me to DFW. He performs this action in about 72 seconds, so I walk back to the supervisor at gate 7 and tell her the great news. She now walks off, aiming to get me on this flight.

About an hour and a half later, when the UE flight to DEN is boarding, we start to lose our patience, so we exit the gate area, go back to the check-in, and are told we’re not on this, but on a 5:20pm flight to DEN, connecting to DFW, and landing us at about 10:30pm (which is 5hrs later than planned). However, she cannot check us in, we’ll have to go to the United desk and check in. We do this, and the girl there checks us in in about 38 seconds and hands us both boarding psses. Thank you, United girl :)

OK, now the matter of compensation. This turns out to be terribly difficult for the American Eagle people. After much waiting, I would think about 45 minutes of it, the supervisor comes back only to confirm with us that we indeed gave up the one spot and decided to travel together, and because Paul and I both have different itineraries, that means we both forfeited and do not have a right to compensation for American’s fuckup. You gotta be kidding me?!

Blood temperature now starts rising a few degrees. Let me rehash this for you: American oversells the flight. We are in at 1h40m ahead of time and are denied boarding and put on a standby list. We’re then told only one spot is available, which we punt because we must travel together. We’re then later told that, hey, you gave up your spot, both of you, so you are on your own.

Now comes the interesting bit - generally I’m the hothead (between Paul and I, I mean), but Paul loses it for a bit when the supervisor says that she went through all this trouble to rebook us, and that this costs American money. He steps out for a bit while I dismiss the ludicrous and insulting concept of us having to be thankful for being rebooked after being fucking denied boarding - obviously by overselling the flight, American already attempted the gamble, hoping that they’d sell seats for passengers that didn’t show up, and in this case, they lost the gamble but our super here is trying to act as if we should be grateful. Either this lady is desperate, or she is very, very stupid. I am thinking it is likely a good bit of both.

OK, so on Monday exactly this happened, exactly this (one seat left over while we were on standby, we passed, got rebooked in 5 minutes and compensated for our trouble and American Airlines’ lost gamble on overselling AA2814) and now on Wednesday, the same thing happens on AA2813 and we’re told to just suck it up and lose 5 hours of our time, as well as several years of our life staying calm and collective. I just don’t accept it, so I make her call her boss again. Now, she tells me “but why on earth would you check in so late?” and all of her cow-orkers confirm that we were here quite early and that there were about 20 people who checked in with seats /after us/. We are now offered a $100 travel voucher on AA. I want the full amount, $208 cash or $315 voucher - which I’ve painfully learned not 2 days ago. So somebody calls a main AA office, and the supervisor says she wants to take the call in another room and bolts for the door.

…

What happens in the room is unknown to me, but I figure that the supervisor in RAP was not willing to admit freely that AA fucked up, victimized us, not once but twice. She comes back out saying we’re out of luck, she’s out of time, and tells one of the other girls there to finish up the voucher. Take it or leave it. And besides, our plane is about to board, so we ran out of time too.

Now, I folded an origami crane bird for the two folks (you know who you are!) and thanked them for their time. All in all, they spent the greater part of the afternoon trying to make things right - but their overly bureaucratic super, cleverly hiding behind “the main office in Fuckistan”, would not help us. Yeah right. Now, to close the loop on my story, back to the “coffee”. The cool thing about such a small one-terminal, single-digit gate airport is that it’s really easy to get to know the locals. There was one kiosk where we were waiting earlier this afternoon, and we had a sandwich and some coffee there. There was only one security point, and the folks there were having fun with us too - ‘hey welcome back guys, we saw your twins pass by, not two hours ago!’, all in all a jolly bunch.

The woman who served us the sandwhiches earlier offered me a cup of coffee on her, because she felt bad for what had happened. However, a guy had just ordered a beer and I thought that would agree with me as well. So I got one, slammed it down (and boy did it taste good), and then ordered another one. By that time, boarding had commenced and while the woman was chatting with a local security guard. Well, my bottles of Heineken were not allowed on the plane, so I walked over to the coffee stand, got a to-go-cup, theatrically poured my bottle of beer into the cup, capped it, and took a sip.

The guard goes to the server: “Whoa, that has got to be the most awesome thing I have seen here, ever” and winks at me. I am genuinely pleased, for the first time today. I get on the plane, put my cup on the armrest, and settle myself. Actually, this plane is about half-full, and unbalanced, so the front 4 rows are asked to disperse and go sit further to the back. I get my stuff, and the flight attendant asks me “sir, is this your coffee?” and I politely reply “Yes, but eh, not exactly.” Two people behind me start to giggle and ask me why I said that. I whisper “It’s beer.” and wink to them. They think I am awesome. I am now genuinely pleased, for the second time today.

Somehow, no matter how hard I get screwed by airline companies, there’s always interaction with real humans, not super-bureau-droids, that makes me happy again.

Our flight to DEN and onwards to DFW were fine. They were with United Express.

Location : 221 N Main St, Euless, TX 76039

Posted by Pim van Pelt at 8:37 PM