L.A. to Philadelphia: Getting there is half the battle
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008I had to be in L.A. for the weekend for a family event. Being a student, I decided to cash in a free ticket on American Airlines.
I was sure I had booked it to return Sunday, the 10th; I had class at 1:00 p.m. on Monday that I couldn’t miss. I got a call from my mother, though. She was looking at the itinerary I sent to her and it said I was returning Monday night.
I looked at the email, and she was right. I searched through my records, but, unfortunately, I did not save an email or an electronic copy of the original itinerary (I changed the outbound flight in January, and I only had a copy of that itinerary). I called American Airlines—well, tried to, anyways. They were so backed up I got two busy signals, one “all circuits are busy message”, and twice was on hold for nearly 20 minutes before impatience or necessity forced me to hang up.
When I finally got through, the very nice man on the phone said he didn’t see any record of a Sunday return, either. The only thing he could do was change the booking. The problem was it was Tuesday and at such a late date, the only seat available for Sunday was at 6:00 a.m. 6:00 a.m.! I’d have to leave the house in the middle of the night to get to the airport for a flight like that! He tried to request an override, but was denied. He was about to suggest a “Plan B” when we got disconnected. I called again and spoke to a supervisor who was most unapologetic about the situation. Rationalizing that I wasn’t actually missing any part of the bar mitzvah by leaving on Sunday at 6:00 a.m., I asked the supervisor to make the change. The one good thing about American is, they don’t charge for changes (unlike United, which will charge you $100 even if the connections change). They also said I could go on a “confirmed standby”, but I would give up my confirmed seat and have no guarantee of getting on a flight. I am not such a risktaker. But I was so mad I wrote an angry letter by email (which was rejected because the trip hadn’t taken place yet). I swore I would never fly American again.
On Sunday I groggily said goodbye to my mother at 3:45 a.m., drove to LAX, and found some mercy in asking for an emergency exit row seat and getting it. I caught up on my sleep for a couple of hours and did some work on the plane.
When we landed in Chicago, the flight attendant read off the list of connecting cities and gates. I was surprised not to hear Philadelphia on the list. I was more surprised, though, to get off the plane and see my flight had been cancelled! No worries, though—there was a flight at 4:00 p.m.
Lucky for me, I had the sense to stop at the rebooking center and go to print out my ticket for the 4:00 flight. When I pulled up my itinerary, it had me leaving Chicago on Monday at 12:45 p.m.! I wasn’t about to take that. I went to the red courtesy phone to talk to an agent.
The next action was a pleasant surprise. The customer service agent checked and saw that my original flight had gone out of service. I suppose since it was American’s responsibility and not an “act of God”, that gave me more rights. All I know is he immediately agreed to call United to see if they could get me on a direct flight to Philadelphia. This must have cost American some money, because United is not even in the same alliance. Anyway, United agreed to take me at 4:10.
The action after that was not so pleasant. I had checked two bags. I really only needed to check one, but I thought as long as I’m checking one I might as well check the other and save myself some hassle. The agent informed me that a baggage locator search request would be put out so that United could find my bags and put them on their plane. As soon as I heard that, I knew that would not work. A more assertive person would have insisted that American merely bring the bags in and I would pick it up from the American terminal. But I am not such an assertive person.
I took my stroll from the American terminal to the United terminal, and that did seem much easier with only a backpack than with a backpack and a duffel bag. I saw that there was another flight leaving at 1:20, and I was tempted to ask for a switch. But then the gate agent announced that flight was delayed due to a cargo door that was frozen shut. (Did I mention it was zero degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago?) I took that as a sign I should stick with what I had.
I took advantage of the time to eat a real Chicago hot dog with mustard, celery salt, relish, tomato, cucumbers, onions, hot peppers, and a pickle. The United terminal is also very technofriendly—I was able to sit at a little booth to recharge my cell phone and my laptop, and get some more reading done in the process.
I got on the plane which took off on time and landed miraculously on time at 7 pm. I was one of the last people off the plane, so by the time I got to baggage claim, all the bags had been unloaded. Mine was not there. I went inside to fill out a claim form. The baggage attendant said things never come in from O’Hare. Suddenly, the image of the overhead bins filling up completely on the Chicago flight made much more sense. The baggage claim clerk, who was also unapologetic, said my bags would probably come in Monday, and that they’d have to come in on American.
Instinct told me I could not rely on United to handle this baggage situation. My roommate Anne had been kind enough to pick me up. I imposed on her a little bit more to drive me back around to the American terminal (I was at Terminal D, American is Terminal A). I went inside, and saw my duffel bag right there on the carousel! This was truly an act of God, because not only was it right there when I needed it, it was the bag I really needed for Monday—it had my makeup, my textbook, my hair dryer…I asked if my other bag had come in, and the baggage clerk said there weren’t any others and I’d have to check with United.
The next day, I called United around 3:00 p.m.; they had not found my bags yet. In the evening, I went online to www.united.com/bagtrack and there was still no evidence of my bags. Since the United recording said “most bags arrive within 24 hours”, I felt it was time to check again with American. I called American’s automated baggage number, and was extremely lucky to be able to talk to a live person. (With some airlines, and I believe United is one of them, this is impossible.) I gave them the ticket number for the bag that was still missing, and sure enough they had it in their system in Philadelphia. Excitedly, I drove to the airport even though it was 10:30 at night (the airport is only 15 minutes from my house).
I parked and went in to the baggage desk, where the same woman from the night before was working. I told her I had called and was told my bag was there. She looked up my baggage number in the computer, and a minute later she returned my bag to me.
The moral of my tale? 1) Keep good records of all your transactions with an airline. 2) When luggage is delayed, be proactive and persistent in tracking it down. 3) An airline that seems to be treating you like crap one minute can turn out to be very friendly in the end. 4) Even if you can’t always get what you want from an airline, if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.
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