The Road Less Traveled

I 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.

When it comes to the 4th of July in America, my main goal is to find the best place for fireworks. I had heard on the radio that Morongo Casino and Resort was hosting fireworks on Monday, July 3. It seemed like an odd day and place for it, but then I thought about it some more and realized 1) the middle of nowhere is not somplace I’d want to be on the 4th but it’s okay for the day before, 2) it was only half an hour from my house, 2) it would be easier to come home and relax on the 4th, and 3) I could still catch fireworks across the street from my house on the 4th.

I ran out of work as soon as classes ended like it was Friday, even though it was only Monday. I got to Cabazon at nearly 4:00 p.m., and realized I needed to kill some time–the fireworks wouldn’t start until 9:00. I decided to stop and walk around the Desert Hills Premium Outlets. There was a pretty good crowd for a Monday. The stores were nice and well laid-out, but nothing grabbed my attention.

I went on to Morongo. It wasn’t hard to find the hotel–it was the only multistory building around for miles. Downhill from the hotel was a flat maroon and purple building that said “Casino Morongo.” I parked near there, but when I walked over, I found that the doors were locked. I was stunned that the casino would be closed. Then two men outside said I was standing outside the bingo hall–the regular casino was inside the hotel.

As I was walking up the hill, a man driving a golf-cart stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. It probably wasn’t more than a quarter mile, but since I’d walked around the shops and down the hill already, I accepted. I thought it was pretty luxurious of the casino crew to offer a ride like that (and pretty lazy of me and other people to accept it), but then I noticed a box on the cart for tips. It’s another moneymaker for the casino workers. I left a quarter.

When I got inside, I remembered why I hate casinos. It’s not the flashing lights that bother me; that’s rather melodious. It’s the people. They are usually old and not Rockerfellers. They never look happy as they are losing hundreds of dollars. I went to the Pit Bar to get a drink and maybe chat with people, but every seat at the bar had a video poker screen in front of it, and someone focused on playing it. <

Figuring if you can’t beat them, join them, I found another bar outside the Mystique Lounge with a free seat. I ordered a Cape Cod and proceeded to lose a couple of bucks on video poker. When I finished, I walked around some more. I saw signs for the 360 and Cielo (Sky) restaurants. I was pretty sure they were expensive, but for fun I decided to look at the menu. It turns out Cielo has a happy hour from 4-6: $6 drinks and apetizers. It was 5 minutes to 6 so I quickly got on the elevator.

Cielo lived up to its name: it was a breath of fresh air. It was bright and clean and quiet inside. It had huge windows that made the desert landscape feel like a beautiful view. And the “Morongopolitan” I had was good. The small artichoke pizza wasn’t bad, but if I had to do it again I’d order the shrimp cocktail appetizer instead.

If I’d had a higher alcohol tolerance or a room for the night, I might have stayed up there longer. As it was, though, I needed to move on. It was close to 7 p.m., so being outside wasn’t unbearable anymore. I walked to the area where the fireworks were being set off. Suddenly, I was sorry I’d ordered food at Cielo. There was a lot of good food–hamburgers, corn, Indian fry bread, authentic tacos–for a lot less than $6. I bought some $2 nachos and put my blanket on the dirt. There were two bands that were pretty good when they weren’t playing country music. The fireworks started right at nine, and went for a good half hour to the recorded sounds of rock and patriotic music. Not only were the fireworks really good, in the desert setting there were no distractions like streetlights and cars.

The only drawback of the night is that it took longer to get out of the parking lot than to watch the whole show. I even walked back up the casino and watched people lose at blackjack for 10 minutes, and it still took a while to get to the freeway. That said, I would definitely go back next year.

A friend of mine from my days in Ukraine who now lives in Carlsbad was kind enough to invite me to her home for the weekend.

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