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.

Less than 12 hours after my mother left for Los Angeles, my friend Peter arrived from Los Angeles. (We figured out they were on the airport tarmac at the same time, but couldn’t have seen each other). He had spent a few weeks out West and was stopping in Philly to help me settle in and to make sure my new house met his stamp of approval before going back to Germany Tuesday night.

As soon as he arrived at the house, he decided to start helping me assemble my furniture. Now I could understand why Ikea had been so much cheaper than my first bedroom set in D.C.—the labor. The furniture I bought in D.C. had been pre-assembled. We did that work on our own. Well, Peter took charge of the project; I just made sure the pieces we were assembling matched the diagram.

We finished two pieces, and then tried to go out to that same local Italian restaurant. It was already after 10:30 p.m., though, and the bar was open but the restaurant was closed. I knew of a diner that would be open (Silk City) but it was at least 15 minutes away by car. We settled instead for me “cooking” dinner (i.e. opening the package of food from Trader Joe’s market) while Peter prepared the salad.

Monday was a holiday in America, Labor Day. Instead of celebrating time off from work or having a barbecue, we labored over putting together the remaining three pieces of furniture. We finished around 3:00 p.m. I suggested we walk to a restaurant at 40th and Spruce that I knew. I didn’t say it at the time, but I wanted something with sit-down service because I’d be paying for lunch to thank Peter for his help.

We walked into Copacabana. Peter ordered Mexican food (the last he would get for a while), and I ordered Buffalo wings (chicken wings in hot sauce). When I ran out of water, I asked for some more. The waiter said “sure”, then went off to do God knows what. I only know he was running in and out of the restaurant, and not stopping at any table he was serving in between. Let me add here that there were only three tables occupied at the restaurant at this time. It almost felt like our being there was interrupting their personal business.

I didn’t want my food to get cold, so I kept eating wings till my mouth was on fire. The guy at the next table said something to a second guy, but it took me asking a THIRD guy to finally get some relief. I’ve never been a demanding customer, and I’m usually religious about giving tips, but this time I only left a 10 percent tip where 15 percent would have been the minimum.

Manayunk

As with my mother, I didn’t want Peter to spend the whole weekend taking care of me; I wanted him to get some sightseeing in as well. But first we had to make one more Ikea/Lowe’s run to finish a mirror-hanging project, which involved drilling holes and measuring and leveling and everything that Peter hates in home improvement. I thought it was a fun adventure, but he says that’s only because the project ended with a properly hung mirror and not three giant, irreparable holes in the wall.

It was well after 9:00 p.m. He had never seen the boathouses lit up at night on the Schuylkill River, and neither one of us had ever been to Manayunk, a town outside of Philly with a reportedly hip Main Street. Anne agreed it would be a good place to go.

I didn’t realize it was 15 miles outside of Philadelphia; I must have confused signs for “Manayunk” with “Mann Music Center”. By the time we got to the exit it was after 10:00. Anne had said “you can’t miss it”, but of course I did and we lost another 15 minutes finding the interesting part of Main Street in Manayunk.

We parked and walked along Main Street looking for a place to eat. Many places were already closed, or had never opened because it was Labor Day. The streets seemed practically deserted. One place was busy but expensive. We found an Irish pub, but they weren’t serving food. We walked past a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream that also had a hamburger stand, but I thought Peter should have a nicer dinner experience than that. We found a very divey bar where the bouncer said food was being served, but by the time we asked the woman tending bar for the menu, she said the cook had already taken off.

Just as Peter was saying “I hope we get back to Ben and Jerry’s before it closes”, we arrived in front of its window and saw that the chairs had already been put on the tables, a sign that the restaurant was closed.

We walked back towards the car. There was one more place we hadn’t tried yet, though—the U.S. Hotel. It looked pricey, but it seemed like our last hope. We walked in, and of course they weren’t serving food either. However, the nice people inside gave us driving directions to the Manayunk Diner. We had a lovely dinner of a Philly cheesesteak and a tuna melt—at 11:00 p.m. It was a lot of food to eat so late at night, and it wasn’t in the most interesting part of the city. I still had to be up and out of the house early for orientation. But, somehow I managed (and I think Peter managed too) to laugh at these little misadventures of life.

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