DON'T FLY DELTA!!! or American either

Okay, so this might end up being a lengthy post, but I am seriously ticked!  Here's my sad, sad story right from the beginning.  Last summer my mom's family had a family reunion planned up in Canada, where she was born and raised.  It was held at my grandpa's house, and all my aunts and uncles and their families were coming.  I was so excited to see everyone, and for Christopher to meet more of his extended family.  Plus, to make things even better, my grandpa lives on a farm.  Every little boy's dream!  Haystacks to climb, corn rows to play hide and seek in, a tree house to make forts in, a scary garage, and tons of cousins (I guess they'd be second cousins, or first cousins once removed or whatever - if anyone knows how that goes, let me know! i can never remember) to play with.  I was stoked!  But, if you haven't already guessed, we didn't get to go.

We needed to be in Utah for a funeral right when we were supposed to be leaving for our trip.  I was bummed, but knew we needed to be in Utah instead of Canada.  As we thought about it, though, we thought we might be able to make it to both.  Our flight from DFW had a layover in Salt Lake, where it headed on to Great Falls (we were going to rent a car and drive across the border).  We thought, hey, what if we just caught our connecting flight in SLC, since we'll already be there?  We called up Delta.  That's where we went wrong.

Apparently, if we wanted a flight from SLC to Great Falls, we would have to pay somewhere around $2,000 for the tickets.  Can you believe that??  We asked for customer service, and tried to explain the situation.  The lady explained that we can't just catch the connecting flight, but would have to purchase entirely new tickets, which would be significantly more expensive - even though it would be a much shorter distance to travel.  We explained that there was a death in the family, and asked what she could do to help us.  NOTHING!!  Why, I asked her, does Delta have customer service reps if they can't do anything more than the regular people on the phone?  Why did I have to get transferred five hundred and sixty six times (okay, maybe more like 10...) for you to tell me the exact same thing that 10 other people have already said??  Why is it that you would tell us to contact Delta headquarters when you know it's Friday night, and no one is there, AND we have to leave on Monday!  You know no one will be in before we need to leave!!  Do you know what she said?  "I'm sorry ma'am, I'm just following protocol." Arghhh!  Shouldn't there be protocol for such circumstances as these?  Apparently not.  So, we kept the credit from the tickets we had already paid for.  Our consolation prize was that, when we used the money in the future, we wouldn't have to pay the $50 re-booking fee.  Whoo-hoo (note the sarcasm).  We were ticked, but got over it.  Our lives went on.  Until a couple of days ago.

David has a friend's wedding to go to in May.  Time to fly again!  Christopher, Naomi, and I went up to my parent's house last September, and used up the money from our Canada tickets on that trip.  Dave still hadn't used his money, and he had to use it by May, or else it would disappear.  So, I got online and found a good flight to and one from Utah.  Then, with apprehension, called Delta.  They informed me that if I booked on the phone I would be charged a $25 fee, so I should pay online.  I made sure I could apply the credit from the previous flight, then went to book his tickets.  As I navigated through the site, I remembered why I hadn't done it this way in the first place.  Delta's site has never been able to pull up etickets for me.  So, after trying for 30 minutes, I call Delta back.  Here's where it gets funny.  Delta's has a voice recognition system, which sounds like it would be nice.  Unfortunately the system is not programmed to understand your selection with children screaming in the background.  Think overly cheerful female voice, "I'm sorry.  I did not understand your selection.  Please try again".  Finally I get someone to talk to, but I can't understand him!  His accent was so thick, that I really and truly could not understand anything he was saying to me.  Now, I have nothing against immigrants (I married one, for crying out loud!), but if an English-speaking person can't understand you, then maybe a career in which your main responsibility is helping people on the phone isn't for you!  Just a thought... He finally transferred me to tech support.  They tried finding Dave's ticket with his eticket number, and couldn't.  So, they transferred me to customer service.  They informed me that they could book my tickets for me, but that there would be a $30 service fee.  I briefly explained the situation, and she said she was just following policy.  That sounded eerily familiar, so I asked to speak to someone who could actually help me.  (that's really what I said - I was really fed up at this point).  Her supervisor gave me the same spiel everyone else had.  I gave her an earful, and finally just gave in and booked the tickets.  And the worst part?  They wouldn't take the $30 out of the ticket (the original were more expensive than just the trip Dave's taking to Utah, so there was still money left over).  I had to give them my credit card number so they could charge it!  I told the customer service lady that for $30 she could loose me as a customer forever, and that I would tell everyone I know to NEVER fly Delta, OR, Delta could be kind, pay a measly $30 to keep me happy, and things would be just dandy.  Can you guess what she said?  I'll tell you.  "I'm sorry ma'am.  I'm just following policy."  So, here's what I say, "DON'T FLY DELTA!!"

Was that long enough for ya?  Here's some more if you're still reading... Don't fly American either!  I'll start with our first bad experience with American.  We were living in the San Jose area (California), and flying up to visit my parents in Washington for Christmas.  For some reason (I can't remember if it was work, or just that the tickets were cheaper), we were flying out early Christmas Eve morning.  We left our apartment at 5:00 a.m., or so, and arrived at the airport at 6:00 a.m.  Our friend dropped us off, and we went to check in.  The guy couldn't find our flight at first, and then announced to us that it was actually taking off as we spoke.  Ahhh!!  The flight had changed from 7:30 a.m. or so, to 6:00 a.m. without telling us! I guess that's a good reason to check the flight before you go, but still, we wouldn't have been able to get to the airport on time if we had checked it that morning.  We set the alarm with the right amount of time to get there by 6, not 5.  We had even checked the night before!  So, we got on standby.  Missed the next flight, and the next.  Finally by the third standby flight we got on.  Keep in mind that Christopher was 15 months old and still taking two naps, and he couldn't ever sleep anywhere other than his crib.  So, we had gotten him up and left the house at 5, and by about 1:00 in the afternoon, we were finally getting on a flight.  On Christmas Eve.  The flight itself was about four hours, and we had already used up most of our new toys and games, and he was tired.  After the flight, we got our bags (thankfully nothing wrong there!), and my dad picked us up for the two hour drive from SeaTac to my parent's house in Bellingham area.  As you can imagine, we were pretty wasted that night.  Atleast we made it there for Christmas, right? :)

The next American fiasco was when my parents came down to visit last year when Naomi was born.  They were stuck here for about 3 days because of flights getting cancelled.  I don't remember exactly how it all went, so Mom, you'll have to post a comment about that one.  Crazy, though.  I think Dave drove to and from the DFW airport 3 or 4 times (he was pretty sick of that drive).

The most recent American fun, was with Dave's parents who came to visit this last week.  They were supposed to come on Friday, but their flight was cancelled because of all American's safety issues they had going on.  Come on, people!  The Willsons ended up coming on Sunday.

So, those are my crazy airline stories.  I feel better now, after venting. :)  If you're still reading, what horrible airline stories do you have?