Terry’s Worklog

Airline karma

I’d mentioned sometime back (http://oregonstate.edu/~reeset/blog/archives/489) that I was planning on being one of the crazy Beaver fans that will be making the trip to Penn State this year to hopefully watch out team spank the Nitty Lions silly.  At the time, I didn’t have football tickets, but was smart enough to make airline reservations and hotel reservations assuming I could get my football tickets sometime down the road.  I figured at worst — we could always count on scalpers.

Well, last month, it all got worked out.  My friend and I got word that we’d been given tickets to the game, so we were feeling quite smug about the fact that we were ready for the game, especially when friends that I knew had waited until they had football tickets in hand before trying to get airline/hotel reservations for game day weekend.  Like the ant who admonished the grasshopper, we probably were having a little too much fun giving our friends a hard time over the premium prices that they were going to be paying to fly to Happy Valley since at this point, a single airline ticket to Penn State costs more than what we paid for two back in Dec. 

Anyway, I think that maybe we’ve been having a bit too much fun because I get a call while I’m in Anaheim at ALA.  My wife called to let me know that Delta had just called to let her know that the regional provider that was going to be taking us to Happy Valley from Cinny was no longer flying to that airport.  Suddenly, I wasn’t quite so happy.  Ugh.

With all the flights that are being dropped next year (and regional providers going out of business), this was actually something that I was a little concerned about.  But I kind of figured that we’d weathered the storm when I didn’t hear from anyone the first week of June (plus, I forgot what airline I was flying on — so I wasn’t sure how worried I should have been).  But, like many others, we got bit by the current airline insecurity — and for a brief moment, fell into Airline purgatory (you have to imagine and ominous echo here), a special place reserved for people that have paid for tickets, but now no longer have a seat on a plane.  Certainly, this had to be payback for the fun we’d been having with our fellow travelers.

Fortunately, I say that this was brief stay in airline purgatory.  While it took about 45 minutes to resolve, I have to say that when I called Delta’s customer service, they worked it out which was a bit of a feat considering how inflexible our schedule is due to game times, etc.  Of course, our flight plan now looks more like a jigsaw puzzle than an itinerary and we are flying on a number of regional/partner airlines (which makes me a little nervous) — but they were able to get me on flights that have me arriving a little later than before in Happy Valley but getting home about at the same time.  So, A-Plus to Delta for making this a lot less painful that it might of otherwise have been.  They made the experience so good that I’m almost tempted to start feeling smug again.  I just wish I could remember how the ant and the grasshopper story ended up…

–TR

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