This year, while trying to balance visiting two different families in two different cities during a 5 day vacation, Stuart and I thought we would be super smart and hit the air instead of the road. Our original plan was to fly from Pensacola to Memphis, spend the night, then borrow a family car to drive to Gadsden, We'd stay there a bit, drive back to Memphis to be with Stu's fam, then we'd fly back home.
We planned this far in advance, and did our best to search out flights during the cheaper month of October. We snagged a great deal, and then months passed filled with work and traveling for interviews, etc.
Then comes December 19. Just a few days before we are set to fly out, Stuart checks on our reservations and finds that our Delta flight to Memphis has no return flight back home. We figure something got misplaced in our records and call Delta, who confirms that indeed we did not book a return flight. Now that it's so close to the holidays, our flight price would go from $130 (October) to $945. After sweating a bit, we decide to not get a return flight and instead just get a rental car for about $40 to drive home in. Problem solved!
Now, December 22. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30pm. It was a pretty stormy day here on the Bay, so I mostly stayed indoors doing some last-minute packing and cleaning. By the time Stuart got home, the weather had mostly cleared up and we headed to P'cola.
Now, I must say that I pride myself on (1) the ability to pack without checking a bag and (2) the speed at which I can make it through airport security. I have instilled the love of those two things into Stuart, and so armed with our carry-ons, empty pockets, print-out boarding passes, and quart sized baggy of liquid substances, we got to the airport. The lines weren't too long for this holiday flight, and we quickly slipped through security as our co-passengers bumbled and fumbled with belts and shoelaces. Once we got to our terminal, however, our luck began to fade. We noticed our flight was delayed about 45 minutes. We got a bit nervous as we only had an hour for our layover, but figured it would work out and grabbed an overpriced bite for dinner as we waited.
Some time later, as our plane waited at the gate, a nervous-sounding voice over the loudspeaker announced that the storm once in Daphne was now in Atlanta, and our flight would be delayed 2 more hours. As Stuart and I looked at each other in horror, we quickly did some time calculations and figured out that we could, in fact, drive to our destination quicker than we could fly. We actually then calculated that barring any delays at all, we could have driven to Memphis in about the same time that these planes originally would have flown us there. Frustrated and slightly embarrassed, we grabbed our luggage and split ways to each stand at a Delta counter and ask for our money back (along with about 30 other people on our flight). I got to the front of my line faster, so I talked with the surprisingly friendly representative who agreed to totally refund our flights. Somewhat surprised and very excited, I grabbed the receipt and ran over to Stuart's line. He immediately looked at the receipt and started walking back to my counter. They had refunded our flight to the credit card we purchased it on, which just so happened to be the credit card that was stolen when Stu's car got broken into a few months ago. At this point Stuart had gotten pretty upset (don't tell him I told you) and broke to the front of my old line to tell the representative about this problem. I looked apologetically at all the other angry customers, hoping that they didn't jump out of line and attack us in grumpy holiday spirit, and finally let out a sigh of relief when the Delta man says the refund shouldn't be a problem and to just call our bank.
Well, now we reverse our steps, pass backwards by security (which we went through so quickly for no good reason) and head to our car. We pay the $6 fee for parking our car in a spot for 3 hours and drive 5 hours to arrive in Gadsden at midnight.
Christmas with my family and Stu's family was great, and I'll post pictures/stories of those when I get the pictures uploaded. Once we got ready to drive home yesterday, Stuart got an odd email from Air Tran saying that we could go ahead and check in for our return flight. Stuart called and, sure enough, we had booked a return flight - not through Delta - but through AirTran. No wonder Delta didn't have our reservations! We cancelled the flight and got most of our money back, then drove home 7 hours in the rain to Daphne to make our trip complete.
Lessons learned/observations?
- Don't fly when you can drive. It's not worth it.
- I'm glad we bought a Prius.
- If we lived close to an airport, I could make turkey wraps, sell them for $10, and make a killing.
