My mom still hasn’t made it home to MA. She rescheduled her original 12/22 flight to Christmas Day to try to avoid the delays expected Thursday & Friday last week. She woke up 12/25 morning in her hotel to a text she had been rebooked to a fight out of Tulsa at 5:30 AM 12/26. Showed up at the airport at 4 AM today, only to be told the flight was cancelled and the soonest they can get her to Boston is 12/29.
She might have been able to wait around the airport and press to get on some other flight maybe with another airline. But the lines were really long and with her recently broken ankle she just could not manage it. So she has headed back to the hotel.
D2 and her husband made it safely to d1’s house on Friday, though their flight arrived 1 hour late. They are scheduled to return home later this afternoon (departure around 6pm). When D2 checked in online last night, they were offered $500 each if they would rebook later in the week. D2 can’t. She’s a doctor and has to work tomorrow, but her husband is off for rest of the week. He said if/when the airline offers him $1000, he’ll rebook, but would otherwise prefer to accompany his wife back home. They are traveling on Friday to visit his family in Indiana for New Years’ weekend.
Christmas was a bit overwhelming for the twins. Everyone sent too may gifts and both girl got overstimulated which resulted in toddler meltdowns. Their mom put several still wrapped gifts into the closet for distribution in another month or so. Later this week, the twins will go thru their toys and select some to donate to the local women & children’s shelter.
I saw some videos on Twitter/TikTok of accidents in Seattle area-nothing fatal, just a lot of cars sliding down hills into other cars, which is bad enough.
She thinks the airline has to/would pay for the latest rebook because that was due to staff shortages (although it is all downstream of the bad weather so she isn’t positive). But my guess is she isn’t going to pursue it because she expects it to be a pain and she doesn’t like to deal with that sort of thing.
She could contact the Airline CS and see if they will courtesy provide a voucher under the circumstances, and justify it as an airline cancellation due to their staff issue (not weather, even though it may be). If she explains nicely that she’s been rescheduled a few times and she had a broken ankle recently so has a disability they might actually get her on a sooner flight, given the “disability”. Doesn’t hurt to ask. If they offer a hotel voucher she might have to go back to the airport to get it, and DK if they contract with the hotel she is staying at.
I will check with my mom about hotel vouchers and rescheduling when she wakes up from her nap. She was up at 3 AM, and she isn’t a morning person under the best of conditions. Hopefully she will be able to get something sorted out!
When our toilet pipe had frozen years ago the plumber cut a hole 4x4 inch in the sink cabinet floorboard and a hole 1x3 inch in the kick plate under the sink next to the toilet. This week, with the cabinet door closed it froze again and I have no idea what the under space temp was. I then used a hand saw to expand the kick plate hole to a 3x12 inch hole.
Being somewhat bored and curious, I used our digital thermometer to test the temps before and after. There was a 5-6 F difference before from the room to underspace with the door open. After the new cut there was a 1-2 F difference. When I added a small lamp with a 60 watt candescent bulb in the open cabinet it came zero difference.
We used to have pipes freeze regularly in suburban Chicagoland. There were some pipes running up an outside wall to a bedroom closet sink; we eventually installed cutoff valves but still ran into issues. We once had a pipe burst that we didn’t even know existed. The previous owners had apparently had a freezer by the back door and had a pipe in the wall next to it. One sunny early spring day, we saw water running down the inside wall. I used to say we had the plumber on retainer; they came so often.
We actually do have a plumber on retainer we have a contract with a local company to do any work. I pay a yearly fee: some basic repairs are covered; anything else is 10-15% off, plus we’re on the priority list for emergencies. It has been well worth the yearly fee just in the last week alone.
S and DIL left VA this morning after breakfast to continue their journey visiting relatives and friends. H and FIL are visiting MIL’s grave and old haunts (today would have been her 92nd birthday). It’s a bit lonely here now doing laundry, etc, but I’m enjoying our good fortune to have gotten two whole extra, unexpected days with S and DIL due to this storm and their having to push their travel up to avoid it.
I’m also glad they survived the “miserable” (due to weather) mountains a couple of days ago. They got run off the road by a truck, but fortunately the shoulder was solid in that area. It wasn’t everywhere.
I feel for those who have died, lost loved ones, or had vacations shortened or cancelled due to the storm.
Yes! I honestly didn’t quite get all of what she was saying, but from what I could gather the person she spoke to at the airport this morning said if she could book herself on another airline, Southwest would reimburse her. (And maybe also for the hotel? Or for the different flight OR the hotel? Like I said, I did not quite understand the details.)
When I asked her how the reimbursement was going to work, she was unclear. She said she needs to call them now and try to get details from someone, but I don’t have a lot of hope since everything I’m reading is that they are completely overwhelmed dealing with the situation.
HOWEVER, she did go ahead and rebook herself on American. She has a flight out from Tulsa through Charlotte tomorrow afternoon. If everything goes well, she should finally be home tomorrow evening!
I don’t know if she will pursue the reimbursement with the fervor she will need to make it happen. If she has to choose having more money for more hassle or less money for less hassle, she will usually less of both.
Great news! Where is her final destination? Hopefully she will not find herself stuck in Charlotte. Can she request a wheelchair at the gate? That might help her get where she needs to be faster! And as for the refund, she should keep all her documentation (screenshots of cancelled stuff, boarding passes, hotel receipts) and maybe deal with it when the weather clears up and the agents aren’t exhausted.
Good idea! I will tell her to keep screenshots & the rest. Final destination is Boston, and the weather here is supposed to be pretty nice, so hopefully no more delays.
This happened to my kid. Flight was cancelled due to weather and SW couldn’t get her to her destination before the event she was attending was happening. Kid booked herself on another airline. SW did NOT pay for the other ticket. But they did refund the rest of her travel for the SW ticket she had. In her case this was credited to the credit card she booked with. BUT this was in 2015…so who knows what they do now.
SW did not pay for any hotels but hers was a weather related event. Kid slept in the airport….on cots. This was Midway and storms were forecast that never actually happened. The whole airport shut down.
I’m sure this is all going to be extra complicated because I’m pretty sure she was using a credit from a flight she had booked from March 2020, which she then rescheduled to December 2020, and then rescheduled to May 2021, and then rescheduled to December 2021… Anyway this is the first time she has traveled since before the pandemic started, and I think it might have put her off ever doing it again.
Maybe they will give her points on her SW account. My kid was very aggressive with SW…said that was unacceptable. Other airlines were flying and could get her where she needed to be on time. SW wanted to delay a full day. Thus the credit on the credit card.
Any chance you can intervene on your mom’s behalf?
She rescheduled her original 12/22 flight to Christmas Day to try to avoid the delays expected Thursday & Friday last week. She woke up 12/25 morning in her hotel to a text she had been rebooked to a fight out of Tulsa at 5:30 AM 12/26. Showed up at the airport at 4 AM today, only to be told the flight was cancelled and the soonest they can get her to Boston is 12/29.
we have a contract with a local company to do any work. I pay a yearly fee: some basic repairs are covered; anything else is 10-15% off, plus we’re on the priority list for emergencies. It has been well worth the yearly fee just in the last week alone.
but I can encourage her to pursue it, give her y’all’s good tips about how to manage it, and make sure she has space to get it done.