Air Canada promised us a hotel room when we knew first thing in the AM we would miss our connection, as the first flight was delayed. We were then told to get a room ourselves and submit the receipt for reimbursement.
Filed my documents and got an email back—offering me an e-coupon. NO THANK YOU–told them they should keep their promise and pay for my room.
Nice try Air Canada---- “you’re not happy with us, so here’s a coupon so you can spend MORE money with us”—again, NO THANK YOU!
If they ultimately renege, my trip insurance policy should cover it. We need to find out how long we have to file a claim with the trip insurance company.
Got a bit of an update on the challenging passport and flight plans for DS and family: They tried Chicago for the passport. No luck. So they are flying Weds to SD (I guess thats tomorrow), enjoying the city, have the appointment Friday for the baby, then if all goes well, DIL and GS fly to Chicago to stay with her mom before the flight to Ireland, but DS stays in SD for a friend’s wedding. He has the tight connection Sunday to Chicago for the overseas flight. Too stressful for me, but I hope they pull this off. DS remembered to get the international phone day pass thing tuned on so he doesn’t get hit with roaming charges there. Gotta give him that!
Somehow my family has been lucky with flights. During the spring break time frame when so many flights were delayed/canceled, my sons flew in and out of different airports to visit my daughter in San Diego. No problems for either of them. My youngest and I went on a college visit to Chicago and had no delays/cancellations.
Last week Dh had a business trip on Delta to Atlanta out of BWI. Hearing the horror stories with Delta and Atlanta, I urged him to book the early morning flight to Atlanta rather than the noon flight, thinking if there was a delay or cancellation, he’d have more options in getting to Atlanta for the 6pm dinner meeting. He didn’t listen to me and fortunately, he didn’t have any delays or cancellations. He did say the security lines, even at TSA Pre-Check and Clear were very long. His return flight was Thurs night on the eve of the long holiday weekend.
D23 and her fiance flew from San Diego to Denver on Friday for a wedding. Tho I have never seen lines at TSA in San Diego, I still warned her to get there early. She texted me from the gate area saying there was no line and they were now sitting for two hours at the gate Better safe than sorry IMO. They flew back yesterday, and I was more concerned about TSA at Denver but kept my mouth shut this time. However, with plans to spend the afternoon at some supposedly popular shopping district in Denver, she said the number of homeless, the stench of urine (they have plenty of both in San Diego) and the extremely hot weather they ended up just going to the airport early and sat there for three hours. Flight was on time and they arrived home with no issues.
@busdriver11 , @seal16 , @1NJParent ,
You all were right to encourage me to ask for some sort of remuneration from SWA. I asked for points for my inconvenience via the customer service page and got an email back saying they are going to give me a $150 flight voucher. I’m floored, especially since they were not helpful at the airport. Thank you all!
Completed a tour 2 weeks ago, paid for a small group, and did not get that. There was no mention of the change beforehand. Trying to get a partial refund of the difference between a small group tour and a “full bus” tour.
Fast forward, we have another tour with a different company in September. Same deal, paid for a small group tour. Inquired whether same thing will happen----it will! If I had not asked, I would find out my small group tour had 44 people on the first day. At least this company has offered to refund the difference.
Both tour companies are whining about tour director and bus driver shortages. That may be true, but to fleece your customers for something they paid for is sleazy.
One of them is a US company. If they accepted COVID relief funds, what did they use it for, enriching the company executives??? It seems that’s what the airlines did, to the tune of billions of dollars. I thought that cash was to preserve jobs?
@MADad Good thing you asked in advance about the number of people on the tour. I would be mad too if I did not get what I paid for and that I was not told this in advance.
NOW a different person from the tour company has contacted me to tell us the first person was incorrect, our tour is STILL a small group!! Ugh-----get your ***** together please.
I just don’t want to get burnt again. At least my travel agent at AAA told me her supervisor would like a copy of the letter I sent to the tour company who placed us on a full bus tour when we paid for small group. AAA Travel does not like unhappy or angry clients, apparently. It ultimately reflects badly on AAA, I guess if their “preferred vendor” screws over a client.
DIL and GS are in Chicago with her mom. S#2 in LA for a wedding and hopes the flight LAX-ORD is on time on Monday so he makes the flight to DUB. Stay tuned!
And another update: apparently DS had to go back later in the day to get the passport and. DIL and GS had already flown to ORD so S has the passport and he is still in LAX . Hoping it all works out
Got all our passports renewed and returned to us. Can’t wait for our first trip to Europe since 2019. And the dollar is strong. Looking forward to everything but the flights.
Any recommendations as to layover time for flights to Europe? Flying to Milan in October. Unfortunately no nonstop flights from the nearest airports. I have choices of layovers in Munich, Zurich or Paris ranging from one hour and ten minutes to one hour and fifty minutes. The one hour and ten minute layover sounds a little tight to me.
I bit the bullet and bought tickets to Seattle from Chicago about a month ago, and we went out there for 7 days last week. United ended up being about $750/ea and that was painful, but we had a trip window of 6/17-7/9 to fit the trip in, so I just imagined it was what we would have spent over the past two years if we had been able to travel. The car rental code in this thread saved us a ton, however! That was so helpful, @jpga13 — thank you, thank you. We were able to upgrade to a minivan, allowing us to just use 1 car when doing things with family and friends. It was also a hybrid, so we spent waaaay less on gas than we expected!
There were zero glitches on any part of our trip. United was fine, no delays, no issues, car rental fine, etc. The weather was absolutely perfect, and everywhere we chose to visit/sightsee was great. No terrible crowding, service issues, etc. We wore masks on our flights but not once we were there, and have been home for almost a week without signs of being sick with even a cold.
This is our 2nd trip of the year, our first was a vacation in Costa Rica for Spring Break, which also went smoothly. I’m considering taking the kids to Disneyland for Christmas (I’m from OC and have family there I want to visit after 4 years since our last trip home), so I’m debating if that’s pushing our luck!
I don’t know yet if it is the best choice but I picked Zurich. Not sure about Munich but prior to the pandemic I was glad I had business class tickets to get through the transfer lines in Paris.
Better safe than sorry IMO. They flew back yesterday, and I was more concerned about TSA at Denver but kept my mouth shut this time. However, with plans to spend the afternoon at some supposedly popular shopping district in Denver, she said the number of homeless, the stench of urine (they have plenty of both in San Diego) and the extremely hot weather they ended up just going to the airport early and sat there for three hours. Flight was on time and they arrived home with no issues.