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Apr. 5, 2009

Spring break, March, 2009--Jamaica, pt 1: incompetent airline agents

Posted in Travels
Well, I declared a 2 week spring break just because I could.  LOL  I love being that aspect of homeschooling.  It was actually a big deal for me to do that because I usually try to cram as much school in as possible.  But since we were planning to go to Jamaica, I thought we could start early with the Jamaican laid back attitude and just get rested and ready for our trip.

So we were planning to fly out on March 12, a Thursday.  We just finished up some stuff from the week before, which wasn't much, just corrections and the like.  We did one art lesson, which means that we finally got to lesson 11!  I think I have failed in art this year so I will have to get a class or something next year!  LOL  But we are planning to do a lot of art this summer, to catch up. 

But mostly we just played and packed and rested.  We had our usual classes.

And the big day finally came.  Our flight was at 6AM, which meant that we had ourselves and the kids at the airport by 4AM.  I checked us in online the night before, but had to use the "self-service" kiosk to check our bags in.  After going through everything--including scanning all our passports (again!), the kiosk told me that I had to see an agent.  Fine.  I got in the line to see the agent.  I smelled a bad rat when I got in line.  There were NWA agents and Delta agents and even though their two companies merged, they were not working together.  The Delta agent wouldn't help me because our flight was booked through NWA, so after a lot of waiting around, a NWA guy finally checked our bags in for us and we headed toward security.  We heard a lot of other customers calling out to the agents, saying that they were told by the kiosk to see an agent, that their flights were in 30 minutes and they had to finish up their check in, that they were disabled and needed to have their seats changed and couldn't do it with the kiosk.  And those agents told each and every one of these customers to "go to the kiosk", despite those customers saying, "but we were just there and it told us to see an agent."  It was a bad omen.

So we got to our gate after clearing security and the first thing I noticed was the announcement that our flight was delayed for an hour and 45 minutes.  This would mean that we would miss our connection that would take us to Montego Bay.  I immediately got in line with several other people to get re-routed.  The Delta agent who handled this was very professional and efficiently and clearly the best employee from both airlines.  She announced that she would do her best to re-route everyone, but that anyone with a cell phone should get it out and call the NWA 800 reservations number to re-route themselves.  Honestly, this is what I should have done.  But since I was at the front of the line, I let her try to re-route us.  She couldn't, from her computer.  She said we had to go back to the ticketing counter, that she thought their computers would pull up more flights for us.  So we went back to the ticketing counter.

This was the worst thing we could have done.  Remember those incompetent agents from both NWA and Delta who did not want to work and kept telling people to use the kiosk even though the kiosk wasn't really working?  Yep.  Same folks.  So the NWA agent spent nearly 2 hours on the phone, trying to find a flight for us.  We told him we were willing to fly out of the 3 other major international airports that were within a 250 mile radius.  I am not kidding--we stood there for nearly 2 hours with this guy while he used his computer and tried calling every major airline, trying to get us out to Jamaica.  At one point, he had us re-routed to an airport in TN, where we would spend the night.  We would then take a flight early Friday morning from TN to GA, then GA to Montego Bay.  We could leave Jamaica one day later (Wednesday instead of Tuesday) so we could still have a 5 day vacation.  We figured this was fine and that we could just call the resort in Jamaica and have them push our reservations back a day.  So we waited for 30 more minutes for this agent to get that set up for us. 

After 30 minutes of watching him be put on hold on the phone, he finally hung up the phone and told us, "we can't do it.  There is no flight this week that will get you to Jamaica."  We were speechless.  No flight at all?  At this point, we were tired and upset and so we just had them get our checked luggage from the plane and they did.  We gathered up our children and started to drive home.  It was about 8AM, and we had been at the airport for 4 hours. 

We decided to pick up breakfast at Waffle House on the way home to make up somewhat for this horrendous morning.  As we were driving, I started thinking.  How can it be possible in 2009 not to find a flight at all that would take us to Jamaica?  It cannot be possible.  Anyone could take a flight to any major city, then to another major city, etc., until one finally landed at the final destination.  So while waiting for our Waffle House food, I called my best friend and vented the whole story to her.  She also could not believe it and was at her computer, so she went to Travelocity and requested 6 tickets to Jamaica from our city and/or any one of the major airports near us.  She got several hits.  Of course.  The NWA agent just got tired of working for us and gave up and thought we didn't know anything about traveling.

So when we got home, after eating and getting the poor children into bed for a nap, I went to my computer and found the same thing my friend found.  Numerous flights leaving either that day or the next day, all arriving in Jamaica.  I called that 800 reservations number for NWA, talked to a very competent person, and told her what happened.

And here is the clincher.  She told me that we were indeed already booked on that flight from TN to GA, and GA to Jamaica--all the next day.  These were the flights that that agent was working on getting for us.  Apparently he had done it but had no clue that he had done it.  In addition, he had also managed to book the return flights for the Wednesday instead of Tuesday, but again, had no clue that he had done it.  So the only thing, the reservations agent said, was to get us from our city to TN.  However, she noted that there was a flight for later tonight leaving a major airport that was 90 miles from our city to GA, so she just put us on that flight.  We would stay the night in GA and fly out the next day from GA to Jamaica.

So we all took a nice 3 hour nap, then woke up and drove the 90 miles to the other airport and finally flew out to GA.  The Delta and NWA agents there were completely competent and everything went smoothly.  As God would have it, we have several very good friends who live in GA, so one of them put us up for the night.  In fact, it was great to visit with them, as they are my hubby's childhood friends from Jamaica.

The next morning, we flew out without incident to Montego Bay.  Finally. 

The good that came out of this:  visiting with our friends in GA.  They are cool folks!  They had attended the 2008 Beijing Olympics and want to go to World Cup in South Africa in 2010.  So...we are totally hooking up with them!!!  We really want to go.  We'll see what comes of that, but the seeds have been planted. 

More later,
A.H.
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Comments

Apr. 6, 2009 - Just passing by

Posted by muslimokie
Hi, just passing by but I'd thought I say heading to jamaca in any mood but laid back seems anti jamacian, lol. ja know mon? *wink*
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Apr. 7, 2009 - airline agents

Posted by Tricia from PAM
Don't you just hate incompetence compounded by laziness? Argh! You had me worried with the incompetent airline agents, because I'm flying on Delta/Northwest booked through NWA in a couple of weeks - Delta outbound, NW return. But since the dicey leg is going to be the return (red-eye, and we're likely to get to the airport without much time to spare), hopefully if we need any help we'll encounter competence.

Your trip sounds like fabulous fun - almost makes me want to go (I'm not much of a beach person...)
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HELLO!!! This blog is a place for us to publish some of our children's work and just to journal our amazing educational journey.

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• Writer's Circle, March 6, 2009 • A Typical Monday • Spring break, March, 2009--Jamaica, pt 1: incompetent airline agents • Spring Break, March 2009, Jamaica part 2, the actual trip!!

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