Back in the olden days, if you wanted to go somewhere, you went to the travel agent and bought a plane ticket, and when you got to the airport, you got your seat assignment (without having to take your shoes off first, thank you very much). Oh and there was red carbon paper involved.
Nowadays, it's search Orbitz-Travelocity-Peapod-Amazon-Priceline-Kayak for the best price, unless you want to use points, in which case you toggle back and forth between the airline site and the credit card where you've racked up said points, and hope that you get the points transferred and the ticket "bought" before your reservation expires. And if you're really lucky, you don't have enough points for all three tickets, so you have to use points for two and hard cold cash for the third, and then you end up with separate confirmation numbers, and when you want to try and get seats together for at least two of the three people because one of them is seven and probably should be sitting next to a parent on the plane, you can't for the life of you manage to do that because the only seats that appear to be available are single seats in the middle.
Sigh.
So you call the airline, and they helpfully tell you to just show up early at the airport, which is code for "your seven year old is going to be sitting by herself, sucker".
Then you politely turn to Twitter.
And your husband texts back nicely landed on one foot.
I'm still kind of amazed that it worked as well as it did. Of course, if I get to the airport and they've shoved things around so we're in three single middle seats, I might have to have a cow.
15 July 2011
Making Travel Plans
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8 comments:
I had a similar experience with them in February. The OB flight went like a dream, but for some reason, the seat exchange did not go through for the return, so I had to wait until the last minute at the gate for them to shuffle seats around. Ended up together, but would've rather had it squared away with e-ticket in hand.
Oh, and the sneaky part was that all the open seats on the flight (there were plenty) were "more leg-room" or something so if I made the selection myself I would have had an up-charge. It's BS, but it makes jobs for those Customer Service Reps.
Since I rarely fly (because I hate it), I have no points racked up, no credits, no nothing to make anyone in charge treat me decently. But, that's okay. I'd rather take a train when I can.
Hope it all goes off without a hitch and that you have a great vacation!
Whoever got your kid next to them would gladly switch seats with you. I guarantee it!
I only fly once a twice a year, but each time I've found that when multiple people are involved with multiple legs of a journey, it doesn't matter if you reserve seats. The airline loses them anyway. That happened when we went to Kauai -- we lost all seat reservations on the return trip & they gave them to us at the gate. On each leg. Just like the old days!
Here's hoping Delta doesn't pull a Virgin on you. (That would be code for having precisely what you fear happen, as happened with us on Virgin.)
We've found that they're usually pretty good about fixing that at check-in. THEY don't really want a kid sitting alone, either.
We've had to ask fellow passengers to swap with us so kids aren't seated alone. Most of the time it works. Then there are the people who just say no. Really? You'd rather sit with my unaccompanied child? Are you going to take him to the bathroom too?
what a great idea. i wish i had thought to do that. we had the same problem, and the 7 y.o. had to sit apart from us - but i must admit it all turned out ok, she loved being "all by herself."
but oy the worry i had beforehand...
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