Honeymoon, Take 1 or Why US Airways Spent Our Honeymoon Money

by Mara @ What's For Dinner? on December 22, 2009

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Some of you may be confused as to exactly why I’m posting when I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon, while some of you have been eagerly awaiting details since Saturday morning. This is a VERY LONG POST. Don’t expect a lot of food/recipes/cooking type information in this post, nor should you expect your normal “bubbly happy in-a-good-mood” Mara. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my entire life, including when I lost my last teaching job due to budget cuts.

Let me rewind. Our flight for our honeymoon to Jamaica via Philadelphia was scheduled to leave O’Hare airport at 7:25 a.m. CDT on Saturday, December 19. On Friday night, upon checking the weather and seeing this:

Adam and I decided to check the status of our flight. It was still “on time” but with a “travel advisory” in Philly, which meant that we could a) move our entire itinerary up to 7 days, b) reroute through a city that didn’t have a travel advisory, or c) be refunded for our tickets. Since A and C weren’t options, we got on the phone with US Airways and were going to request a reroute. After sitting on hold for over 2 hours, we decided to “risk it” and still leave the following morning.

Saturday morning, we got in our taxi on the way to O’Hare expecting the documented 25 minute delay in our flight to Philadelphia, and we were prepared to possibly miss out on one day in Jamaica due to the snowstorm on the east coast. On a whim, Adam requested at the ticket desk to be rerouted through Charlotte where there wasn’t snow yet, and he was REFUSED. We boarded on time, then had to sit for an extra half hour while the plane was de-iced. The flight was choppy, full of crying babies, and had so much turbulence I thought I’d be sick. The pilot announced we were about 75 miles outside of Philadelphia and would be landing shortly. Then 2 minutes later he announced we’d be in a holding pattern for at least 20 minutes because Philly only had one runway plowed. Then 20 minutes later, he said it would be another 30 minutes.

We finally touched down and walked as fast as we could to get to the gate for our connecting flight (on which at least 20 people on our flight were trying to catch) only to find out it had left not 5 minutes before we got there. Why they couldn’t hold the plane for 20 people, I’ll never know. Once we found out we’d missed the plane, we were greeted with the first of many lines we’d stand in over the course of the next two days. We took a risk and went to a ticketing desk to attempt to get onto the next flight to Jamaica (at 6:15 p.m.) We managed to get on standby, and watched as the terrible snow storm got worse, yet our flight was still listed as on-time. No one at any other desks would help us get ACTUAL tickets because “they can’t control the weather” and we’d “just have to wait.”

We did get the first of many meals out, authentic Philly Cheesesteaks and Yuengling

Then the waiting started. We waited in the terminal for any information about the flight… we had a gut feeling we wouldn’t actually get to take off, but they continued to say it was an on-time flight. We were scheduled to board at 5:30 p.m. and found out at 5:15 that we had gotten seats on the flight! There were 6 available and we were the first 2 on the standby list. And at 5:20, it was announced that the airport was closing and all flights were cancelled. Oh, and by the way, since they “can’t control the weather” there would be no concessions made for hotel rooms. We made a reservation at the cheapest hotel we could find ($87) and were instructed to go to baggage claim to wait for our luggage to come off the plane.

And wait we did. We watched luggage from canceled flight after canceled flight come into the carousels, and heard announcement after announcement that “bags would not be pulled” and to “be patient and wait for your flight’s luggage”. FIVE HOURS LATER an announcement came on that said “If you were scheduled to be on an international flight, and Philly was not your final destination, you will not be receiving your bags tonight.” We were told that they didn’t have the authorization to get the bags off the plane yet. So now, Adam and I were left with our “emergency” pajamas and underwear in my carry on to last us the night, and we got in line to get a taxi to our overpriced hotel. While we waited, I called US Airways to try to get on a flight to Jamaica by Monday.

See, not all the customer service people we dealt with were apathetic and rude. The people at the Sandals resort we were going to were wonderful. We filled them in on what was happening, and they happily moved our stay from its original date up days without a complaint, fee, or problem.

Back to the story. I was on hold with US Airways to try to get to Jamaica for three hours. I dialed their number as we got in line for a taxi. Someone finally came on the phone after we were already in the taxi… which means yes, we waited for a taxi for three hours. Something we noticed while we were waiting was that the airport did nothing for those people that were stranded. There were no cots, no bottled water, and the soda machines promptly sold out of water. O’Hare always sets up cots and hands out water and snacks if/when the airport closes and people are stranded.

Once we drove through the horrendously plowed Philadelphia streets to get to our hotel one mile from the airport, the cabbie pulled into the side street that led to the hotel. It was one of those complexes with about 5 hotels, and ours was the farthest from the street. Which meant, of course, that the taxi got stuck and we had to walk 2 blocks in a blizzard up to the hotel. Cue up clumsy Mara. I fell. In the snow. Hard. I have a lovely bruise which I won’t show you…

This whole time, Adam was on the phone with the “customer service” representative at US Airways trying to get out to Jamaica. Upon telling her that we had missed our connecting flight to Jamaica in the first place, and we’d been refused a reroute she said “Why is that my problem?” and Adam promptly requested a supervisor. Finally we came to a conclusion:

Since the earliest flight out to Jamaica is Thursday, December 24, we’d fly home for a couple days.
The earliest flight to Chicago was Monday, December 21.
We’d move our Sandals stay from Thursday to Thursday
We’d move our return flight to Thursday, Dec. 31

So we were stuck in Philadelphia until Monday, but at least (so we thought) had a resolution. It then hit us that we were hungry, so we went out in search of dinner. Unfortunately, there was no restaurant or grocery store within walking distance, so our dinner on the first night of our honeymoon was:

I had Combos and Twix

Adam had pretzels and M&Ms, and that’s a shared bottle of water.

And we crashed.

**Are you still with me? We’re only halfway there. Stretch, get some water, and sit back down. The story gets better!**

When we woke up Sunday morning, we checked out of our one hotel and walked over to the Embassy Suites about a block away. We were greeted by pleasant faces, free coffee, and an early check-in. We promptly ordered pizza, Adam took a nap, and I watched some TV and attempted to make the best of the situation. I got on the phone with US AIrways again to try and track down our luggage and get confirmation that we wouldn’t be charged any more money for our changed flights. I was reassured that we wouldn’t, and I got the number for the Philly airport’s baggage claim office.

I was told by the baggage claim guy I talked to that, in order to get our bags, we’d need to file a claim and indicate where we wanted them to go. We had a few choices: we could have them put on our flight to Chicago (but they might not make it), we could have them shipped to us at home (but we might miss them with our flight out Thursday) or we could have them put on our flight to Jamaica and we could get them when we get there. Either way, we’d have to come in and sign a claim. So we went. And we waited for three hours only to be told by a different guy that our bags were already on their way to Jamaica and we’d just claim them when we got there.

We returned to the hotel, went swimming (see, I packed our swimsuits in my carry on in case our luggage got lost on its way to Jamaica), and ordered room service for dinner. It was some lovely food: chicken nachos to share, I got a Cobb salad, and Adam got a delicious “California sandwich” on brioche:

And, when in Philly, one must eat cream cheese… or cheesecake

When we awoke the following morning at 5 to catch our flight home, we were reassured by the fact that there was no precipitation in either Philly or Chicago (or anywhere in between) and thought we’d make it home. I had a ride all set up in Chicago, and plans for brunch with a friend. We got to the airport and found that our flight was cancelled “due to weather.” WHAT WEATHER?!?!?!?

Again, I got on the phone with US Airways while standing in line to try to get another flight out. Once I was connected (an hour later), I was told that not only was there no other flight to Chicago from Philly yesterday, the next available flight was Tuesday at 1:55 p.m. with a layover in Pittsburgh. And that because they “can’t control the weather” there would be no concessions made for a hotel stay. I asked for a supervisor, hoping that maybe they’d have access to flights that the regular reps couldn’t access (like they did Saturday night with our Jamaica flights.) I had Adam talk to the supervisor who 1) laughed at him when he asked for compensation for a hotel and 2) “messed up” when telling us that the first available flight was Tuesday. It really was Wednesday. After much discussion back and forth, we got seats on the Wednesday flight.

Then we started calculating.

Lunch at the airport Saturday – $20
Blankets for waiting in the airport – $20
Taxi Saturday night – $20
Saturday hotel – $87
Lunch Sunday – $24
Hotel Sunday night – $130
Dinner Sunday night – $50 (room service, ya know)

At that point, we had spent an extra $327 that was supposed to be spending money in Jamaica. Since we were supposed to be at an all-inclusive resort, we hadn’t anticipated spending anything after our second flight Saturday. Could we spend another $300 on hotels for another two nights to fly back to Chicago for ONE day, and another two days of meals out? Sure, we could. Should we have to? Absolutely not. Rather than waiting around and spending more money, we decided to do the truly crazy. We rented a car and drove from Philadelphia to Chicago. A car, actually, just like this:

Yes, we drove 12 hours (rather, Adam drove. I offered, but he wanted the “badge of honor” of driving that long). Rather than spending more of our hard-earned and hard-saved money for hotel rooms and food, we spent HALF of what we would’ve and made it home. We did add:

$180 for the car rental
$60 for 2 tanks of gas
$35 (or so) for food
GRAND TOTAL: $615

Was it crazy? Yes, absolutely. However, since we needed to not be dealing with the extremely-poorly-run Philadelphia airport anymore, and needed some real rest and relaxation, it was worth it. Not one of our meals on the road cost more than $8 total, gas was fairly affordable, and we were OUT OF PHILLY! You can see my photos from the road in this album.

The kicker of the whole situation? If that one US Airways employee hadn’t refused to reroute us on Saturday, the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. We’d be on the beach drinking fruity drinks out of coconuts right now. I don’t ever expect to see any sort of compensation from US Airways, as they have some of the most apathetic, careless, and rude employees I’ve ever encountered, and they truly didn’t care about anyone’s situation. Not to mention the fact that they refused to give us our luggage and sent it on without us. We were told that FAA regulations state that luggage can be on a different flight FOLLOWING its owners, but not ahead of it. So right now, our luggage is in Montego Bay getting a heck of a tan, while we’re back in Chicago for 2 days.

So please, keep your fingers, toes, and whatever else you can, crossed… knock on wood… find a lucky penny… our flight leaves from Chicago to Charlotte to Jamaica on Thursday morning at 6 a.m. CDT. There needs to be no weather, no snow, no NOTHING to keep us from getting to Jamaica. We need this trip, now more than ever.

Thank you for reading my rant. I may add to this after Adam reads it and reminds me of things I left out. I fully intend on sending this to US Airways as well. If anyone has any suggestions for us on how to proceed with them, please let me know.