…business flights, no less. This could fairly be a Pitting, but since I’m sure my little problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, I’ll let out my frustrations here.
I was scheduled to fly to Paris for a week-long meeting last Saturday; ticket was booked by the company’s in-house agent in early Feb. I’m supposed to chair one of the committees for the Tuesday session. Arrived at the airport in plenty of time, breeze through the line in about 20 minutes, step up to Contintental’s ticket kiosk and…confirmation code refused. I call a representative over, he tries it, no go. He goes off to consult with someone, comes back a few minutes later, points to the itinerary and says, “Here’s the problem: your departure date was Feb. 10”. Oh, crap. Nothing he can do, sez he; flight’s booked up, you’ll have to book another one, yadda yadda yadda.
Ok, so I contact our agent and after some futzing around, reschedule for Monday (going any earlier would have been 3600 bucks vs. 1300, and I’m guessing I’m not quite that important to the company).
OK, so it’s Monday. I hie myself off to the airport about two hours in advance of the flight. This time only about a third of the ticket kiosks are open and it takes more than an hour to get through the line. I finally wash up in front of one with 40 minutes to go and guess what: refused again. Crap crap CRAP! Near as I can tell, I’ve fallen afoul of the new DHS regs requiring a manifest be transmitted to them a certain amount of time prior to departure. Continental agent: the now familiar spiel about how there’s nothing they can do, you’ll have to book another one, etc.
So now I’m booked for Tuesday’s 6:40PM flight, for which I’ll be in the goddammed airport at 8AM, I swear.
If I still have a fucking job after tomorrow, that is. I tend to be a bit pessimistic that way.
Crap crap crappity crap. Oh well, guess plenty of people at the head office will know my name after this one.