Oh, sorry, did I wake you up?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m flying out to go on vacation today. My uncle had very kindly arranged the tickets with his own air miles. It was an e-ticket, so he forwarded the email to me weeks ago and I just had to print it off before I left.

Around 7:30 this morning, I went to print it off, and discovered that my university’s email server seems to be down. Scratch that, the whole university seems to be offline – I can’t even access its home page. That’s not good – an outage that big could take all day to fix!

I can’t call my uncle; I have his number but it’s in an email, which is hardly useful at this point. So I call my mom. She doesn’t answer. Of course she doesn’t answer; half an hour ago she sent me an email from the airport after they’d gone through security; surely they’re on the plane by now. I fire off an email to her BlackBerry, hoping that she might check it on a layover, but now I’m really starting to panic.

Fortunately, I have a vague memory of the name of my uncle’s consulting company, and I’m pretty sure that he works from home. I google his name and the company, and sure enough, it’s the second hit. I find the contact page for their Seattle office and call right away.

Of course, it didn’t even occur to me that it was 7:45 in the morning and it was hardly a good time to be calling. I don’t leave for the airport until 2 this afternoon, so it’s hardly an emergency yet. In my defence, I’d been up since 5:30 this morning, so by 7:45 I was so awake it would never have occurred to me that think that other people might not be.

My uncle actually answers right away and sounds quite coherent. But when I start explaining my predicament to him, he mumbles “Hang on a sec; let me turn on a light.”

Oh damn, I think, I’ve woken him up; it’s only 7:45 … Eastern time … which means in Seattle it’s … 4:45. :smack:
Well, at least I got my ticket now.

2

Ouch. Sounds like you owe your uncle a nice bottle of something special, both for arranging the ticket and the wake-up call.

Enjoy your vacation!

ETA: Didn’t mean for that last line to sound snarky, wasn’t meant that way…

3

Nothing like waiting until the last minute to print off that e-ticket!! Yeesh! And I thought I was a procrastinator!! :stuck_out_tongue:
Anyway, have a great vacation!!

4

This comes with the territory when you are an uncle. If one of my kids woke my up at 4 in the morning because they were too negligent to print out an important piece of paper in advance, they would get a world class reaming and miss their trip to boot. If my niece called I’d prolly drive all night and personally deliver the tickets.

5

LOL!

–FCOD

6

When I worked for TWA before it was bought by American (and before 9/11, so it may be different now), people who had e-tickets didn’t need any actual paperwork to check in. They just had to show up with ID and we’d put the name into the computer and print a boarding pass for the appropriate flight. Like I said, it may be different now.

7

How true. Same goes for aunts, in my experience.

8

How did you google him if you couldn’t get online?

9

I’m guessing that his email is hosted by his university, but he has access to the internet from home/cybercafe/random wireless hotspot/etc.

10

His university email was down, not his internet access.

11

It’s still the same now. The whole point of an eticket is that you don’t need any paper. They don’t ask to see anything but a driver’s license or passport.

12

Get a gmail account for yo personal bidnez!

13

Renee and Terminus est are correct, you don’t need to print the e-ticket. You just show up at the airport with a credit card and drivers license, scan them at the kiosk and it will print your boarding passes. Unless of course it has changed since the last week of July. (just noticed you’re in canada, but I don’t think it’s different up there)

So you really owe your uncle something, since you woke him up when you didn’t need to. :wink:

14

…which of course only makes the whole slappy-face moment even more delightful!
ETA: It’s remotely conceivable that if the e-tix were obtained in the name of Person A through Person B’s award miles, that particular program would require to provide a specific booking code – but extremely remotely: once the e-tix is issued it’s just that: show up with ways to confirm ID and knowing what flight it is and you get it.

15

I’m wondering if Rysto might have needed the email as documentation because his uncle had arranged the tickets. I know that the kiosks at the airports will print out the boarding pass when you scan your credit card (it’s my preferred method of getting them when I fly) but the only time I’ve flown on a ticket purchased by someone else we were traveling together and used the curbside check-in, which my friend prefers.

eta, and I see I’m not the only person who thought of that possibility

16

It’s the same. Maybe easier, actually, since you can identify yourself to the kiosk either by entering your booking number or swiping a credit card. (Note that either way will work, no matter who booked the tickets or whether the trip is on points or not.) After confirming your seat and number of bags to check, the kiosk spits out your boarding pass. Nobody wants to see any paperwork at check-in any more, though they do want to see ID at the bag check and at the gate.

I’ll add another vote for doing something nice for your uncle, too.