Tag Archives: United

Sometimes It’s Not Such a Small World After All

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This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my travel adventures, but usually my mini-rants are about long delays or annoying flight changes. International travel lends itself to these types of circumstances, as multiple flights, often on different airlines, are hard to match up over the course of twenty-four or thirty hours of travel from airport to airport, continent to continent. It’s all a part of the deal.

Last weekend’s travel saga, though, takes the proverbial cake. (The taken cake was no Betty Crocker, cook-at-home-for-a-kid’s-birthday-party style either. We are talking Buddy the Cake Boss, over the top, multiple layers, moving parts and fireworks style cake for the adventure that was our trip from Washington DC to Kuala Lumpur.)

The day started early. E-a-r-l-y. My alarm went off at 2AM, which isn’t even morning in my book, but is what had to happen to get showered, repacked, checked out and in the lobby by 3AM for our not-so-super-Super-Shuttle pick-up. (Okay, technically the alarm never went off, as even though I had set two, I didn’t trust them to get me up on time, so I slept less of a slumber and more of a “lay here with your eyes closed, checking the time every five minutes” kind of sleep. When I was within fifteen minutes of the alarms sounding, I just got up, turned them off and drug my miserable self into the shower.) Our surly driver’s attitude should have clued me in to what a long day it was going to be, but I brushed off her grumpy attitude, thinking it was early and maybe she had been out late celebrating the 4th of July. (When I booked the shuttle, online, I made a note that we would have four large suitcases to check and two carry-on bags, knowing that it is probably a bigger than normal amount of baggage for folks traveling around the States. After all, we are moving to a new country! I was very clear about the amount of space we would need. Well, as it turns out, we were her first pick-up of the run and she was quite displeased with our luggage situation, which Thad stacked neatly and compactly in the back of the van. She proceeded to lecture us about the size of our bags, at which point I nicely told her that I had noted it on our reservation. She said she didn’t care and “What if everyone else has that many bags?” As it turns out, of the other four people we picked up Saturday morning, only one had anything more than a carry-on bag, as his was a mere backpack. I seriously considered pointing this out to her when we unloaded at the airport, but held my tongue, figuring a bit of good karma wouldn’t hurt since we had a whole lot of travel in front of us. If only I had known then how the day was going to go…)

But I digress…

After getting to Dulles International Airport, checking in and clearing security, we arrived at our gate to find out that between the time the counter issued our tickets and our appearance at the waiting area, our flight had been delayed FOUR hours for maintenance issues. Regardless of the worries about what plane-work would require four hours of time and if I really wanted to get on that machine anyway, that put us very close to missing our flight out of San Francisco. Along with everyone else on that flight, we queued up at the United service desk to see what could be done. The solution was a convoluted one that entailed our bags taking a mid-morning flight to SFO out of Dulles without us and Thad and I hopping in a taxi to dash across town to catch a different DC to SFO flight from Reagan International Airport in less than an hour. With few options, we jumped in a cab and asked him to get us across town as quickly as possible, which meant taking our lives in our own hands. With seatbelts firmly buckled, we were off on a ride that would take us swerving onto the shoulder multiple times and weaving in and out of traffic as the morning sun glared through the front window. On the radio played a series of what I can only guess (and hope!) were Islamic prayers. At that point, I was willing to pray along with anyone to get to National in one piece and with a bit of time to spare.

Survive we did.

With no luggage to check and boarding passes in hand (printed by the service desk at Dulles), we headed straight for security. Shoes off. Laptops out. Pockets empty. Grab it all and go! We got to the gate with time for a quick powder room break and then onto the plane we went. Whew. We were back on track for Kuala Lumpur.

Until we hit San Francisco.

After disembarking the plane, we made our way to the gigantic electronic reader board, only to see that our flight to Hong Kong was also now delayed, but just an hour. No problem. We’d have time to grab a bite to eat, stock up on snacks and continue on the journey.

And then one hour turned into two, which rolled into a third. There was no way we were going to make our Hong Kong connection.

Back to the service desk we went.

This time though, things became more complicated, as we were changing airlines, from United to Cathay, so we didn’t yet have boarding passes and we were going to have to recheck the luggage in Hong Kong. While I guarded the backpacks, Thad sweet-talked the gate agent into coordinating with Cathay and pushing our bags on through to Kuala Lumpur and getting us a second booking, this time on the flight for the following morning, in case we didn’t make the connection. There was still a bit of confidence that we would be able to make a quick transition in Hong Kong, so we were hoping to be on-track with the original plan, but had a plan B put together, just in case.
We didn’t make the connection, by less than twenty minutes.

But, we were met at the gate by a United representative who had hotel and food vouchers in-hand, who told us not to pick up our luggage since it was booked through and who told us we had two seats on the morning flight to Kuala Lumpur.

While it wasn’t ideal, a bit of a rest day in the travel itinerary was not the end of the world. United booked us in a decent hotel that was attached to the airport, so we never had to leave the confines of the building, which turned out to be ideal since it was pouring rain the next morning. Thad, thinking ahead, had packed himself some overnight items in his carry-on bag, as we’ve traveled enough to know that on multiple leg trips, overnight is always on the table. I, on the other hand, an eternal optimist, just knew that we were going to make all of our connections and be tucked away in our new beds before I’d need a change of undies or clean socks.

Optimism failed me.

Luckily, Chinese hotels always have toothbrushes as part of the bathroom “stuff,” so while Thad was showered in an entirely new outfit as we headed back to the airport on Sunday morning, I at least had clean teeth and was smelling like a boy from the deodorant I “borrowed” from my dear husband to get me through the day.

Well rested and ready to go, we sauntered on up to the Cathay ticket counter and handed over our passports, anticipating a quick turn-around since we had no luggage in tow. We watched at as the counter attendant clicked on buttons. And then typed some more. And then looked at our passports again. And then hit a few more keys. Finally, she looked up at us and said, “But you have no reservation.”

What? United, what did you do? (Or not do?)

At this point, I still have no idea where the breakdown happened, but break-down it did. The woman in San Francisco said we were booked on that flight. The man in Hong Kong said we were booked on that flight. And yet, we were not booked on that flight.

There were lots of seats though, so soon two boarding passes whirled out of the printer. Before walking away, we double checked to make sure our bags would also make the flight. And again, she looked up at us and said, “But we have no bags for you.”

What? United, what did you do? (Or not do, again?)

Overnight our bags had disappeared. It took nearly an hour of wrangling, calls from Cathay to United, us sitting on a bench, us reminding the counter we were still waiting, more calls and then finally, bags! It sounds like United locked the bags up for safe-keeping, but then didn’t have a morning attendant to answer the calls or retrieve the bags until just minutes before our flight took off.

We wove through security (yay for not having to take your shoes off in Asian airports!) and darted through immigration (yay for a diplomatic line!), arriving at our gate in time to walk right on to the plane, which was nearly done boarding.

I flopped down in my middle of the row seat, happy to be on board for the final leg of this ridiculous journey. At this point, it was all out of our hands. We were on the last flight of our trip and we were 90% sure our bags were as well.

The math is a little tricky with time zones and datelines and all that crazy international clock manipulation, but as close as I can tell, from DC hotel to KL home, we were on the road for nearly forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours of stress, haggling with airlines, rescheduling pick-ups and just trying to make it from flight to flight. Needless to say, we are happy to be ensconced in the air conditioning of our new house, settling in for a new two year adventure.

Washington DC. San Francisco. Hong Kong. Home.

Pancakes are Essential to International Travel

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Head to any children’s section of a bookstore and you will find a whole series of books about what happens when you give fictional animals their sincerest desires. If you give a pig a pancake, there is a whole series of events that unfold because of that one generous gesture. Pig loves his pancake, but needs syrup and then gets messy and eventually needs a bath, with bubbles, of course. As the story goes along, a thread connects everything back to the initial request of pancakes. Ever wonder what would happen if that thread were suddenly cut and the Rube Goldberg machine that is Pig’s life wasn’t able to continue?

While I am not normally a superstitious person, I do have a newfound respect for a travel ritual that I seem to have taken for granted- early morning pancakes. Little did I know, just like Pig, those pancakes are the start to a series of events, which in my case lead to auspicious air travel. You see, as I was getting ready to depart Idaho this last weekend, I made the horrible mistake of eating Lucky Charms (the real thing- not even generic Marshmallow Maties!) at my parents’ house before heading out to the airport. With my belly full of fun-shaped bits of sugar and cat-food-like wheat crunchies, I had no desire to drop by the BOI McDonald’s for some flapjacks. Poor choice! I’ve stopped at that McDonald’s before every early morning flight for years, but the gods of the sky didn’t like being bypassed this time.

All went well for the first leg of my trip, lulling me into a false sense of security. My plane from Boise made the flight to San Francisco with nary a bump. On the ground at SFO, I faced the nerve-wracking to-upgrade-or-not-to-upgrade (see here for that story!), but otherwise had what I thought was an uneventful layover.

But I was wrong. It was in SFO that my problems began.

You see, after skipping the McDonald’s pancakes in Boise, I decided that I really did need to indulge in my preflight ritual, one that I can’t pander to in China since Chinese McDonald’s don’t serve pancakes. (What is that about?! They have hamburgers with mashed potatoes on them and serve cups of corn as an alternative to fries, but they can’t whip out some carb goodness first thing in the morning?) I didn’t see Ronald on the international terminal map anywhere, but the King was present, so about ten minutes before ten, I got in line to have it my way. The line was long. Too long. As I chatted with the woman in front of me, I tried to mask the horrified look on my face as I watched the worker slide the lunch menu overtop of the breakfast one, signaling the official end to breakfast at Burger King. I was just one spot away from ordering! Hoping the clerk would have pity on my poor self, I stayed in line and when it was my turn to order, tried to sneak in a breakfast platter, but was rejected faster than a Ginobili-shot in game seven of the NBA championships. Not wanting anything lunch-y at ten in the morning, I despondently wandered away from the counter, mumbling about how having it my way means pancakes at 10:02AM.

A giant M&M cookie later, I sat on the floor of SFO, blogging about my epic window-seat decision, not really thinking about the long-term repercussions of my flapjack-less travel. Things didn’t start to go bad until after I boarded the flight, when we inexplicably sat on the tarmac for an hour. (Maybe they got the message about needing to stock toilet paper on the ten-hour flight, unlike the United flight from London the day before, where cocktail napkins became TP out of necessity.)  Knowing I had a mere hour layover in Narita, my mental wheels starting turning as I leaned against the wall next to my economy class window seat. I may not be a math-person (words are SO much cooler than numbers!) but it didn’t take a lot of calculation to know that an hour layover minus an hour delay meant I would probably not be seeing my bed Sunday night.

Oh, how right I was!

Even with a United representative waiting at the gate for me and the four other passengers connecting to Chengdu, we didn’t get through security in time to make the China flight.

But alas, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Much like when the adorable Corduroy was stuck in the department store overnight, my evening became an adventure of its own. (I’m full of picture book references today! Usually my age-genre for literary allusions leans a bit more middle school.  If I could find an online degree program that focused on YA literature, I’d be signed up and taking classes in a heartbeat!)  After getting a hotel room voucher from United, through a series of trial and error (translation: pointing and gesturing) I found my way to the shuttle that would deliver me to my evening abode.

With nearly a negative amount of Japanese and no experience in the culture, I stumbled my way through checking into my hotel room, which turned out to be the perfect fit for a travel-weary, connection-missing solo flyer. (The math on the negative Japanese works out like this- all of my long-term Asia experience is in China which is, in many ways, polar opposite of Japan. That makes my starting point below neutral.)  Since my luggage was stuck at the airport overnight, I was delighted to see that my tiny (not capsule-room tiny, but petite nonetheless) was equipped with an array of soap, shampoo and conditioner, as well as a toothbrush and toothpaste. Plus, it came with jammies! That’s right. I had anticipated a night of sleeping in my jeans and tank top, but was thrilled to find a men’s dress-shirt style button-down night shirt folded up on the double bed. It was like something out of a storybook! . (Maybe this is what precipitated today’s picture book heavy post.)   Add on to that amazingly high-speed internet that was perfect for a Skype call home and vouchers for the Japanese buffet on the first floor and my unexpected layover turned out to be a tiny travel adventure in and of itself.

I am going to market a new book in the If You Give A _______ A ________ series called If You Don’t Give Michelle a Pancake. It will be non-fiction and tell the tale of a weary traveler who disregarded her own travel rituals and ended up stuck in Narita overnight because she didn’t stop for some imitation maple syrup covered pancakes grilled up by cranky teenagers working at the world’s most ubiquitous fast food chain. But, it will also include her grand (if short) adventures in a new land.

Lessons will be taught.

Lessons were learned.

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Mere Moments to Decide My Fate

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Sometimes in life we are all forced to make some big choices, knowing that the path we choose will dictate our futures, for better or for worse. At nineteen, I decided to get married, which may not seem to be the most prudent decision, but one that fifteen years later I can attest worked out just fine. Or a couple of years after that we decided to sell our home and cars and give away our adorable pot-bellied pig for a two-year stint at Peace Corps Volunteers in western China. Then there was that little choice a few years ago to walk away from my teaching career to become the terribly monikered “trailing spouse” of a US Foreign Service Officer. None of these choices was made lightly or without a good deal of research, but we don’t always have the luxury of time to think through the big ones; sometimes they are thrown at us and we are given mere moments to determine our future.

This is exactly what happened to me today. My back, bum and possibly sanity depended on a single spur of the moment decision. Standing at the United counter at SFO I had to make an on-the-spot determination that would have long-lasting (at least ten hours!) consequences: window seat in economy class or upgrade (for $140) to a middle seat in “economy plus.” Oh the pressure! There’s no time for pro/con charts, no time for color-coding and organizing information about each option, no time to assess the possible consequences of each choice on an individual basis.

Standing 5’10”, those extra six inches of legroom are tempting. But, with an extra suitcase returning with me from America, (filled with nacho cheese, hot sauce, a couple pairs of shoes and a book or two) spending more money wasn’t wasn’t inviting at all.

What’s a girl to do?

Quickly, I mentally rushed through my options as the gate attendant looked at me expectantly. Window to lean my head on for ten hours but with my knees crushed against the seat in front of me that will be unceremoniously kicked back at the first opportunity or half a foot of extra space, but stuck in an uncomfortable middle-man situation that may or may not result in actual access to the arm rests? (My personal rule is that the middle-man always gets the “shared” armrest as a tiny consolation prize for taking one for the team. Sadly, not everyone recognizes this simple karmatic alignment of air travel.)

“Ma’am, which seat would you like?”

Window! I’ll go window!

As I now sit on the floor of SFO charging my laptop before the trans-Pacific flight to Narita, I am left to question my decision. Will my back and bum make me regret not having extra space to curl my legs up in front of me mid-flight? Will I actually be able to sleep for an hour or two, propped against the wall of the plane? These are the consequences that can only be determined with time, when I unfold myself from that crammed economy seat ten hours hence.

She may not have proposed marriage or posited the possibility of moving to the other side of the world, but the United gate attendant did force a major decision with no time to really consider the good and bad of each possible option. Okay, I’ll admit that in the big scheme of things this doesn’t even qualify as a minor decision, but with nothing else to occupy my mind during my four-hour layover, I’ve had a lot of time to ponder the possible repercussions of the choice.

Window it is. Now, only time will tell…