for some reason, the travel gods have blessed me with smooth travels my whole life.
i have flown hundreds and hundreds of times – to almost every state (minus the northeast and northwest corners) and to several foreign countries – and i have never lost a piece of luggage or suffered any inconvenience, sans a few weather or other delays.
i have never even imagined i would reach across a ticketing counter to punch someone.
but i almost did.
(almost).
this weekend was great. i flew into alabama, drove to atlanta, hung out with ragamuffinsoul and whittakerwoman, even ended up crashing on their couch friday night because it was too stormy to trek three hours back to alabama. i was in my friend lynse’s wedding, spent some great time talking to boomama, slept in, went to the airport, checked in for my flight home and…
no ticket is available.
um, i’m sorry?
i proceeded to the woman at the american airlines ticketing counter who also confirmed i had no flight home.
my confirmation number on my blackberry will prove you wrong.
she looks again. nope. gone.
evidently, a few weeks ago when i had called to bump my arrival flight up several hours, the reservations “specialist” forgot to re-confirm my flight home.
and thus it disappeared.
the woman got her supervisor, who got her supervisor. they told me to call reservations to straighten it out. i did. the lady on the phone confirmed the things i already knew and told me to work it out with the ticket counter.
so, back to the ticket counter i went.
however, in the 30 seconds it took for me to walk back, the most recent reservations “specialist” put my ticket back into the system.
(please note that my flight, at this time, had just departed).
a lady in a red sweater told to call another 800 number to work it out.
i said no. you fix your mistake. not me.
the next ticket counter agent (and i suppose the queen bee of them all, sporting a different blue sweater than the rest) said she saw my ticket in the system, and told me now that there was not a problem. i had simply just missed my flight.
excuse me?
there was nothing they could do but put me on the standby list with the other 837 standby customers for the next flight, six hours later.
she literally scolded me as if it were my fault.
it was at this point i jumped over the counter and began screaming obscenities.
ok, not really. but i was fiercely twittering my frustration (whilst forgetting my tattoo that says “grace” ever-so-visible on my wrist).
the previous ticket counter agent told her that there was, indeed, a problem, and the blue-sweater-queen-bee grumpily agrued with her a while. i kept twittering.
finally, blue-sweater-queen-bee went to another phone to fix it. twenty minutes later, she printed out some boarding passes for the next flight, and without a single apology handed me my tickets.
most of you don’t know me. i do not get angry. it is a very rare occurrence when i do. i probably did not handle this situation with as much grace and tact as i should have.
bobby already has a contract he has made with himself to never fly american.
i can now see why.
accept responsibility for your mistakes. apologize. perhaps even try to redeem yourself with a meal voucher or upgrade or something.
and as long as i can help it, i will avoid you, american-airlines-devil-people.
your worst travel story?
