Leaving on a jet plane...well....maybe....

So last Sunday we went to the Fair and then I drove Alan to the airport. We had to look up the gate and all that en route as we'd forgotten to do it before going to the Fair. We get to DFW and I head for the wrong gate (even though we'd looked it up minutes before!). We FINALLY manage to get to the right place, get into the airport and get ready to check him in. We scan his passport at the kiosk and it directs us to an agent. We figured since it was going across the ocean they wanted to double check and went on up.

The lady looks over the ticket, punches a few keys and informs us the intinerary is no good. Remember how I flew Alan in on American the Saturday before?! Well, according to the fine print at the bottom of the page when you book a ticket (you know, the stuff NO ONE reads?!) it says that if you don't fly every leg of your intinerary, it cancels the ENTIRE thing. Basically, Alan had NO flight home. They sweetly offered to sell us a one way ticket for the same flights that were on his original ticket for $1400. That's $1000 more than the original round trip ticket!

I was pretty irritated by this point: with myself and the airline. We chose to call customer service and try to get the ticket back. I talked to 2 people low on the customer service totem pole who were very upset that this would happen and tried all they could to help. They then, of course, had to transfer us to a supervisor. This woman got an attitude with me and basically refused to do anything. Finally I told her thank you and hung up.

We then decided to go back to Mom and Dad's to use the internet because it costs at DFW. On our way back, my wonderful sister called a pilot friend of her's who suggested we look into lastminutetravel.com

This website is wonderful! We found a ticket for $450 that left the next morning! (There was actually one that left that night, but it got in later than the one leaving Monday morning). We quickly booked it, took a huge sigh of relief and went to get Starbucks. We sat around with Dad, watched TV, made dinner plans and just enjoyed the fact that we were getting to spend a bit more time together. About the time we needed to leave for dinner we realized we'd never gotten a confirmation email concerning the ticket so we got online to check. We then found out that because we'd used a foreign credit card, the transaction had been rejected. Augh!!!!!!!!

So, we headed for dinner. When we arrived, I stayed outside and called American Airlines to try and book through them. Found out they couldn't accept foreign cards over the phone so we tried to do it online, but I couldn't find the right flights. Finally I gave up for the moment and ate dinner. (We ate at Buffalo WildWings and T drew an awesome pic for Alan of him with his suitcase, me, and T!)

When we finished eating we headed back home and then I called American again and we booked the ticket on Allison's credit card because it's the right nationality! Then, for real, he FINALLY had a new flight home.

We stayed up talking, enjoying the extra night Continental had given us. The next morning we got up and got ready and headed to the airport, somewhat prayerfully - hoping nothing would go wrong! We had some trouble getting checked in, but he got checked in and had boarding pass in hand. We sat together for a bit more, and then off he went through security.

I must admit it was almost nice to see him go through security, just because he had a ticket and a way home! However, it was, as always, sad to see him go!

Just as notes of interest:
His flight from DFW to JFK went smoothly. Due to heavy rain his flight out of JFK was a bit delayed and he landed an hour late in Shannon. He then had to drive straight to work in Tubbercurry (which is 3 hours from Shannon). He got there, his boss took one look at him and basically sent him back home on the premis of an errand. I left the airport and went to work...