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The Sunday after Last Friday
Jan. 7th, 2024 10:46 pmLast Friday, there was an Incident that resulted in the first voluntary and partial and then mandatory and total grounding of a bunch of planes. Unfortunately, that’s the equipment listed for a flight I booked some friends on in February. I didn’t think of that right away. First, I didn’t hear about the incident until the early afternoon on Saturday. I didn’t think of it in terms of any effect on me until later in the afternoon on Saturday, when I drew back from booking an Alaska flight for friends in April. And then I thought, wait, what about that February thing.
*sigh*
So nothing really happened on Saturday. But today, I woke up with an Idea. And the idea is basically, it sucks that I can’t get the February tickets refunded to original form of payment, only a credit. Sure, I will eventually use the credit, but still. But what I _could_ do was buy backup tickets on Delta _fully refundable_, and extra hotel time to make that all work out. So I did, being very careful to make sure that everything could be canceled very close to departure date. Now I don’t need to worry about having to scramble last minute. Yay. I scrambled early instead.
For the April thing, my friend decided to accept my alternate proposal, so I also booked that.
This was surprisingly difficult. I mean, obviously, over the previous several years, I had to cancel and use credits and rebook and wtf for a wide variety of reasons. But this was harder, because it wasn’t that I _wanted_ or anyone _wanted_ to cancel. It’s that we were worried the airline was _going_ to cancel, and that it would be incredibly difficult to rebook at that point in time. (ETA: Who am I kidding. _I_ am worried that the airline is going to cancel. My friends did not even entertain the idea until I brought it to their attention.) I don’t know that I have ever, in my entire life, had to worry about that. We’ve probably hit a point in capacity utilization on airplanes that is some sort of peak. If the customer has to worry about booking a backup plan because waiting until the last minute to do that means they are absolutely fucked, you have probably not left enough wiggle room in the system.
Anyway. It’s done. I’m back to thinking about next winter holiday travel, which let me tell you is a much more fun project than this nightmare. I’m super excited to get to hang out with my friends in February and April, but honestly, that shit should have been all planned and just sitting there waiting for implementation months ago. I shouldn’t have to be worrying about it now.
Also! Because of when Christmas 2024 occurs, I’m thinking we get a bit earlier start on our winter holidays and a bit more time in total as a result. I’m hoping to add a leg on the Brightline over to the coast to see MIL in her new digs.
*sigh*
So nothing really happened on Saturday. But today, I woke up with an Idea. And the idea is basically, it sucks that I can’t get the February tickets refunded to original form of payment, only a credit. Sure, I will eventually use the credit, but still. But what I _could_ do was buy backup tickets on Delta _fully refundable_, and extra hotel time to make that all work out. So I did, being very careful to make sure that everything could be canceled very close to departure date. Now I don’t need to worry about having to scramble last minute. Yay. I scrambled early instead.
For the April thing, my friend decided to accept my alternate proposal, so I also booked that.
This was surprisingly difficult. I mean, obviously, over the previous several years, I had to cancel and use credits and rebook and wtf for a wide variety of reasons. But this was harder, because it wasn’t that I _wanted_ or anyone _wanted_ to cancel. It’s that we were worried the airline was _going_ to cancel, and that it would be incredibly difficult to rebook at that point in time. (ETA: Who am I kidding. _I_ am worried that the airline is going to cancel. My friends did not even entertain the idea until I brought it to their attention.) I don’t know that I have ever, in my entire life, had to worry about that. We’ve probably hit a point in capacity utilization on airplanes that is some sort of peak. If the customer has to worry about booking a backup plan because waiting until the last minute to do that means they are absolutely fucked, you have probably not left enough wiggle room in the system.
Anyway. It’s done. I’m back to thinking about next winter holiday travel, which let me tell you is a much more fun project than this nightmare. I’m super excited to get to hang out with my friends in February and April, but honestly, that shit should have been all planned and just sitting there waiting for implementation months ago. I shouldn’t have to be worrying about it now.
Also! Because of when Christmas 2024 occurs, I’m thinking we get a bit earlier start on our winter holidays and a bit more time in total as a result. I’m hoping to add a leg on the Brightline over to the coast to see MIL in her new digs.