Dull(es) Airport
Instead of paying an expensive ticket to Toronto or Montreal, I decided to book a cheaper ticket to Boston for my Canada trip. After all, I wanted to visit some more places in New England and renting a car in the US is also much cheaper than in Canada. Unfortunatetely enough, there was no direct flight to Boston and we had to fly via Washington DC. No big deal, I thought, until our connecting flight got cancelled and we got stuck at Dulles Airport. I am never going for the cheap option anymore. I don`t care if the flight ticket is 300 euro more expensive, next time I`ll fly straight to my destination.
There were heavy storm in Boston and the airport was temporarily closed, so all flight to Boston were first delayed and later cancelled. We did get on a plane though, but after waiting for more than 90 minutes ON the plane, we had to return to the gate, as the crew decided they did not want to wait until they got an OK to fly out. There are strict 12hour working rules for pilots or something and United Airlines could not get another crew to replace them. So there we were at back at the gate, getting in line at the Customer Service desk of UA.
It was late (12pm) and there had been cancellations/delays for the entire day, so I do understand that the Customer Service agents got fed up with rescheduling and disappointing passengers, but still.. We had been up for more than 24 hours, still smiling, still not shouting, still trying to see the `fun` part of it, and of course the Customer Agent we finally get in front of us, just is the worst employee ever. My god, I really had to calm myself not to lash out at her, as she was the most incompetent person I have ever met in my life. Although, come to think of it, Rani who was my `assistant`in San Francisco, still holds that title. But anyways. This woman, was BAD. She almost fell asleep typing things on the computer and never once tried to think with us for a solution. She gave us wrong information, didn`t know shit, promised us things that couldn`t be done. etc... But the worst thing was that she never smiled or even cared. God I hate people like that, especially since I always try to be so positive and come up with alternative solutions. Experiences like this makes you think why I bother really...
There were no more flight to Boston, so we wanted to fly to Portland as that was our second stop on this trip. We did get a seat on the Portland flight, but that did not really help us much. The problem was that our luggage was going to fly out on the first available flight to Boston. Miss Incompetence assured us that it would be sent to Portand. But that turned out to be impossible (after consulting more competent people). We also had to pick up our rental car in Boston as we could not change the pick up location. So the new plan was to fly to portland, stay overnight there, rent a car and drive to Boston next day, pick up the luggage at the airport and the reserved rental car and go straight to Quebec. It was really something to look forward to. We had to cancel our Boston hotel reservation and we spent the night in hotel near the airport. Truth be told: we slept like roses in the Sheraton in Reston, Virginia, which we could book at a very cheap rate.
I thought of visiting Washington as we were so close by and had to wait a long long time before flying out to Portland, but my sister thought it was better to go to the airport and check on the luggage (which indeed was sent to Boston and would stay there until we picked it up) and the rental car (which apparently could no longer be picked up a day too late). A nice Customer Service agent put our names to the standby list, but stressed out that the chances were small that we would get to Boston that day. So we waited and waited and waited. We couldn`t get on the 12pm flight, not on the 1pm flight, neither on the 2pm and 3pm... We really lost hope and started a marathon manille card game competition, until we finally heard our names. YES! We could get on the 5pm flight... You have no idea how happy we were.
The flight to Boston was fine. The luggage was there. We got our rental car after a long debate and a long wait in line (+ 90 minutes). We headed to Portland and made it before midnight. We found the hotel in no time and just crashed to sleep.
There were heavy storm in Boston and the airport was temporarily closed, so all flight to Boston were first delayed and later cancelled. We did get on a plane though, but after waiting for more than 90 minutes ON the plane, we had to return to the gate, as the crew decided they did not want to wait until they got an OK to fly out. There are strict 12hour working rules for pilots or something and United Airlines could not get another crew to replace them. So there we were at back at the gate, getting in line at the Customer Service desk of UA.
It was late (12pm) and there had been cancellations/delays for the entire day, so I do understand that the Customer Service agents got fed up with rescheduling and disappointing passengers, but still.. We had been up for more than 24 hours, still smiling, still not shouting, still trying to see the `fun` part of it, and of course the Customer Agent we finally get in front of us, just is the worst employee ever. My god, I really had to calm myself not to lash out at her, as she was the most incompetent person I have ever met in my life. Although, come to think of it, Rani who was my `assistant`in San Francisco, still holds that title. But anyways. This woman, was BAD. She almost fell asleep typing things on the computer and never once tried to think with us for a solution. She gave us wrong information, didn`t know shit, promised us things that couldn`t be done. etc... But the worst thing was that she never smiled or even cared. God I hate people like that, especially since I always try to be so positive and come up with alternative solutions. Experiences like this makes you think why I bother really...
There were no more flight to Boston, so we wanted to fly to Portland as that was our second stop on this trip. We did get a seat on the Portland flight, but that did not really help us much. The problem was that our luggage was going to fly out on the first available flight to Boston. Miss Incompetence assured us that it would be sent to Portand. But that turned out to be impossible (after consulting more competent people). We also had to pick up our rental car in Boston as we could not change the pick up location. So the new plan was to fly to portland, stay overnight there, rent a car and drive to Boston next day, pick up the luggage at the airport and the reserved rental car and go straight to Quebec. It was really something to look forward to. We had to cancel our Boston hotel reservation and we spent the night in hotel near the airport. Truth be told: we slept like roses in the Sheraton in Reston, Virginia, which we could book at a very cheap rate.
I thought of visiting Washington as we were so close by and had to wait a long long time before flying out to Portland, but my sister thought it was better to go to the airport and check on the luggage (which indeed was sent to Boston and would stay there until we picked it up) and the rental car (which apparently could no longer be picked up a day too late). A nice Customer Service agent put our names to the standby list, but stressed out that the chances were small that we would get to Boston that day. So we waited and waited and waited. We couldn`t get on the 12pm flight, not on the 1pm flight, neither on the 2pm and 3pm... We really lost hope and started a marathon manille card game competition, until we finally heard our names. YES! We could get on the 5pm flight... You have no idea how happy we were.
The flight to Boston was fine. The luggage was there. We got our rental car after a long debate and a long wait in line (+ 90 minutes). We headed to Portland and made it before midnight. We found the hotel in no time and just crashed to sleep.
posted by That Guy From Flanders at 7:58 PM
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