Warning: this is a whine about a “problem of privilege.” If you'll indulge me, read on.
The date is June 17. If you've read our recent blogs, this the much-anticipated and sadness imbued day of our departure from Australia. We flew down from Cairns yesterday after a fun, though rain-drenched 6 days in and around Port Douglas … Blogs on the rainforest and Great Barrier Reef to come. We stayed with our friends Beryl and Alan in Brisbane and had a good Nepali dinner, re-packed our numerous bags, and had a fitful sleep.
I woke to find emails from Fiji Air, on which we had booked business class seats from Brisbane to Nadi and then on June 28 to LAX to Seattle … tickets we had booked 9+ months ago. The emails contained travel documents for Brisbane-Sydney-LAX, all for today! Now, we were to travel with friends Robin and Bill, had booked accommodations and internal flights in Fiji, all plans cascading from an arrival this afternoon.
So, being reroute directly to LAX was a BIG problem!
I called Fiji Air and talked to an agent who had no explanation for our radically changed itinerary, who couldn't change it, and suggested I – me - call Alaska Airlines. I protested, he talked to his supervisor and then said I should call Qantas. Qantas, which had no role in our travels!
I ended up on the phone with Alaska for nearly an hour (via Skype, hoping I had enough credit and the connection wouldn't dissolve), getting a new itinerary, which would get us to Fiji today, though on Virgin Australia via Sydney. Well, fine, at least we'd get there.
So, off to the airport and the domestic terminal we rushed for a 10am departure, lugging our bevy of baggage, only to find that the Alaska agent had somehow not completed the booking. The Virgin agent couldn't ticket us, and as steam rose through my hat and Kate’s dejection deepened, we thought we were stuck.
We had texted our traveling friends to let them know we likely wouldn't get to Fiji today, not yet thinking through all the changes and added expenses we'd have to deal with. But those texts did tell us that what we had thought was a 10:15am departure on our original Fiji Air flight was actually at 11:30am. We quickly hefted our bags to the shuttle bus, as that flight was out of the international terminal, a ways away.
At the Fiji desk we found some very helpful folks who (we hope!) repaired our itinerary … and our psyches! Though not in the business seats we'd anticipated, I am writing from seats on the direct flight we originally booked as we descend to Nadi.
God, I need a drink!
The date is June 17. If you've read our recent blogs, this the much-anticipated and sadness imbued day of our departure from Australia. We flew down from Cairns yesterday after a fun, though rain-drenched 6 days in and around Port Douglas … Blogs on the rainforest and Great Barrier Reef to come. We stayed with our friends Beryl and Alan in Brisbane and had a good Nepali dinner, re-packed our numerous bags, and had a fitful sleep.
I woke to find emails from Fiji Air, on which we had booked business class seats from Brisbane to Nadi and then on June 28 to LAX to Seattle … tickets we had booked 9+ months ago. The emails contained travel documents for Brisbane-Sydney-LAX, all for today! Now, we were to travel with friends Robin and Bill, had booked accommodations and internal flights in Fiji, all plans cascading from an arrival this afternoon.
So, being reroute directly to LAX was a BIG problem!
I called Fiji Air and talked to an agent who had no explanation for our radically changed itinerary, who couldn't change it, and suggested I – me - call Alaska Airlines. I protested, he talked to his supervisor and then said I should call Qantas. Qantas, which had no role in our travels!
I ended up on the phone with Alaska for nearly an hour (via Skype, hoping I had enough credit and the connection wouldn't dissolve), getting a new itinerary, which would get us to Fiji today, though on Virgin Australia via Sydney. Well, fine, at least we'd get there.
So, off to the airport and the domestic terminal we rushed for a 10am departure, lugging our bevy of baggage, only to find that the Alaska agent had somehow not completed the booking. The Virgin agent couldn't ticket us, and as steam rose through my hat and Kate’s dejection deepened, we thought we were stuck.
We had texted our traveling friends to let them know we likely wouldn't get to Fiji today, not yet thinking through all the changes and added expenses we'd have to deal with. But those texts did tell us that what we had thought was a 10:15am departure on our original Fiji Air flight was actually at 11:30am. We quickly hefted our bags to the shuttle bus, as that flight was out of the international terminal, a ways away.
At the Fiji desk we found some very helpful folks who (we hope!) repaired our itinerary … and our psyches! Though not in the business seats we'd anticipated, I am writing from seats on the direct flight we originally booked as we descend to Nadi.
God, I need a drink!
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