For the first time in my whole life, I missed a flight that wasn't cancelled.
I got to the airport with 2.5 hours to spare. Or so I thought. I had to get into the lineup because I couldn't check in online. I thought it was because I was on an Air Canada code share (I bought the flights through United). The line was short but still took half an hour because most of the agents were taking their breaks at the same time. I finally got to a desk...and the woman informed me that my flight closed 20 minutes ago. What?? I thought I had gone crazy but I insisted that my flight was at 8:15 pm. No, she said, my flight was at 6:55 pm. They had changed my flight time and didn't tell me. I could still get on but I couldn't check my bag. Well, that wasn't going to work either.
Okay, deep breath. What are my options? There were no other flights that night going to San Francisco (or any other western US city). The direct flight in the morning was full up. The best she could do was send me to Vancouver at 10:55 pm tonight, arrive at 1:00 am, and then fly down to SF at 8:10 am, arriving at 10:30 am. This, I was assured, was the best option.
After getting it sorted out, and receiving $20 in food vouchers, I called my dad and my cousin to tell them the turn of events. My dad insisted that I go to the United desk and raise hell. Fine, I had nothing else to do. It was a ghost town at United. There was nobody there except for two women chatting on the side, and one of them looked like an employee. I waited until she noticed me, took a breath, then told my story. She was pretty appalled at the solution I was given, especially the fact that I wasn't offered a hotel voucher. There are laws, apparently. She got on her computer and tried to find me something better. Oh, but it wasn't United's fault that I wasn't contacted about the time change, contrary to what I was told at AC. And she couldn't give me a hotel voucher either. Another employee showed up and together they looked for flights. The best option was to stay put for the night and fly to Chicago at 6:30 am and connect there. They had flights going to SF almost every half hour, so if anything happened I wouldn't be stuck for very long. The way the AC agent set up my tickets meant that we had to go to the AC desks again, have them cancel the crazy flights they put me on, and then she could book me onto the United flights.
After we made the cancellation, we went back to the United desk. There was a black purse on the ledge and nobody around. I took a half step backwards because my night could actually take a bigger turn for the worse. The lady just opened it, looked inside (nothing unusual), then called security to pick it up (the owner showed up before security did). She booked my flights, giving me premium economy seats at no charge, and told me what to do when I came back in the morning at 4:00 (!). She also gave me instructions on how to get to Air Canada's customer service website to tell my story and see what they'll do for me. If they don't do anything, then I should contact Transport Canada and escalate it.
I called my dad and he picked me up. I was going to spend the night in Edmond's room because my old room was going to be used by my aunt from Winnipeg, who was arriving the same night for a mini high school reunion with other high school friends who were also arriving around the same time and were also being picked up by my parents. Living five minutes away from the airport has its pros and cons. Mostly pros for me, especially on this occasion.
Steve was pretty surprised to see me. He made a funny point. I had thanked the United lady, Anne Marie, profusely because she stayed overtime to help me out. She said she did it because I was nice about it and wasn't yelling and screaming. If I had started out that way, she would have said that it was her quitting time and would have left me to find someone else. I said to Steve, "See, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar." To which he replied, "Yeah, but you can probably catch even more flies with a big pile of poop."
"It's silent in the early morning, the only sound is my breathing, as I lay awake not knowing where it will be I'm going"
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