My predicament was widespread - tens of thousands of travelers had their plans ruined starting Sunday and this number continues to grow rapidly with several of the world's busiest airports still closed at least through tomorrow. The number of cancelled flights is fast approaching 20,000. I personally have friends and family stuck all over the place, from San Francisco to London, waiting for airports to reopen and flights to have seats.
It might be a long wait.
That is why this was the first thing I wrote when I got home, in order to spare other travelers the pain they are now going through the next time they fly and something goes wrong. Unfortunately for the natural disaster this week, it's probably too late to get out of the current jam, and my heart goes out to all those folks currently stuck far from home.
Once the airports officially closed it was pretty much game over for even the savviest travelers, as there was no trick up your sleeve that could make a plane take you to a closed airport, and pretty much everything in the Northeast, from JFK and Newark and Philly down to Hartford was closed. But airports very, very rarely actually close, even though flights are cancelled all the time. For that reason, a small minority of the travelers who had their plans wrecked Sunday and into Monday, like me, were actually able to make some fast moves and still get home, but that window was small and for many, getting through it required help - and certainly not from the airlines.
In short, I don't know if I could have gotten home without a travel agent. I'd more than likely be sitting in Charlotte right now, doling out for yet another night in an airport hotel, waiting and hoping. After 9/11 I know someone who drove all the way across country to make it to a wedding, knowing the airports would not reopen for days. In similar fashion I considered renting a car and driving home from Charlotte, but in retrospect, that wouldn't have worked, since many of the major roads, highways, bridges and tunnels from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts were not passable.
I've written in these pages before about the importance of using a travel agent, as well as all the benefits and reason why you should, from having a better experience to saving money. I've even written about how to find a quality agent. Now here's another reason to do so - to help you when things go bad. Hurricane Sandy has been a vivid example of how quickly the air travel system can fail when things start to snowball. On a lesser scale we see this every single winter with snowstorms, plus occasional odder events like the volcanic eruptions and ash clouds that blocked much of Europe's' airspace on several recent occasions. Travelers have recently fled places like Egypt when riots and political instability came to a head. Countless things can happen, and every time you fly you are subject to the vagaries of nature, human nature and technology. Using a travel agent is one additional way to safeguard against mishaps.
Just to be clear: I am not a travel agent, I don't own stock in any travel agency, and I have nothing to gain from you using a travel agent. I tell you this for your own good, as a longtime professional traveler who too many times has seen people emotionally crashing on the airport's roller coaster of frustration and cancellation. Difficult travel situations like today's airport closures cannot always be avoided, but they can often be mitigated.
I was supposed to fly from California to Boston on Sunday morning. My flight was cancelled. I was flying United, which along with Delta is my preferred carrier, and I have Gold Elite status on United. I looked online and there were still alternatives available, so I called United's elite hotline, which bypasses the main 800 number and theoretically gets quicker service. I was on hold for 2 hours and 50 minutes when I gave up. In the meantime, I tried rebooking online at United.com as the recurring hold message kept telling me I could. But United.com wanted to rebook me for Wednesday, three days later and clearly a much worse day to travel, during or immediately after the storm rather than before it ever arrived. As it turns out, many of the airports United spent Sunday rebooking its customers to for Wednesday will not be open Wednesday, so for those travelers the horror begins anew. And I don't mean to single out United - many airlines used bad judgment to start canceling flights on Sunday, the last good travel day, and all of them had their call centers flooded (by calls, not water). Of course, there is no excuse for the huge phone delays, since everyone saw the hurricane coming and should have staffed up, but then customer service has never been a real high priority with airlines.
As everyone currently traveling knows, it is extremely frustrating when there is a solution available but you can't use it because you cannot get anyone on the phone. I could not reach anyone at United (and this was after midnight) and knew that if I took their online offer I might not get home for a week (at least) which turned out to be a pretty good assessment. Then I remembered I had used a travel agent.
This is the point at which I sheepishly admit that I don't always follow my own advice. I would not fail to use an agent for a complex trip, for something that requires a lot of advice, like a safari, or for a visit to a country I was less familiar with. But as a professional travel writer I rarely use a travel agent when simply buying a ticket, especially a domestic coach ticket - even though I should. I said as much in these pages, and I doubt I'll make the same mistake again. I usually just book my tickets at United.com or Delta.com or if I am going somewhere tricky through Kayak.com or a similar site. But this was a bit of an anomaly as I had built my trip to California around a tourism industry event, a sort of mini-conference, which in turn used a travel agency to book my ticket. After blowing three hours on hold with no end in sight I called the travel agent. Being as it was three o'clock in the morning on Sunday they did not answer immediately but after I left a message they called back.
Major airlines always have the ability to switch you to another carrier, but they are loathe to do this as it means passing your ticket revenue onto a rival. They would rather have you wait days to fly, days for which they do not have to pay your expenses if it is "weather related," and then keep the money. United certainly didn't offer me this choice online, but I felt confident that if I could speak to a representative - which I frustratingly could not do - I could convince them to book me on their Star Alliance partner US Airways, which still had flights. To make a long story short, this is what I ended up doing, booking a redeye from San Diego to Charlotte on Sunday and the first flight Monday morning to Boston. I ended up having to rebook that second flight twice after it too was canceled, but I got to Charlotte. In the end it was a change of airlines, a change of transcontinental flights, then a changed flight to Portland, Maine, then a changed flight to Albany, NY, from which I rented a car and drove 2 ? hours home. I finally did get through to United (by calling a non-reservation number and insisting on being transferred). In the end, I used a combination of the airline representatives from United and US Airways and my travel agent, I spent one extra day, with the night on the plane, and ate the rental car fee for one day. In retrospect all of this was small price to pay compared to the 3-5 nights - or more - I could easily have spent and would still be spending in a Charlotte or San Diego hotel, plus meals every day.
As I said, when things go bad, you need someone in your corner to advocate for you, someone with both knowledge and access to the reservation systems, and you certainly cannot count on the airlines, even if you are a loyal longtime regular customer. In my last story on travel agents I mentioned how they could save you money, but in this case, if you just buy a ticket from them, you will probably spend more, because many charge a fee, like $25 a ticket. Is there anyone out there who wouldn't pay an extra $25 to get to their destination rather than spending days stuck in an airport? I seriously doubt it.
I sincerely wish the best of luck to anyone flying in the next few days. Safe travels!
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