So you all know the trouble I had trying to get home AFTER Christmas…but I’m not sure how many of you know the trouble I had trying to get home FOR Christmas. But let’s rewind to October, when I was on my way back to Jacksonville after my grandfather’s funeral.
I took a bump in Charlotte and got a free round-trip ticket. Cool! I thought, what could be more perfect—I now had a free ticket to go see Tom in California when he comes home…or, when I realized I could go home for Christmas (when I wouldn’t be working at Staples), I could use the ticket to fly home! So, I called the first part of December to get my free ticket to Michigan. I didn’t worry about calling last-minute because the ticket was free—I didn’t care how much it cost! So imagine my complete and utter shock when the rep told me my ticket wasn’t good for that flight! WHAT? It’s a free round-trip ticket on US Airways?! How can it not be good? Long story short, she told me that since I took the bump on a US Airways Express leg, the free ticket was only good for a US Airways Express leg. WHAT? I tried to clarify, and she assured me that was protocol. So it was a mad rush to find a cheap ticket to Michigan!
Fast forward two months, when I find out Tom is coming home. I want to go to see him in California if at all possible, but not if I have to pay for a ticket (unless he’s going to be there a month, then I might cough up the dough)! So I research online to see about any Express flights…and of course, there are none. So, I figure I will just fly to Chicago for the weekend to see my girlfriend because I was pretty sure that was an Express flight. But just for the hell of it, I decided to call again, just to check ONE MORE TIME. And you know what the rep tells me? That my voucher is good for ANY US Airways flight!! I said “Are you sure? The last time I called, the rep said it was only good for an Express flight since that’s what I took the bump on?!” And he assured me that was not the case, and in his nine years of working there, he’d never heard that. He did say I might have trouble getting a ticket since it’s Easter and Spring Break travel times, but that my voucher was perfectly good!
OORAH! So it looks like I will be heading to California when he comes home! (I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it!!!)