Thursday, January 07, 2010

Trains, planes & automobiles

Because of the weather, I spent a good portion of today desperately trying to get two co-workers home to Chicago from Syracuse, New York.

Lessons learned:

1) Delta's automated phone thingy is rigged. It pretends it doesn't hear you say 'representative'. Every. Fucking. Time. How do I know this? I called them five times in the course of 90 minutes and no matter how clearly I enunciated 're-pre-sen-ta-tive' the automated douchetool said "I'm sorry, I didn't hear your answer, do you want to blah di blah di blah?"

2) "That flight was ticketed by US Airways, so you'll have to contact them." - United Airlines.

3) "That flight is operated by United Airlines, so you'll have to contact them." - US Airways.

4) If the tickets you're after are no longer available on the Delta site, try Northwest.

5) Expedia and Orbitz are completely worthless in this scenario -- apparently you need to "contact the airline to book these tickets" during snowstorms.

6) There are no Amtrak trains from Milwaukee to Chicago after 7:45 pm on a Thursday.

7) Contrary to its name, Metra's Milwaukee District North Line does NOT go to/from Milwaukee.

8) If you're super duper nice, the hotel folks will cancel your just-in-case reservation without a penalty.

9) To keep your job, resist the urge to say "You're fucked!" (like the gobble-gobble car rental clerk in Trains, Planes and Automobiles) to your stranded boss and co-worker.

I finally booked these guys on the only flight out of Syracuse that wasn't cancelled.

On Delta. Via the Northwest Airlines web site.

To Milwaukee. Via Cincinnati.

Here's hoping they made it home safely tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am listening to: NBC 5 News
I am reading: Ugh - trying to get back into Eat Pray Love but haven't made it any farther than eat
And I am: Amazed it's Friday already

2 comments:

Dave said...

Just keep pushing 0, if that doesn't work, try # or *. Usually overrides the phone hell software.

Love, Mom said...

I know what you mean Hedy, last Wednesday I spent hours on the phone with Medicare, Social Security, and United Health Care. Push 1 if you want to speak in English (which really pisses me off). When I was finally done I had such a headache, and was shaking inside.