Home for the Holidays

I feel the need to share the horror of my holiday travels, and I will strive to make it concise, as the experience was anything but concise. I was planning on flying to Boise to visit my family for Christmas on Sunday, December 21st at 11:55am. My flight was delayed twice, and then canceled. I spoke with the Alaska airline representative and she got me a boarding pass for a 7:40pm flight later that day and on standby for an afternoon flight. The first flight was canceled, then I found out around 6pm that all of that day's flights were canceled. Then I stood in line for around 45 minutes to talk to a representative about getting out the next day before an extremely unhelpful man told me that you can only be put on standby for same day flights and the first flight not fully booked was Christmas day. Crying and telling him that my dad has cancer did nothing.

So then I went to retrieve my checked bag, they told me that all of the bags that were supposed to go to Boise were sitting in a row, that they weren't done unloading them yet, and that it might take as long as 2 and a half hours to finish. Of course, my bag was not there. I asked if I could come back the next day for it, and they told me that they had no place to lock up all those bags, they might send it to Boise without me, I might not see it for a week. So I waited. A half hour later, they said that all the bags had been unloaded (they had only unloaded about 15 bags in this time) and that if your bag was not there to go to the baggage claim office to file a claim. So I went to the office, and the office is filled with bags! And sure enough, my bag is there! Of course, I was glad that my bag wasn't missing, but why couldn't someone have told me to check there from the beginning!!

So my uncle kindly picked me up from the airport and I stayed the night at their house which is much closer to the airport than mine. My uncle took me back to the airport the next morning. I waited in a line for people who needed to reschedule their flights for 3 hours. When I finally talked to someone, they put me on standby for 2 flights, they told me I was #8 in line. I went through security, and waited as the time for the flights grew closer. Eventually I went up to talk to a representative to see if I was still #8 and found out I was now #31 and had been bumped by MVPs, MVP Golds, and other people who are more important than me for various reasons. I started to cry and told the lady that my dad has cancer, she winked at me and asked if I would like to talk to her supervisor. So of course I said yes. The supervisor came up, I explained everything to her, and she said they would do everything they could. They said 20 people had not checked in for the flight yet, and they got me a boarding pass for it. That flight was also canceled. I got put #5 in standby for the next one. And finally, finally, I was called and the flight went!!! I talked to so many people so desperate to get to places, and I really hope everyone got out of there, because I felt so badly for everyone. It ended up being about a 16 hour ordeal, and I am so thankful to God that I am home for Christmas!!