robb

Bear with me, this is my first trip report, but I had a lot of unique little things in which I thought others might be intersted. This is perhaps the longest trip report ever submitted, and I think you actually can claim 1 Mileage Plus mile for reading the whole thing. I've broken it into 3 parts.

This first one is all of the prelude to the travel, but there's a lot of new things I came across here, so take a look,

THE BACKGROUND
Trying to be a college student, a telecommuting IT Director, and a reasonably attentive spouse/partner has a nunmber of challenges, but none are as great as the competition for semester break times.

I thought I had worked everything out this August by combining a 3-day project with my boss, dedicated project design time for myself, and a vacation all rolled into a 2 week trip to LA.

After I had booked it, I mentioned it to my boyfriend to find out when to book his tickets and he said something offhand and joking like "Oh, you mean we're not going to Paris?" So, I get off the phone, and with my ADD impulsivity in full swing...


THE LAST MINUTE BOOKING
...I call the Premier International desk to find out if I can get an award Business Class Seat for him and an upgradeable seat for me to Paris. I hadn't mentioned this to Bill since I figured that there was absolutely no hope of getting us to Paris in August in Business Class with only 3 weeks notice on a saver award. Oh, yeah, we also had very little flexibility in our dates.

However, I got the BEST agent <IMG SRC="http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starsmilie.gif"> I've ever gotten in my life and she spent over an hour with me trying to find the right gateways and origins (remember, I'm in LA, and Bill is in Houston). She finds me an $1100 upgradeable fare if I move my trip up 1 day, and fly to London instead of Paris. I won't mention her name here because while I want to send UA Corp a letter about her great service, I don't want to get her in trouble by mentioning that she spent over an hour on the phone with one customer.

So, I'm sold, the only downside is that my scheduled meeting with my boss and the one day change in the trip mean that I don't have time to move my LA return back so that i can leave from Houston. So, I'm routed LAX - ORD - LHR and back, with LAX - IAH to follow the next day. Bill is scheduled for IAH - ORD - LHR and back and we connect to the same international leg.

The moral of this section is to never say never, and try your angels or just try your luck to find a great agent who can make the impossible happen for you. We were really lucky to have found this one.


SCARY CANCELLATION #1
Unfortunately, her follow-through and accuracy didn't match her service skills. She did tell me that since my partner has a different last name that I would have to sign over the miles to get him his ticket. Since I live 100 miles from a UA ticket counter, I asked her by when I had to do this, hoping it could wait until I flew to LA. She said that it could be done anytime up until departure.

WRONG!

I happened to be checking my Mileage Plus Account online the following week and I saw that the miles for his ticket had been returned to my account. Figuring UA wasn't just giving me a free flight, I called and they said his itinerary had cancelled since I hadn't signed over the miles within a week. YIKES! Fortunately, the inventory was still available, but if I hadn't quite accidentally noticed this, he would have shown up at the airport, bags packed, and had no ticket waiting for him.

I don't know how the airline would handle this, but I'm pretty sure it would involve coach, so I don't want to find out.

Moral of this section: Follow Up constantly and through multiple channels until you have proof in your hands that you are actually being given a seat as expected.


SCARY CANCELLATION #2
The agent and airline also had another followup problem. I paid for my ticket on the phone with the original agent. She told me that there was a problem with my credit card and we confirmed the address and she made a change and told me it went through.

WRONG!

I had checked and I wasn't seeing the charge come through on my card. I called a few times to follow-up (See moral above), and was told that "Detroit" was very far behind and probably wouldn't charge it and ticket it until the week before I travelled. This all sounded very strange to me, since the airline couldn't possibly be giving interest-free loans to it's customers by only chraging them at the last minute.

The day before my trip to L.A. I called again and got an agent who said my card was being declined and that was why it hadn't been ticketed. Yet again, no one was going to tell me (even when asked direct questions), and I would have shown up at the airport, bags packed and found no ticket waiting for me.

I conferenced in my bank to find out why it wasn't going through and after about 10 minutes it was figured out that a debit card has a $1000 per day limit and that was what was being exceeded, not my balance. Did anyone out there know this? I certainly didn't. I gave a different card and the agent then told me that they would mail the tickets the next day.

Mail??!!?? I was leaving for L.A. the next day, and I was just finding out that the agents with their Detroit stories also hadn't mentioned that it was logged as a paper ticket and I would have to wait to have it mailed to me. This agent was able to change it to an E-Ticket and I was finally on my way.

Moral: Who knows, just don't show up at the airport, bags packed without having checked 1000 times that you're going to be let on the plane. Don't take Yes for an answer, keep checking. Also, make note of this debit card feature as it was a new one for me.

Next, Getting to Paris

Edited to post link.

[This message has been edited by robb (edited 08-26-2001).]