Originally Posted by UAduJour

Had a problem, of all places, in YVR. I decided to actually fulfill my NW FD; to get back, I booked a MR ex-YVR, through SFO, to HNL, then back to LAX. When I got to YVR, there were tons of Chinese wearing masks trying to clear Customs. Then there's me and my flightmates who flew on the CRJ700 from LAX to YVR. Then behind us, Mexicana passengers. The Mexicans and the Chinese were pointing at each other (this happened just after the Chinese quarantined all Mexican nationals after one of them came down with H1N1). Anyway, I digress. After what seemed to be hours of standing in line, I had about 20 minutes before my flight to SFO departed. The Canadian Border Lady grilled me for over 5 minutes -- saying ridiculous things like "I've never seen anybody fly just to get miles." She finally let me go, and of course, I had to clear US customs (yes, they have a US section in YVR, so you have to clear the US hawks as well). I of course didn't fill out a customs form, and the US officer yelled at me and told me to go to the back and fill one out. He also said "don't come back to my line, go to line #8" OK. By this time, I had maybe 10 minutes before the plane's doors closed, so I grabbed the blue form, ran to line #8, started filling it out, and the lady controlling line #8 yelled at me and told me to complete the form in the back, and not in the line. Grrr. OK, so I ran to the back, completed the damn thing, and when I got back in her line, I asked a couple in front of me if I could go before them because my flight is getting ready to close. They obliged. I moved in front of them, and dragon lady #8 yelled at me again and said "either go to the back of the line, or go back to whatever line you came from to begin with." Jeez. The couple mumbled to me that some people put on a uniform and start believing they control the world. Not wanting to put my YVR/SFO/HNL/LAX MR in jeopardy, I sucked it up, and moved to the back. When it was my turn, she began questioning the GVA MR I had just completed the day before. I wondered if she was allowed to do that. So I said "I'm just trying to earn miles..." to which she responded "that's a total waste of time and money." She then proceeded to ask me where I came from, where I was going, and so forth. When she realized that I came from LAX to YVR and was planning on going to SFO then HNL and back to LAX, she became more illogical. She asked me if I enjoyed the lifestyle in SFO. ... is that supposed to mean?!?!? At this point I wanted to go postal on her, but I had a mission to complete, and I just gave her the dumb look. Figuring that I wouldn't take her bait, she then stamped --get this-- on top of my GVA stamps. Yes sir, she stamped twice -- once on my GVA arrival stamp, and once on my GVA departure stamp. She then flicked the passport back to me so hard that if I hadn't caught it, it would have taken off back towards the line. Still steaming from the condescension, I tried to clear the xray machines as fast as I could, but of course, they too held me up. The xray operators were curious about my laptop lock cable. As if they've never seen one before. Finally, I strapped on my backpack really tight, and ran like I was running the 800 meters in high school. Ran through the horizontal people-movers, mini-hurdled some idiot's luggage which he opened on the walkway as he searched for lord-knows-what, and got to my gate many minutes later. Gate lady was calling all seating areas at this time, and I was so relieved. The flight was delayed 10 minutes, and that made all the difference in the world. As I boarded, I wondered what would have happened if I had missed my flight: would I have had to spend the night in Vancouver? Does that mean talking to Maple Leaf Border hawks again, on my way out of the airport, and US hawks again the next day? What would happen with my MR itinerary? Anyway, I made my SFO flight, got to HNL, went to the RCC for some of their passion fruit juice, and ultimately boarded my flight back to LAX. Once I got back I started pondering how much $$ did my FD to the NW save. Then I weighed that against the sub-human treatment I got from the Canadian and US border hawks. Well, this much I concluded: Moving forward, I will prick the hell out of the NW without any guilt whatsoever. And, I will happily ignore the orphan segment. Unless I have a very compelling reason to visit Vancouver, I will steer clear of that inferno.