That's prison hostel. Not prison. Although I imagine that would make for a better story. The first part, until I got ready for my first flight, does not have any pictures but is rather my account of how hard it was to book my ticket and check in. (Actual Trip starts Next Post)

This is my first trip report so I will try to do it as clear as possible.

BACKGROUND:

About me: Love flying, love talking about it, that is after all why I'm on these boards. However as a grad student with relative little income, my flights are very limited - once a year if I'm lucky, although I had a job interview in Houston this year that boosted my miles a little bit. I've flown through star alliance since I first heard about Aegean Airlines low threshold. When I flew to Houston after achieving star silver status, it made all the world. Priority boarding, free checked bags, and upgraded (to E+ and exit row seats). I decided for X-mas I would ask for an international flight as I will hopefully have one more upcoming trip, and that should put me at the 16,000 mile threshold. Flying from pretty much anywhere in Michigan, I had the best options in terms of cost from either MBS (Saginaw) or FNT (Flint). Saginaw had a routing through Chicago and Amsterdam, and that seemed kind of boring. Through FNT I had CLE, EWR, and OSL on the way out, including 10 hours in OSL. OSL-ARN was on SAS, which I've never flown, so for me this was the easy choice. I was able to book the ticket in October, but not without problems. With this being said, this was the beginning of my first ever international trip (sans Cancun when I was 14; hardly international).


Booking Problems:

I've never flown internationally, which goes with out saying that I've never bought tickets for an international flight. Going through the wonderful United.com, I was pretty sure that it would be no different than buying a flight from Flint to Detroit. The wonderful thing about alliances, after all, is that you can book partners on the same itinerary seamlessly. I'm planning to go over Christmas break, and it works out the best leaving Christmas day and coming back a week later. So the routing I had was FNT-CLE-EWR-OSL-ARN and back ARN-EWR-CLE-FNT. All flights operated by United (commutair dba United express for FNT) except for the single OSL-ARN operated by SAS.

When I selected the flights, put in all my information, and finally got to checkout, my dad gave me his credit card to use (X-mas present), and I put the information in. It was a Visa card, and had never been used for online purchases, so I was greeted with a lovely Verified by Visa experience. Filling out everything, and tring to finish the purchase, I get a nice error screen saying that the purchase didn't work. "Probably timed out," I thought.

So go through United.com again, re-enter ALL my information, go to the seat selections and...my previous seats I had selected are greyed out. "Ok, maybe the system just needs a second to reset..." get to pay, put in the information, put in the Verified by Visa information and........error.


One more try. Enter all the information. Pick seats. New seats greyed out as well this time. Enter payment information......payment declined.

Now my father and I are starting to get upset. I'm trying to convince him that United hasn't billed him three times at this point. But I have no confirmation emails, and the seats keep getting greyed out, and the "X seats remaining at this price" has gone down by 1 every time. A phone call to United puts us on hold for 30 minutes. We call the credit card company to make sure we haven't been billed, and we have not. I have to make a three hour drive back to school so I leave without the tickets booked.

The next day I'm back on United. Down to just "3 tickets left at this price!" And my seats are still greyed out. This is right before United removed the pay by phone method, so I was able to book the reservation without paying and get a free hold for 24 hours and a reservation number, so I at least had something to work with.

So here is part of the problem too. Since a single leg of the flight was operated by SAS, United.com can't actually confirm the flights. You have to purchase tickets and wait for confirmation (although you aren't billed until that) - Why have an alliance at that point? I thought with an alliance this would all be integrated. After phoning United, giving them my hold reservation number, they were able to (after talking with SAS apparently) confirm there were seats available on the flight, and were able to book me on the flights. Ok, hard part finally done. I should have left it at that, but over the next 24 hours I couldn't stop thinking about the flight.

I had an awesome route, would get to checkout Norway, but couldn't help but think I could get a couple extra miles flying back a different route. I was very flexible with my dates, and flying in Discounted Economy (earns 50% on Aegean), I started messing around.

After stumbling across a couple threads, I decided it would be cool to see what it would have cost to fly a 747, 380, or 787 back somehow. I ended up finding that, starting in January, there was supposed to be a 787 service from AMS-IAH. After going around on United.com, for an extra $67, I was able to get this routing on the way home:

(Jan 2) ARN-ZRH-AMS
(Jan 3) -IAH-CLE-FNT

All for an extra $60! The ARN-ZRH was operated by SAS and the ZRH-AMS by Edelweiss Air dba Swiss (I think). That sounded amazing! Being as I was within the 24 hour period, I made a mock reservation which couldn't be booked, because flights would need to be confirmed through Edelweiss and SAS. Furthermore since I was already confirmed on the original OSL-ARN flight, when I was on the phone with United, there was an issue coming up because I was already confirmed on that flight and confirming me again was a big mess.

I ended up after 2 hours on the phone with them saying "You know what, I have my flights, I'm just going to leave it at that." Come to find out the 787 would eventually be swapped out with a 767-400 ER due to the ongoing 787 issues. Anyways, nothing to do now but wait 2 months.


CHECK IN (More Problems!)

My First flight was scheduled to leave Flint at 1:42 pm Christmas Day, so at T-24 I was ready to check in. Being Star Silver, I was ready to check in so I could upgrade my seats to E+.

Now you see, when I had flown to IAH after getting Star Silver status, here is what happened. The company I was interviewing with had purchased my ticket the night before so I didn't pick out my seat or check in or anything.

GRR-IAH - Asked the gate agent if there were any window seats available. Tells me "Oh, you're silver, I can put you in the exit row window seat". Nice I thought. Connecting in Chicago, I walk up to the counter and ask again, if I can get put in a window seat again. "Sorry Hun, none open. But let me put you in the bulkhead E+ row, you are after all silver."

So I was thinking, wow, this is amazing. My Silver Status gets me free checked bag, priority boarding, AND e+/exit row seats. This is absolutely wonderful!

I get to check in on my phone, since I'm trying to have my pass added through the iPhones passbook system. I try selecting the e+ window seats but they insist on charging me...lame! Probably a computer problem. I keep my seats but check in and.........error. Can't complete check-in because I need "passport verification"

Having never flown internationally, I suppose I can't argue with this. My information probably needs to be entered in the system. But it's christmas eve, church is coming up, and I really want to get my e+ window seat. I decide to make the 15 minute drive over to nearby MBS airport (I live in Saginaw). My flight was leaving from Flint, 30 miles away, but I figure my information just needs to be entered into United's system.

I get to MBS. Explain my situation to the United agent. After about 10 minutes of trying, tells me there is nothing he can really do because my flight leaves from Flint. I'm a little upset, I think that's stupid, but I suppose I understand.

It's about 3pm at this time. Church starts at 5pm. It's the only day of the year I (and my immediate family) goto Church. I mine as well leave it and just show up extra early tomorrow to Flint.

Except I REALLY want those exit seats. I'm crazy, and I consider driving to Flint and back. But I realize I probably wouldn't make church (at least the start)...I contemplate the idea in my head several times on my drive back. I'm going to do this. However I'm in "street" clothes. I could show up to church in that, but, it's once a year, I can do better. I stop over to my grandmas. Run in. Grab my dress clothes, explain much to her dismay what I'm doing, and book it for Flint. I call up my brother who agrees to pick up my grandmother and take her to church at 4. We have to hold seats!

So I have two hours to make it from Saginaw to Flint (about a 45 minute drive normally), get things sorted out with United, and make it back to church. Tight, but I can probably just make it out.

Traffic on X-mas eve is surprisingly light. I am going "with traffic", and "with traffic" happened to equate to almost 85 mph. Wonderful. I get to Bishop International airport in almost 30 minutes.


Walk in, and proceed to the United Counter. Unbeknowst to me, the only United flight(s) that leave Flint are a twice/three time Flint-Cleveland flight. And there wasn't a single one leaving Flint that day. A man, who looks an awful like the Police Commissioner James Gordon, asks if he can help. He has on an american eagle shirt, so I explain my situation to him, and says there really isn't much he can do and I need to show up tomorrow before my flight and get things straightened out. At this point now, I'm thinking, "This really can't get much worse for me".

I hustle back and make it to church at 4:25, plenty of time to spare, telling my family I got everything sorted out. Little did they know, on the inside, I was freaking out more than a man on Maury awaiting the test results to see if indeed the baby was his.



Actual Check In

I could not sleep X-mas eve night. I was so excited, my first trip international, but I was also worried because I knew there would be a hiccup in my check in process. I was to the airport by 11am, and to my surprise there was a fair amount of people, mostly around the AirTran (service to ATL and MCO) desk.

No one in line for the single United Kiosk. I walk up, wait for a United rep to emerge and....er.....I realize that there actually isn't a United rep at all. Commissioner Gordon comes over (in the same American Eagle attire), proceeds to start checking me in, and after a minute says, "Hey...Weren't you here yesterday?" After the acknowledgement, he begins furiously typing into the computer, asking me for my passport. About 5 minutes of nervous, awkward silence passes. He shakes his head, and continues typing. I am at this point thinking I am not going to make this trip. Another 3 or so minutes passes and he realizes the issue:

I have flown United in the past, domestically several times with this same issue, but without a problem. If my name was John Edward Doe, I would put that in the reservation system and it would make my reservation under passenger name as Johne Doe. The middle initial gets added to the last letter of the first name. So since my passport does not have Johne (if my name were John), there was an error in matching the passport with the reservation. Some how the gate agent was able to get it working. He then proceeds to tell me that my baggage will be $100 and I will be good to go.


Wait, what? $100? I'm star alliance, I should get a free checked bag. And, wait, this is an international flight, I get one bag checked free regardless! After calmly informing him, he realizes I selected a bag online to check in (that somehow went through), tagged me up, and I was finally, at this point, ready to begin my adventure. I also realized, after looking into it at this point, that Star silver does not get me access to E+ seating. Bummer. Oh well.

The following post (will finish soon!) has my actual trip report (with pics!)