Age 15 for a youth group trip to West Germany. My dad was one of the chaperones. Ticket was supposed to be GRR-ORD-DUS but when we got to Chicago, it was discovered that the travel agency that has booked the tickets had really messed something up and there were not enough seats for us on the transatlantic leg.

AA’s solution was to offer $800 each of we’d take an ORD-MAN-DUS rebooking instead and the group voted to do so. Got stuck in a holding pattern over MAN when the copilot helpfully told us ‘were priority for landing when the weather clears because of our fuel situation’ (um….thanks?) and then for the BA MAN-DUS leg my dad and a few others lucked into business class while I was back in steerage.

Dad and I ended up using our vouchers toward a family trip to St. Croix the following spring break.