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How has your travel obsession saved the day?

How has your travel obsession saved the day?

Old Nov 22, 2013, 7:08 am
  #1  
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How has your travel obsession saved the day?

A relative is coming up for Thanksgiving and I asked my mom when she will be arriving in CAE. My mom showed me a letter (remember those?) and in the letter the relative said she was arriving in CAE, traveling from ORD on AA flt xxxx.

I looked up at my mom and said "AA doesn't fly ORD-CAE." Mom looked at me and said "what are you talking about? How do you know that?" (Really Mom?) I plugged the AA flight number into Google and realized that she bought a ticket to COU, not CAE.

Had I not caught this my relative may well have been sitting in COU wondering where we are and why are so late picking her up. It would have ruined Thanksgiving for all of us. We are able to get her to CAE at a reasonable cost, so all is well. Now the whole family, the same ones who roll their eyes at me, think I am a hero.


Any similar stories of where your obsession has saved the day?
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 7:21 am
  #2  
 
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A few years back we were stuck when BD cancelled our BRU-LHR flight. Although we were protected on the next one, we would miss our separate-ticketed LHR-ORK flight on EI. Nothing, including BD calling EI directly, would get them to waive the €100/person charge to change tickets.

Luckily, I happened to glance up at the board to see a VLM flight to LCY, ran the numbers in my head to see if we could make it on our layover (thankfully I always do longer layovers for this reason) and we were off on VLM. Made it to LCY, jumped on the DLR, worked our way over to Paddington and caught the HEX just in time to make it for our flight (3 minutes late, but we got on).

And that's the story of why I always carry my Oyster card. And, I guess, about how if I didn't spend ages reading up on travel we'd be out €200+ instead of maybe €50 at most.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 7:40 am
  #3  
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Sitting at the tiny airport of BBK in Botswana with my extremely ill mother, we were put on a charter flight to "Victoria Falls" which we assumed meant VFA airport on the Zimbabwe side. I had gotten my yellow fever jab, but neither of my parents had. We were in a rush to get there, so that we could find a Dr. for her, but as we were walking to security, I noticed the ticket said LVI, which is Livingstone on the Zambia side. Had we boarded and landed in Zambia, upon re-entry to S.Africa, both of my parents would have been given compulsory yellow fever shots and quarantined for 10-days which would have been an utter disaster. In the end, we avoided that headache and went directly to the "hospital" in Kasane. Quite a day.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 8:06 am
  #4  
 
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My brother was going through a hard time... He had next to no money and was living out of a grungy hostel in the bay area. He knew essentially nobody in the area. He got incredibly sick, and his living situation was just making things worse. I was expecting to soon get a call from him in the hospital.

He was completely unwilling to accept monetary help from others, however. But I was able to convince him to let me book him on the next flight back home using miles as I "had an unlimited source for miles" (total BS - but I was willing to lie to get him home!). He accepted it and I booked a flight for the next morning (it was late in the evening when he accepted). I had gold status at the time so it only cost me 12.5K AA miles + $2.50. As soon as I purchased the flight I checked him in and sent him a PDF of the boarding pass. That ended up saving him again as he only got to the airport about half an hour before the flight (I had told him to get there two hours early, knowing how he has trouble being on time for things). He was home in under 24 hours after we first discussed me getting him a ticket. He recovered and is back on his feet these days, no longer needs my help!
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 8:20 am
  #5  
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Originally Posted by uoficowboy
My brother was going through a hard time... He had next to no money and was living out of a grungy hostel in the bay area. He knew essentially nobody in the area. He got incredibly sick, and his living situation was just making things worse. I was expecting to soon get a call from him in the hospital.

He was completely unwilling to accept monetary help from others, however. But I was able to convince him to let me book him on the next flight back home using miles as I "had an unlimited source for miles" (total BS - but I was willing to lie to get him home!). He accepted it and I booked a flight for the next morning (it was late in the evening when he accepted). I had gold status at the time so it only cost me 12.5K AA miles + $2.50. As soon as I purchased the flight I checked him in and sent him a PDF of the boarding pass. That ended up saving him again as he only got to the airport about half an hour before the flight (I had told him to get there two hours early, knowing how he has trouble being on time for things). He was home in under 24 hours after we first discussed me getting him a ticket. He recovered and is back on his feet these days, no longer needs my help!
That is awesome! Thanks for sharing.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 9:36 am
  #6  
 
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How has your travel obsession saved the day?

Years ago, I was awaiting in ORD my first international flight to Zurich. I took out my wallet, and put in an airline baggage tag on which I wrote my name and the name of my hotel. Within a few hours of landing, I lost my wallet. By the time I returned to the hotel, a kind Swiss student had returned it intact.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 11:42 am
  #7  
 
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Originally Posted by uoficowboy
My brother was going through a hard time... He had next to no money and was living out of a grungy hostel in the bay area. He knew essentially nobody in the area. He got incredibly sick, and his living situation was just making things worse. I was expecting to soon get a call from him in the hospital.

He was completely unwilling to accept monetary help from others, however. But I was able to convince him to let me book him on the next flight back home using miles as I "had an unlimited source for miles" (total BS - but I was willing to lie to get him home!). He accepted it and I booked a flight for the next morning (it was late in the evening when he accepted). I had gold status at the time so it only cost me 12.5K AA miles + $2.50. As soon as I purchased the flight I checked him in and sent him a PDF of the boarding pass. That ended up saving him again as he only got to the airport about half an hour before the flight (I had told him to get there two hours early, knowing how he has trouble being on time for things). He was home in under 24 hours after we first discussed me getting him a ticket. He recovered and is back on his feet these days, no longer needs my help!

I have a similar story: Mr. Fox's son had to cut short a year of teaching English in Peru because of a persistent intestinal bug that was making him weaker and weaker. The price of a one way ticket home would have wiped out his savings, but 15K miles was a small expense for me. I was able not only to provide a ticket but, thanks to info shared on FT, coach him on the border formalities and streamline his transfer at MIA.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 12:30 pm
  #8  
 
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I don't have any stories as extreme as above, but my mileage balance got my father-in-law from Montana to Atlanta for the birth of our triplets when he was down-and-out financially.

My knowledge of National Emerald Club (and my boss's total lack therof regardless of being EE) saved the day when I had the forethought to ask the lot attendant if we could take an Escalade XL from VIP when we had a midsize SUV reserved in my boss'd name. He let us based on my boss's EE status there not being a VIP reservation made for it. There were 3 of us in the truck on our way to a conference we were putting on. The Escalade XL came in VERY handy when several of our customer/attendees took cabs to the resort (about a 2-hour drive) but didn't arrange cabs back to the airport ahead of time (thinking they could walk out to a cab-stand and one would be waiting). They would have missed their flights had we not had room for them and their luggage... and we used every cubic inch of cargo room for luggage for 7 people, including the three of us holding our carry-on bags in our laps.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 1:00 pm
  #9  
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After marriage and before my wife came here, her parents and her were planning to visit Delhi and Agra by train from the south of India. They were planning to go to Delhi, then take another train down. I told them that the train they would take to Delhi would actually pass Agra on the way, so might as well get off there.

Another time, my parents went on a tour of Jordan, Israel and Egypt. It was around the time when Mubarrak was deposed and there was violence. The tour group was contemplating cancelling Egypt but was taking time. Parents wanted to book their ticket and were planning on booking two one-way returns. One from CAI and another from AMM and then cancelling one when the plan was finalized. I just told them to book one going CAI-AMM-USA. That way if Egypt was cancelled, they could call UA and drop one segment.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 1:43 pm
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My wife and I met some friends in Chicago last summer for a weekend. One of her truly dingbat friends flew in, and cabbed it to the hotel. When we were all getting ready to leave on Sunday, I asked her what airport she was flying out of, and she responded "Midway". As she was about to get back into a cab. While running late (as usual). I thought about it for a second, and realized that her destination was almost exclusively served through O'Hare, and kept her cab from leaving until we checked her itinerary. Guess what airport she was really flying from...
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 2:28 pm
  #11  
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Nothing as extreme heartwarming as some of the stories above.. but my friend wanted to go to MNL for his honeymoon, from DEL.. money contraints.. the ticket was costing 78k INR ($1233).. with Avios they were coming to 80k Avios and taxes of Rs 44k ($733).. He only had 70k Avios.. I tried somethings, it din work.. finally a bulb went on and long story short, we got the tickets for 70k Avios and Rs. 28000 ($433).. that $800 saving meant a lot to him..

not to brag, but you can read the story on my blog.. link below..
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 5:17 pm
  #12  
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Comping a poor college student to a Southwest award ticket to visit his out of town girlfriend in Florida was pretty fun. To get the same reaction out of me it would have had to have been a F ticket on SQ.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 8:42 pm
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Originally Posted by TravelerMSY
Comping a poor college student to a Southwest award ticket to visit his out of town girlfriend in Florida was pretty fun. To get the same reaction out of me it would have had to have been a F ticket on SQ.
I was waiting to board AA in FRA for a flight to DFW. By coincidence a good acquaintance was at the gate and I noticed she had a splint on her leg and was on crutches. She was thrilled to have secured a bulkhead seat in Y.

I wished her a good flight and excused myself to make a phone call and did just that, tied to call the AA EXP desk. Couldn't get through and made my way to the counter. I told the AAgent I would like to use 2 SWUs to upgrade the lady and her 10 year old son. They told me they would make it happened and I got on the phone.

I boarded in J and was enjoying my sparkling wine as my friend passed me and nodded on her way to steerage. The plane is almost fully boarded when the GA enters and waves two BPs at me as she makes her way to the back.

My understanding of what happened next was the agent told my friend she needed her to change seats. The lady protested and the the agent assured here the new seat would be much more comfortable. She and her son got up and and started moving forward and she was shocked as they moved into J. She looked at me and asked "What did you do?!?" I just shrugged and smiled. She and her son had a great flight and I got a bit more attention from my cute FA than I came to expect on AA.

As it turned out I had earned 12 SWUs that year and never missed those two. My obsession that year was a huge MR that landed me the bonus SWUs.
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Old Nov 22, 2013, 8:53 pm
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Very nice ^
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Old Nov 23, 2013, 9:53 pm
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I don't know that this qualifies as saves the day, but probably leans to the obsession in the post title. My son is a UM wolverine fan and was watching the NCAA tourney with great excitement last year. Within minutes of Michigan making it to the title game, I was on the phone to AA for an award flight to Atlanta for him and within 12 hours of the end of the game, he was on his way to the game and to meet friends who were already there Unfortunately, Michigan didn't win but it's an experience he won't soon forget, and a great use of miles.
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