There's more, you ask? But of course there's more! Who would I be if I simply left it at that last post and didn't add in a little more? I would be ordinary, something a categorically refuse to do. So here's more fun (or lack thereof) for you to enjoy.
Getting home was, shall we say, interesting. Normally, you have your flights booked, you get on them, and you get home. Sometimes with, sometimes without your luggage. But at least you physically get home. Well, we didn't. But let's start at the beginning so I don't confuse the living crap out of you.
We arrived at the Sydney airport via train bright and early, about 3 1/2 hours before our flight. Yes, I am one of those anal-retentive people who religiously shows up far too early for their flights. We made it through customs and security all right-for those that haven't been, in Australia you get to go through customs on the way out of the country as well. I'm not sure why this is, but I have 2 stamps in my passport to prove it. We found some decent breakfast and our gate and parked ourselves in some seats so we could await boarding for our flight. At some point in there, I decided to get up and ended up buying some booze at the duty-free to take back with us. This is when karma finally decided to barf all over us. The airport lost power. And I mean the entire airport. Including customs and security. So guess what? Half the people on our flight couldn't get through customs or security, which meant our flight wasn't going anywhere until the power came back on and they started processing people again. It took them an hour and a half to get the power back on, which meant our flight was delayed by 4 hours.
Given that we had basically already missed our connecting flight in Los Angeles (we'd be landing 2 hours after it had left), I went to the desk before we boarded to ask what we should do about getting a connecting flight. I was told that crews at LAX knew about what was happening, and that our flight, which was in fact booked with a partner airline, was being re-booked and we'd be fine once we reached Los Angeles. So we got on the plane and happily went along with what we were told.
It's a long flight, made even longer by the fact that we spent 4 extra hours in the Sydney airport. So by the time we reached LA we were exhausted and more than a little pungent, and we really, really wanted to get home. Just before we landed, we were informed by the captain that because of the power outage, a large number of the luggage people had checked hadn't made it on the aircraft. Why? Apparently because the power was off, the computers were down, and the luggage couldn't be processed in a timely fashion. According to the announcement, if the crew had waited even 10 more minutes on the ground, the flight crew would have been on duty too long, and that would have caused them to cancel the flight completely. Thus they decided to leave before all the luggage was on board. I completely understand this decision. As far as the airline was concerned, canceling the flight would've meant they'd have to re-book almost 400 people onto new flights. And given that it was summer, most flights were probably full, meaning that would've been a serious pain in the arse for them. As a passenger, I'd really rather have made it to my destination and not have my luggage, than be stuck were I was leaving from for what could've been a week or more, just because my luggage couldn't make it on the plane. Well, apparently when they said "some" luggage, what they really meant was "most". I think there was maybe 30 bags that came off that plane. But we figured that was fine, given that we'd be home in a few hours anyways, and we didn't really need our bags. We were told to file our missing luggage claim in Vancouver, as that was our final destination, and they had been tagged all the way there.
When we finally got off the plane we were again told by another V Australia employee that our flights had been re-booked, and that Alaska Airlines would have our new flight all ready to go, we just needed to get to their counter. So we went there, and they had no idea what we were talking about. We were told all the flights were full, and the best they could do was let us fly standby. So, thinking there was a good chance we could still get on a plane that day, we took the standby.
There were still 3 flights leaving LAX that day for Vancouver, we thought our chances were good. That is, until we sat through 2 flights and didn't get on either. When we asked at the desk, we were told that all the flights to Vancouver had been overbooked by 7-10 people, and there was little chance we'd actually get the remaining flight out. We asked when the next flight was that actually had available seats, and were told it was 9pm the next day. We took it, because it at least meant we were going to get home eventually.
I should mention that, in the meantime, we had actually had to check Glen's carryon backpack, because of the duty free liquor we had bought. We had no checked baggage to put it into, thus we had no choice but to check something in order to get it home. Well, evidently his backpack did make it on the first flight out, without us, because when we asked at the end of the night if we could get it back, they couldn't find it.
I should say that at this point, it was early in the evening and we had been awake for nearly 36 hours straight. So, now armed with our boarding passes for a flight the next evening, we went back to the V Australia desk to demand satisfaction. Or probably sympathy. That's more what we were going for. At any rate, Glen literally walked up to the counter and started the conversation like this:
V Australia agent: Hi. How can I help you?
Glen:We've got a problem. We've been up for almost 36 hours and we missed our connecting flight...
Well, however we explained it, it got us a hotel room for the night. A hotel room with a sweet, sweet shower and a soft comfy bed for the night. Sure, we had no bags or clean underwear, but when faced with potentially spending all night in the airport, we'll take what we can get. The hotel she did manage to find, however, was literally an hour cab ride from the airport. But hey, what else have we got to do? So she got us a taxi voucher and away we went. I should also mention that we were also allowed to charge $100 to the room for food at the hotel, which was nice, given that we had zero American dollars with us. She even managed to secure us a couple toothbrushes so we could brush our teeth, given that ours were, at best guess, still sitting on the tarmac in Australia. It was a Hilton hotel, and the bed was lovely. Almost as lovely as the shower.
To get back to the airport we were to arrange our own transport, and then claim the amount from the airline afterwards, which seemed fine for us. We got a shuttle number from the hotel and booked our shuttle for the next day, quite early so we could check and see where our various bags had ended up and perhaps get our refund for the shuttle before the flight. We called in the morning to confirm the shuttle was coming, and all seemed well when they checked their bookings. Then came time to get back to the airport. We waited. And waited. 15 minutes after the shuttle should have been there, we called to check. Apparently they had made the booking for the next day and there was no one coming that day. Furious, Glen asked when we would be able to get a shuttle that day. The next time they could get one there was in another 45 minutes, which would mean we'd be cutting it pretty close. Unacceptable. So we canceled that shuttle and had the hotel call a cab. An hour and 10 minutes later we were finally at the airport, and feeling a little better because we knew we were finally going to get home.
Because we had a little time, we decided to check and see if they could find our bags. When they called the Vancouver airport, Glen's backpack had made it there (even though we hadn't flown yet), but our big bags were still MIA. The agent at the Alaska Airlines desk even called around at LAX and YVR (Vancouver) and no one seemed to know where they were. This, while a little perturbing, wasn't too worrying, given that were were going home, so even if they stayed lost for a few more days, we were going to be fine.
Finally we were on our flight home! At last, airborne for Vancouver! Shockingly, when we reached YVR, we found not only Glen's backpack, but our big bags waiting for us near the luggage carousel. It was a miracle! Our bags had made it home before we did! So we grabbed them and off we went. It was just after midnight at this point.
All was well again until we made it downtown, to waterfront station, only to discover that we had arrived so late the skytrain had stopped running out to our place. What to do? The nearest place we could catch a bus was a 20 minute walk. So we called a cab. We got home around 2 in the morning. Thankfully, I had called work from the hotel in California and managed to tell them I couldn't make it in for my Monday afternoon shift, which was a good thing given that we didn't get up until around 2 in the afternoon that day.
It took us a full day and a half longer than we anticipated, but we did finally make it home in one piece. I can't say it was the best experience I've ever had, and it's made me leery of every flying with Alaska Airlines again-seriously, you overbooked all your flights?!?-but it could have been much, much worse.
I still have a few little tidbits to add later, so keep your browser tuned to this URL. Hopefully it'll be up soon.
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