Sunday 3 January 2010

Air Travel Excitement

In early September, I booked my flights back to the States for Christmas. Using some credits from a previous flight, I was able to get a very reasonably priced flight from Heathrow to Harrisburg via Dulles, returning on the same route. All looked promising...

The afternoon before my scheduled departure, my dad sent me an email asking if I’d seen the weather forecast for the east coast, and asking if I could rebook my flight to avoid the snow. I looked online and saw that due to a forecast of 1-2’ of snow falling the day of my scheduled travel, United had waived all change fees for potentially impacted flights, encouraging passengers to pick other routes or to change travel to other dates. I called United to see whether I could reroute through Chicago or postpone travel by a day. The representative with whom I spoke said the first flight she could get me onto would be Christmas Day (a full six days after the originally scheduled flight) and to Chicago, rather than to DC. Needless to say, I decided to risk it with the existing reservation.

After getting home that evening, I looked online and found that there were no particularly cheap last minute alternatives, if my original flight would be cancelled. The least expensive option was a Continental flight a day later, via Hamburg to Newark. I purchased this ticket as a “just-in-case” option, knowing I could cancel it and get a full refund for the first 24 hours if the original flight was cancelled.

On Saturday, I got a text from United stating that my original flight was delayed from 4:45pm Saturday until 8am Sunday. I saw this as a good sign: the plane must be in London already, and it would be going back to the States eventually, with me on it, albeit delayed slightly. Given that, I cancelled the Continental ticket that I’d purchased online.

Shortly after cancelling the Continental ticket, I got another text from United: My flight to Dulles was cancelled. At this point, I couldn’t even get through the phone systems at United to be placed on hold – the voice response system broke before it got that far.

I ended up finding that the least expensive option that would maximize my time back in the States was to buy a completely new ticket to JFK on Aer Lingus. After confirming there were no other less expensive options than this, I decided to go for it and just entirely replace my original United ticket.

My dad was great and drove the three hours to meet me at JFK, rather than having me transferinto midtown and then to a train down to Harrisburg, probably taking at least two hours off of what my ground-based travel time would have been in the States!

On the way back to London, I took the train, which gave me a chance to meet a few friends for brunch in New York before the flight back to London.

So, all in all, I lost just one day at home because of the flight cancellation, but also got to see a few more friends while home, whom I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

One bright spot out of all of this was the refund process from United: I called their US-based customer service line while waiting to board the Aer Lingus flight in Heathrow at about 4am ET / 9am LN. After only a few minutes on hold, I had my most productive call ever with a reservations agent:

Agent: Good morning, Mr. Renshaw.

Me: Morning. As you can see, I was booked on a flight LHR-IAD yesterday that was cancelled. I’ve booked alternative arrangements with another airline and would just like a refund. What do I need to…

Agent: Done.

Me: Done?

Agent: Yes, I just refunded your full ticket. It’ll hit the credit card you originally used, within a few weeks.

Me: Uh… okay, wow, thanks!


Christmas in the States

I spent the past two weeks back in the States with friends and family. During my first week back, I did all my Christmas shopping, visited with my grandparents, cooked chocolate chip cookies and raisin cookies with Dave (yum!), caught up on a few films I’d been meaning to see for a while, and celebrated Christmas with the full family.

During the second week, I did a bit more traveling:

Last Sunday afternoon, I drove down to Baltimore to watch some football with a group of friends from CMU. For the Steelers v. Ravens game, we headed out to Mothers, a rather popular Ravens bar. Let’s just say that I’m pretty sure we’re the only people in there who weren’t wearing purple Ravens jerseys. When the Steelers pulled ahead in the last minutes of the game, we decided it was probably a good idea to leave before anyone decided to take out the loss on us. Great venue for a game, though!

This past Monday, I drove Dave out to Pittsburgh. He just finished his first semester at Carnegie Mellon as a grad student and, wow, it’s a different experience than when I was there! I’m sure part of it is the different schools, part is based on investments the university made into new buildings, and part is because he’s a grad student, where I’d been an undergrad. He is sharing an office built for three, with only one other grad student. It’s in a new building, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto campus. Not bad! After seeing that and going for an incredible bacon bleu burger at Tessaros, I got to see Dave’s apartment before heading off for the drive to the Poconos.

I met Katherine at her family’s “camp” in the Poconos… let’s just say that it was a fully functional house, as were all of the other “camps” around the lake. We got to catch up with friends, do some hiking through the woods onsite, and meet others from the other nearby camps for New Years Eve. Great times!!

I’m now back in London, getting ready for reality to hit with the return to work tomorrow morning...

New Flat

I moved into my current flat in mid-November. My camera had met with a tragic end in Oslo, so at the time I didn’t have a functional digital camera. Now, thanks to a Christmas present from the parents, I do. A few shots of the building and the inside of the apartment follow:

The parking garage entrance and main building.


Chart House -- My building. I'm on this side of the building, second floor, far left of this photo.


My apartment building from the other side, looking east along the Thames.


Looking out from the living room.


The kitchen.