I was flying out of a regional airport to a large hub where I would fly to SLC. w/ my girlfriend. Her ticket has her name incorrectly put on it. TSA will not let her fly. United at this time is unable to rebook our flight with her name in the time in which the plane takes off. So therefore they basically said we will automatically miss our flight because they don't have the time to fix this and I need to step aside for other patrons.
Okay, this is a reasonable mistake and you would think I could just leave the story here and that would be enough to say "that sucks". Well you were sorely mistaken.....
After the United staff at the regional airport got done loading luggage on the airplane I was supposed to leave on (and could have left on, if I wanted to ditch my girlfriend) - they come back and assist me. To tell me they have nothing they can do for me out of airports even as large as Detroit or Chicago and all they can do is issue me a refund (in the form of a united voucher), or they can rebook us another flight under todays costs (aka walk up to counter rate = stupid expensive, but wait...this story gets expensive).
I told the United guy to fuck off and die as I was pulling up kayak.com and found over 260 possible combinations to get to SLC that very day, and he was unable to find anything - and his computer is supposed to be able to search all carriers.
So I find a flight out of Detroit w/ Delta. $2600 for the 2 of us. First class alll the way to SLC, and economy back. I have a connection in Tulsa on the way to SLC though. This is where the trip now begins to get major gay.
I was originally supposed to be in SLC at 7:10 PM that night. Our flight crew at DTW shows up over an hour late and they were coming from a warm climate oddly enough. We now have missed our Tulsa connection to SLC that evening.......
We end up in Tulsa - America's taint. We are issued some vouchers for food and given a room at some decent place. But I still have reservations in Utah I am missing.......
I find what an individual @ Tulsa who we can call "bro". Bro tells me - hey get here when the airport opens, and maybe even earlier just to be the first in. Bro knows whats up. Bro is there the next morning as well at 4:30 A.M to tell me our plane has been downgraded to a CRJ200 - the airline industries taint. There is no first class in the CRJ200. I spent $2600...I want first class with a stripper pole. He than informs us because of this the flight is now overbooked by 18 people and its a good thing we showed up early. Bro is no way associated with the next series of events...
We arrive in SLC to find half our checked luggage is in Tulsa. I have a gopro, my own helmet, my own 20k waterproof coat, my everything right? I atleast pack my Il More boots in my carry-on as well as my pants. But I have no baselayers.
Baggage claim dude gives us a reference # that he wrote down incorrectly so we never found our luggage until we called a call center in Singapore and spent 1 hour and 37 minutes resolving a mistake in 3 digits in the reference # we were given.
Baggage claim dude gives us this business card that says FREE RENTAL @ the worlds jankiest ski place around. I expect performance rentals of some sort. This years shit ya know. I get some coat that is soaked by 2pm on a day that was dumping. My base layers.......I bought them out of my own pocket for my girlfriend and myself since Delta's business card didn't cover this....(lets not forget the ski shop charged us over $200 for 2 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of top/bottom base layers). Her boots sucked and how the fuck can you even rent boots and expect them to perform?
Don't worry though....Delta says they will cover the base layers if I expense them.
Worlds jankiest ski shop is conveniently located right by Causwelll and I decided to pull in just because I needed some pow baskets and they said they have some they could sell me. Low and behold Mike is loading his Suby up to go skiing. I introduce myself as the individual asking for pow baskets and we get to chatting and he hears just 3 seconds of my shitty story and gives me a free pair of fucking Surface ski poles and is off in the back looking for extra base layers laying around to see if he can help.
So now I will probably spend (just guessing) spend 13 hours and 47 minutes of my vacation speaking to Delta representatives trying to see how much I will be refunded for all these fuck-ups.
We landed in SLC that morning though and with Mike / Causwell's help I was on the Crest Express @ Brighton by 10:47 that morning.
Im fucking pissed at Delta. Understandably saddened by United / TSA and also somewhat ticked off with the thought that if my girlfriend just had a picture ID from buttfuckistan she could have got on her flight with essentially a made up name...........
