I want to go home. I really, really want to go home. But it's taking a whole lot longer than I'd like.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given how this trip has progressed thus far. But still, it's no fun to be sitting under a sign proclaiming JetBlue's superb customer service when I'm facing up to another five hours sitting in JFK.
I was supposed to be home last night, but when I woke up at Elizabeth's house on Saturday morning it was to a text message from Gerald telling me my noon flight from SFO to JFK was delayed. When I checked with JetBlue, they said it was going to get in too late for me to catch the last connecting flight to Rochester, so they offered to rebook me on Sunday. (Thank goodness I was staying with a close friend and didn't have to deal with paying for another night in a hotel...) Then they hung up on me. (Accidentally, but still...) I called back, and spent over 30 minutes on the phone with them while the agent tried to get a supervisor to override whatever was keeping her from getting me on the only non-redeye flight out of the SF area on Sunday with seats available--a 9am Oakland departure, arriving at JFK at 5:25. Too late to catch the 5:35 Rochester flight, but plenty of time for the 8:25. The only problem was the 8:25 was already full, and they don't do standby over the phone...only at the customer service desk (more on that in a minute). So they booked me on the 10:55pm flight, which meant a 5.5 hour layover in JFK (not as bad as the 10 hours on the way out, of course, but bad enough).
Amazingly, my flight out of Oakland left on time, and arrived early. Early enough, in fact, for me to make the 5:35 flight. So I called JetBlue from the plane, explained the situation, and they told me there were still plenty of seats on the flight, and to just run to the gate as soon as I arrived. I ran (and it was a long trip, including YET ANOTHER shuttle bus), and got to the gate before they closed. I was exultant! Until the gate agent said he had five seats and twelve people on standby and that if I wanted to get on the standby list I'd have to go BACK to the customer service center at the other end of the terminal and then come back. W. T. F. ?!
Since it was clear he wasn't going to help me at all, I went back to the service center, where they put me on the standby list for the 8:25 flight. I'm #4 on the standby list right now, so the odds seem good (though not guaranteed by any means). Given my luck thus far on this trip, I'm pretty much assuming that the best I can hope for is the 10:55 flight, which gets me in after midnight.
(Did I mention that I finally broke down in tears at the service center desk? Probably had something to do with not having had food in eight hours. Time to eat now, I think.)
I really, really, want to go home.
Sounds like a story for the Consumerist...
Hope you have a good flight back at least!
I had an uneventful [which equates to good I guess] travel experience just yesterday. The shuttles were on time. The power cord was reachable from my seat at the gate while I waited. Funny how 'uneventful' can be viewed as OK. While waiting to board my final flight home to Syracuse, a man was going absolutely insane with rage at a US Airways attendant. When he finally walked away in disgust she yelled at him, "you don't know what you're talking about." It was on. Unfortunately, I had to leave before it was over so I never saw how it all played out. He probably had a situation like yours where one thing after another goes wrong. Hope your flight home sucked less.