My wife is on one of her crazy 24hr blitz-kreig buisness trips again. These trips always involve taking a flight cross-country with a large number of documents that must be delivered by a certain time and then dropping them off, only to get on the plane and come home. Normally, the trips are long but relatively easy and she flies her choice of airlines which means tons of frequent flyer miles. Unfortunately it usually also means a dash for the finish line, working 15+ hrs/day including weekends and days off. Generally, they finish about 1 minute before the last possible moment. Another interesting fact is that 2 of them go, but they are required to take 2 different planes and 2 copies of the documents. (You should get the reason...)
Last week she tells me that she might have to fly on one of these trips on Monday to Washinton DC area. Ok, nothing out of the ordinary. I knew about the impending deadline for the past few weeks.
The day after that she tells me that the contract was extended by 1 day and so if she has to go it will be Tuesday instead. I say just make sure that everyone keeps the original deadline as the due date so that they dont start to plan on an extra 24 hrs.
Sure enough, all of the engineers decide to take the full extra 24 hrs and dilly dally with their results. Last night, she comes home to tell me that she (and the other people of her level) are stuck until they are given the information from the dilly dalliers. My wife has booked the latest possible flight on her airline of choice, found that there are no hotels with 2 rooms available in the area she is going, and faced the realization that if the dilly dalliers make her miss her flight, she will be on another red eye...yet again!
Today, she comes home at 11am to finish packing and tells me it looks bad. The dilly dalliers have struck again....its questionable whether any of the flights will be caught. I get a call about 2 hrs later telling me that both of them have missed their original flights. Since her co-workers flight was 30 minutes earlier, he had rebooked first and got the last flight on my wifes airline of choice. She was forced to go on the ONLY other flight available which was southwest.
Great start right....missed 2 flights, forced to fly on a crappy second rate carrier without getting her frequent flyer miles...and now she was forced to fly into DWI instead of Reagan. Because of the last minute ticket she is forced to go through a full search too.
Fast forward a few hours...my wife calls to tell me she has made it to Baltimore...then calls back when she is in the rental car to tell me that her co-worker is apparently stuck at Reagan as the rental places are all closed! So I need to give her directions over the phone on how to get from DWI to Reagan. Of course, she is already on the interstate and gone too far south when she calls!
I spent 40 minutes trying to get her to the other airport. SHe kept on missing the turns I was telling her to take and was not seeing signs. Definitely a bad feeling...especially since I feel helpless on the phone. Finally though, she gets to Reagan.
30 minutes later, I get a call from her again....apparently this trip is just getting worse. She had pre-paid reservation with guaranteed late arrival at a Sheraton. There was a 24 hr cancellation requirement which meant that she couldnt cancel it if she wanted to. SHe gets there only to be told that they dont have a room for her! Huh? How is that possible, she pre-paid, booked and it was non-refundable...they had to have a room for her! The fricking guy turned her away at 3am saying sorry even though he confirmed that she did in fact have her pre-paid reservation/late check in. Apparently they had oversold by 5+ rooms the entire hotel.
Now she is driving to her co-workers hotel since its a suite and its so late. Not exactly what she wants to do, but what can she do? I told her that SHeraton is going to have its arse handed to it shortly.
I cannot belive all this crap is happening to her in one day!
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. So did the hotel just take her money because they oversold?? That's sounds scammy. From BWI to Reagan, there's a sign just as you get out of the airport that isn't so clear that you need to take it. Reagan airport is a very confusing area to drive to and out of.
Originally Posted by mcs328
Do something special for her when she gets home!
this is the best threadjack ive seen in a long time.
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