Day 2: Sydney looks a lot like Los Angeles

Sorry about the design change for the blog; it seemed eye-catching but difficult to read in the old format. This seems better so far.

Last night, I wrote: “Let’s see how United handles this one.” Overall, I’d have to say “pretty poorly” so far.

When I finally arrived at LAX just before midnight, my flight to Sydney was gone for over an hour. So I trekked over to the misnamed “Customer Service” area, and queued up. About a half-hour later, it was my turn to talk to an agent. After much typing, she was able to determine that my best option was to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco at 7:14 tonight, arrive in San Francisco at 8:37, then board their San Francisco to Sydney flight at 10:50 p.m., and arrive in Sydney at 6:25 Friday morning.

Except that would make me miss my connecting flight on Air New Zealand at 7:00 a.m. to Auckland. The agent tried to contact Air New Zealand to see if they would rebook my flight as delay compensation, but no luck. They also would not pay for a hotel room, on the grounds that the delay was due to weather (not their fault) vs. other causes for which they would pay. I tried to reason with them that neither the inbound flight to O’Hare which arrived late, and their need to move the aircraft from one gate to another had nothing to do with the weather – although it then delayed us enough that weather became an issue. Still no luck.

It was past 1:00 a.m. local time, and a lot of the “Customer Service” agents started going home – leaving two agents to deal with roughly 35 tired and increasingly angry people still in queue. I left in case a riot started.

They offered me a certificate for a reduced rate hotel room, which meant I got a room at the La Quinta LAX (nice place!) for $79. And when I got to my room, I rebooked my flight on Air New Zealand for another $260, which is more than half of what I paid for the original round-trip ticket.

So I’m back at LAX, 20 hours after I left, in the same clothes, Allegedly, my luggage is already in San Francisco, and checked through onto tonight’s flight to Sydney.

Two biggest concerns at this point are: (1) Will I make it to San Francisco and on to Sydney – with luggage when I get there?; and (2) the ash cloud from a volcano in Chile may disrupt air travel from Sydney to Auckland this weekend. But I’m hoping my next post originates from somewhere you need a passport.