Hi everyone! It's been months since I last posted anything but I thought this tip would be worth mentioning...
Frequent airline travellers probably have experienced this many times; you're sitting at the gate and worrying because your flight has been delayed several times due to maintenance issues. It's now two hours after your scheduled departure and the latest announcement is that your flight has been cancelled. What do you do?!
A close friend just returned from WDW and told a horror story about this very situation. He and his wife were with their 3-year old toddler waiting at the gate to depart. After a two-plus hour delay they were informed that their flight had been cancelled. So the three of them followed the other passengers to the nearest customer service desk to get booked on a different flight. After waiting in line for over an hour they finally got a same-day flight to Orlando but it required another 5 hour wait at the airport.
There's a pretty simple solution to this that minimizes the impact to your schedule if you should ever experience it. When your ticket is issued it's usually placed into a bi-fold envelope that has a lot of good info on it. In this case, the most important info is the 1-800 number for the airline's reservations office. Simply call them (from your cell or a payphone) and you can get re-booked over the phone almost immediately. Head to your new flight's gate to get your boarding pass and smile to yourself (a little smugness is allowable
) If my friend had done this he would have stood a good chance of getting on a flight that was leaving only an hour or so after he learned that his original flight had been cancelled.
I've used this little "trick" many times (even a few times while sitting on the airplane at the gate!) and the results have always been far preferable to standing in line with nearly 200 other people all wanting seats for same-day travel. If you're told that no seats are available to your destination on that day ask if they can look for a seat on a partner or code-share airline.
Then find the nearest airport bar and toast your guile and good sense.
Frequent airline travellers probably have experienced this many times; you're sitting at the gate and worrying because your flight has been delayed several times due to maintenance issues. It's now two hours after your scheduled departure and the latest announcement is that your flight has been cancelled. What do you do?!
A close friend just returned from WDW and told a horror story about this very situation. He and his wife were with their 3-year old toddler waiting at the gate to depart. After a two-plus hour delay they were informed that their flight had been cancelled. So the three of them followed the other passengers to the nearest customer service desk to get booked on a different flight. After waiting in line for over an hour they finally got a same-day flight to Orlando but it required another 5 hour wait at the airport.
There's a pretty simple solution to this that minimizes the impact to your schedule if you should ever experience it. When your ticket is issued it's usually placed into a bi-fold envelope that has a lot of good info on it. In this case, the most important info is the 1-800 number for the airline's reservations office. Simply call them (from your cell or a payphone) and you can get re-booked over the phone almost immediately. Head to your new flight's gate to get your boarding pass and smile to yourself (a little smugness is allowable
) If my friend had done this he would have stood a good chance of getting on a flight that was leaving only an hour or so after he learned that his original flight had been cancelled.I've used this little "trick" many times (even a few times while sitting on the airplane at the gate!) and the results have always been far preferable to standing in line with nearly 200 other people all wanting seats for same-day travel. If you're told that no seats are available to your destination on that day ask if they can look for a seat on a partner or code-share airline.
Then find the nearest airport bar and toast your guile and good sense.
