Holy Buck, Fatman!

This year was the first time that I have ever traveled during the holidays. I’ve heard about weather SNAFUS and other hellish experiences, but always laughed and said, “I’ll never be traveling…”

Well, we opted for the midwestern Xmas this year and traveled to see Mister Fatman’s family and friends. The stay was fantabulous as outlined in my previous post. The flights, however, sucked.

It started with our initial departure from Baltimore as the weather in our connecting city seemed to be throwing a wrench into just about everything. As luck would have it, our first leg of the flight was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers to bump. What the hell? We decided that an upgrade to first class and three free tickets to anywhere in the continental US was worth waiting for a morning flight. Flying first class was a real treat, too. A socialist could get used to that kind of Bourgeois treatment real quick.  Probably won’t happen again anytime soon.

So, fast forward to today. Our departure was scheduled for 6:29pm CEN. At about 1pm, I got an automated telephone call that told me our flight to Chicago was canceled. It seems United can’t get it’s shit together.

Well, fuck.

The customer service guy in India told me that I was pretty much SOL unless I was at the airport. Taking his kind advice, we hopped into the car, drove to the airport and stood in the mega line with other affected passengers.  The counter lady was awesome and actually got us on a flight through Denver instead of Chicago. Of course, Murphy’s Law would dictate that weather being the initial culprit of our holiday travel woes would now be shitting things up in Denver.  I firmly believe that shitty weather is following us.

That brings me to right now. I’m riding on some pay wireless (bastards) waiting for our delayed plane OUT of Denver to FLY US BACK TO DENVER! Yeah, stupid right? Southwest Airlines is still offering 298$ one way business class (when did cattle call airlines start offering assigned seating?) to BWI. That’s a whopping 800$ out of our pocket. Not really interested in paying that out right now. We will more then likely be taking our chances.

There is one valuable lesson we learned this trip: When you can Bump—-BUMP! Rack up as MANY freebies as humanly possible! Next year the Fatman Family will be going to San Francisco.