Things NOT To Do On A Plane

On my last flight home from Disney World I was sick, so sick I just wanted my bed and the only way I was getting there was on that plane.  This didn't make me feel too charitable.

Before our flight my sister got called up to the podium, they were looking for people willing to change seats to put a family together.  Now, while I am more then happy to help out a family (as long as I keep an aisle or window seat) this case seemed a little silly.  It was 4 adults with 1 child.  The child should absolutely be kept with an adult, maybe even 2 adults.  The rest are ADULTS.  Anyway, my sister said she would move if she could keep her aisle seat and so she got moved from row 16 to 6 and said I would be happy to move too if they needed it and was moved from row 16 to row 10 (an exit row with extra leg room).

Of course this was the wackiest boarding I have ever seen in my flying life.  Boarding took over a half hour. The line stopped for a full 5 minutes early in the process.  Then just before I got on a guy accidentally used is Delta boarding pass from his flight down to Orlando.  This was a Jetblue flight.  Then when I'm in the exit row getting the exit row speech one guy just gets up and moves.  He never came back so I'm guessing he was in the wrong row.  Then they moved a woman from the "family" that had to be together into the exit row.  But that didn't last long as she was not comfortable helping in the event of an emergency.  So, she had to be moved.  I have no issue with people saying they are not willing or able to help, I would rather find out before then during an actual emergency. Amazingly we only landed 5 minutes late.

But when I got to my seat the guy in the middle seat, who was traveling with a girl, had his stuff under the middle seat, but was sitting in my aisle seat.  Not in the mood for this, I immediately pointed out that he was in my seat.  He moved over and offered a weak apology.  Seriously, he couldn't even wait until the plane was boarded before spreading out?  Incase you're wondering, there was 1 empty seat on this flight and there was a hoard of people trying to board before boarding began, it obviously wasn't going to be a roomie flight.

But, that's not what made me want to cough all over him and give him my disease.  Sitting on the aisle, I am happy to give the middle person the armrest; however, that does not mean you can invade my personal space too.  He was a skinny little thing with boney little elbows that kept jabbing into me.

And so, here is what I learned not to do on a flight:
1. If you're a group of adults you do NOT need to sit together.  Buy a book or a magazine or watch the  TV.  Yes, it's nicer to sit with friends and family but you don't need to make the plane into musical chairs right before boarding.  If it's that important to you, pay the money for the seats up front.
2. Don't jump in other peoples seats before the flight has fully boarded, or at least do a good job of playing dumb when you're caught.
3. If you're a skinny little dude in a middle seat there is absolutely no reason to be invading other people's space.  Karma obviously put you next to a sick person for a reason....

Have you had any really bad seat mates?

Mr and Mrs. So and So - You are on the wrong flight...

When we left Disney back in May we flew home on Jetblue and had a bit of an interesting flight.  Once on the plane we all settled in and were waiting for the plane doors to close and the plane to pull out when I heard a strange announcement - "Mr and Mrs. So and So, you're on the wrong flight, you're flight is leaving in a half hour and going to LaGuardia Airport."  2 people did the walk of shame down the aisle and off the plane.  Seriously?  How do you end up on the wrong plane?  Yes, it was another Jetblue flight leaving around the same time and also going to NYC.  But it had a different flight number, a different airport destination, different departure time and was leaving from a different gate.  I can't imagine how that would happen.  Maybe wishful thinking?

Other then that the flight was going well until we started to descend almost an hour before landing.  My 4 year old nephew started screaming and screeching his head off because his ears hurt - he was THAT kid that everyone hates.  My sister did try food and drink to help with the ears, but nothing worked.  I could see a couple passengers were not happy about it.  I think his exhaustion from the trip played a big role in his reaction since he didn't act like this on the flight to Disney.  Once we landed he stopped screaming, but then started to cry - now he had to go to the bathroom and we were stuck waiting for a good amount of time to get to a gate, eventually my brother-in-law took him to the back to the bathroom.  Just a note - while you are not supposed to get up, a flight attendant is not going to tackle you in the ailse for getting up when you're not supposed to.  What does that mean?  If it's an emergency then do what you have to do, but if you get hurt know that it's your own fault.  After landing we waited an hour for our luggage, not good, but since our luggage actually came I guess we should be happy.

I thought all of this was the icing on the cake of a not very good vacation.  But, I woke up with a cold the following day.  Well at least I enjoyed our time in the parks!

The Disney adventure begins

Mom and I flew down to Disney on Jetblue on a Wednesday from T5 at JFK. I've been through T5 previously, and it's a pretty good terminal as far as terminals go. I do find the fast food area a little crammed and offered a strange selection. While there is a Dunkin Donuts, it only serves donuts and muffins - no breakfast sandwiches. The whole set-up is a little uncomfortable. You go to different counters or to the tables/refrigerated boxes and pick out your food, then go to a seperate area to pay. It's just overwhelming if you have luggage with you that you're dragging around.

The other thing I don't like is that there is no Hudson News. I like the extremely large selection of magazines they offer. T5 only has a Borders books (no magazines) and a CNBC with a moderate selection of magazines.

Our flight to Orlando was on one of Jetblue's Embraer 190's. My sister has a thing about these smaller planes, but I liked that I was sitting with just my Mom and not in a middle seat with a stranger next to me. The flight was uneventful - I got my chips, drink and watched TV.

Upon landing things got a little more interesting. After getting our luggage in Terminal A we had to find the Magical Express counter; however, it was in Terminal B which I didn't know until wandering around Terminal A for 10 minutes. My luggage didn't weigh too much, until I had to drag it all around the airport. We finally found Magical Express and since we weren't booked on the hotel room we had to pay $20 each to ride. Fortunately, we only waited about 10 minutes for the bus and the kids on the bus weren't annoying.

My sister met us with the baby, Matty, at the bus drop off and took us up to the room. The Boardwalk Villa's was very nice at first glance, and I got to see lots of since our room was at the end of a hallway. The balcony overlooked the back of the slide. That night we had reservations for dinner at Wolf Gang Puck at Downtown Disney. I got a BBQ Chicken pizza, it was good, but not great. I think everyone else liked there dinner, but no one found the place great. I wouldn't

add it to my list of places I would like to go to on the next trip, I would rather try a different restaurant.

After dinner we went to a place where my nephew Alex got to make his very own car. It's similar to a Build a Bear, but with cars. So you pick a basic car, and you can get away with just that for $15-$30. But of course you'll want the special tires, and stickers and the remote control - you get the idea. Then they put your car together for you, with your assistance if you want.

So far things were going ok, although the sleeping arrangements of my mom, nephew and I on a fold out couch kept me from being well rested.

Reward Ticket Frustration

In August I'm going to Las Vegas on a family trip (I know, I never learn) and was going to use a old Jetblue Trueblue Reward (no, I'm not going to pick on Jetblue, ok, maybe a little bit) for one of the flights. My family (this is not the sister I went to Disney with in May) is going out on a Wednesday and returning on a Tuesday. My original plan was to fly out on Wednesday with them and return Sunday. However, I am having surgery a few weeks before and was trying to move that to a week earlier, which doesn't seem to be working out. In the meantime I was waiting for word on that and sitting on the fence with this trip. Well two of my friends recently, in the same week, had a young female friend die of cancer, I decided to not worry so much about my recovery from the surgery and just go on the trip.

When I looked at the flights the flight out was in the $200 range and the flight home was in the $400 range. But, plan A was to book the flight out with my sister and her family using the reward ticket and then wait and see what happened, hoping the flights would go down and/or I would be able to stay the extra days. I didn't have much of a plan B, just to try and book going home with it.

So I called Jetblue and they only had a ticket for much later in the day that the family was flying out. I went to plan B and they had one late afternoon flight coming home. I wasn't sure I wanted to fly back so late, so I called my sister first. I tried to get off the phone with her, but she kept talking. By the time I got on the phone with Jetblue again the last reward ticket was gone. There wasn't really anything else that fit with my plans either, and I called like 4 times too.

I waited a few days and came up with Plan C - I would switch my vacation week to the following week and fly out on Friday and come home one Tuesday with the family. I called Jetblue and I should have asked about the return flight first but I asked about Friday's flights instead. They had a seat on each of the later flights that day so I took the earlier of the two. Success!!!! I may try to go standby on an earlier one, I'll see how things are going when the time comes.

I tried to book the flight home with the family but it looks like Jetblue changed he time of their flight. Their confirmation email shows a different time then their website says. I asked my sister twice to check that and she ignored me, so I figured out a way to check their flight and it turns out their flight was changed. I booked the flight and now I don't have to worry about it anymore!

Jetblue

On my trip to Disney I flew Jetblue (please note that in recent posts complaining about Jetblue I never said I wouldn't fly them again.) I'm getting more and more disenchanted with Jetblue's customer service - I think they might be a bunch of robots over there.

For my flight down Mom decided she wanted an earlier flight. I called the day before the flight to find out my options; $100 change fee plus the difference in the cost of the flight, wait until midnight and pay $40 for a confirmed seat, or go standby at the airport. The problem is that the girl sounded like a robot, like she pre-recorded the message and just plays it when someone asks about changing flights, it was kinda creepy actually. I opted to book at midnight and pay the $40.
On the return trip the entire planes luggage went missing for an hour. The only acknowledgment of that was after flights that landed after us got there luggage - they told us it would come out momentarily, it didn't come for another half an hour.



I wrote an email to Jetblue's head of customer service. I mentioned all of my problems this year with them. The initial email seemed to be written by an actual person, and then I was passed onto someone else regarding the issue of the Truepass. I knew it wouldn't go anywhere, and it didn't. I got hopeful for a few minutes, but I knew it was a waste of time. In the end, Jetblue put a better face forward this time, though I'm still not in love with them.

Disney makes flying easy

I have two older sisters with children and both are going to Walt Disney World in May, separately. On one hand I secretly hoped one would invite me, on the other I was there a year and a half ago, I don't feel like I need to go back. There's still a lot of world out there to see. But who can resist a giant friendly mouse? Well the invite came last week, and I actually had to think about it. I am supposed to go to Las Vegas in August and then to Scotland in September after all. But in the end I decided to go because my Mom is going and she might need support. Watch out giant friendly mouse!

But the good news is that finding a flight there was MUCH easier to do then finding a flight to London and returning from Scotland. My choices for non-stop flights were Jetblue, Southwest and Delta. Jetblue won! Delta and Jetblue prices were the same, but the cheaper flights with the times we wanted were all on Jetblue, not Delta. Plus we can each check a suitcase without paying. Southwests flights were a bit more expensive and didn't have as good of a selection.

Email back from Jetblue

I got an email back from Jetblue this weekend. It was a standard cookie cutter response appologizing that I was unhappy with Karen and it would be referred to her supervisor. And no, we don't extend the time for vouchers.

It took almost two weeks to hear back from them and I was underwhelmed by the response. I don't think any less of them, but I don't think any more of them either. I'll be honest though, I don't know what they could do to make me feel better. In some ways a voucher would make me feel better, but even that doesn't address the issue. Heck, it was only a one way voucher anyway. They never did address my issue with shutting down on my last two days available for booking, nor did they respond to my request to have the flight donated to a charity.

This just supports my decision to cancel my Jetblue credit card, I wasn't convinced it was giving me enough anyway, and this is the proof (not that they're a bad airline, but I don't fly their routes enough). It works well with my decision to pursue FF miles with the legacy airlines too.

In the end though I guess Jetblue was doing such a good job that my expectations got to high, they were bound to diappoint me at some point. I'm contemplating a letter to the CEO; because, of my commitment to customers and customer service and the pursuit of them actually addressing all the issues stated. I'm a letter writer, not because I like free stuff (I actually haven't done that well with that), but because I like companies to do the right thing by consumers.

Jetblue broke my heart

Last year I earned 2 Truepasses through Jetblue's frequent flyer program. I used one of those passes last September, the other will expire tomorrow. I had offered my flight to my mother a while ago and she planned to use it, but then they laid off a bunch of people at work and she couldn't commit to booking a flight this month. I've been toying with some ideas, but with surgery scheduled for next month I can't even think about a trip (did I just say that?). Then to add insult to injury, Jetblue announced this week that they were shutting down their reservation system today and tomorrow - effectively shortening my year at the last moment, thanks!

On Tuesday night I decided to take action and call Jetblue to see if their are any exceptions to the rule - that would be a big fat NO! And, my agent Karen wasn't terribly sympathetic to my case, it was just - no, their are no exceptions. I tried to explain again, thinking maybe she needed more persuasion, I ended up convinced that she has no heart. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told I didn't need one because there are no exceptions. Now I was concerned with the lack of heart thing, and started wondering if she was a computer reading a script. Has Jetblue's phone been so busy that Karen (or the computer named Karen) forgotten to insert the part about "I'm so sorry about this inconvenience and I understand your frustration, but our policy is that we can not transfer calls to supervisors in regards to extending Truepasses." No, instead I got, "you don't need to speak to a supervisor."

Ya know what, I did, and I still need to.

I promptly went on the website to complain, I submitted my complaint and got a canned response back on Wednesday. Apparently, someone is missing the point. Jetblue is an airline that prides itself on bringing humanity back to air travel - I found that on their website, that's what they say - there words, not mine. Where is the humanity?

I've flown Jetblue many times and I flew with them within the first few months of their launch. I dealt with customer service a couple times and everything always worked out fine and I felt like a valued customer. I've had flights delayed with Jetblue and even those were relatively good experiences. My attitude has changed...

I woke up the morning after the call and Jetblue was dead to me, they had broken my heart and I no longer wanted to book a flight with them or fly on their planes. I wrote another letter, a real one, on paper with an envelope and a stamp and a signature (I think my true calling is consumer advocate.) I briefly explained what had happened and how I lost my desire to fly with them. I expressed my concern with customer service - I have NEVER EVER in all the companies that I had called (and trust me I have called my fair share) been told I can't speak to a supervisor. Then I went into how they weren't living up to their mission of bringing humanity back to air travel and that I no longer wanted to fly with them that I might as well fly with a legacy carrier because they would at least let me speak with a supervisor.

In the end all I wanted was for Jetblue to act like they cared, to humor me a bit and let me think I'm a special customer to them. Instead, they broke my heart. Jetblue your dead to me!

Back to the cars and planes...

So my flights to Knoxville and Pittsburgh were relatively uneventful. My first pair of flights was NY to DC, DC to Knoxville. I did figure out that Reagan Airport (DCA) is not the best place to have to spend a layover, not much shopping or food there. Knoxville's airport was cute - 10 gates and the place was totally shut down (even the security lines) when my flight got in around 9pm. As in the area was gated off for the night. I didn't know airports shut down at night, it was kinda weird.

Then I flew from Knoxville to Charlotte to Pittsburgh. Charlotte is a much more interesting place to spend a layover; however, it's a dangerous place. My flight came in at terminal E and my next flight was from terminal C. There are tons of food places and shopping places, though I didn't partake in too much of that since it took so long to get between terminals, that was exercise enough! To top it off it's like a slalom course trying to avoid the golf carts for the handicapped people. What is going on in Charlotte? There were more people being driven around on carts then there were walking around. The theory I came up with is that there were always a higher number of handicapped people there and then they built the airport and started running people over with the carts creating a larger number of handicapped people. These are the theories you come up with when you spend too much time in an airport...

These flights to Pittsburgh were the more interesting pair. First we got NO service flying to Charlotte, I got service in Egypt on a 30 minute flight, US Airways Express is a bunch of weenies. I finally learned why it is that on some flights you can gate check a larger carry-on and why on others you don't. I flew US Airways - US Airways does not do gate checking, if you're on a smaller plane either it fits or it goes as checked baggage. On US Airways Express the planes are smaller so they will gate check larger carry-on. Finally, a mystery solved! I still didn't figure out how come the smaller plane that US Airways uses, which held a similar number of people as the US Airways Express plane, had so much more room in the overhead bins and why the seats seemed roomier too. But I did meet a nice girl on the flight into Pittsburgh, we talked the whole trip which made us not notice that our flight got in a little late.

Flying home from Pittsburgh was with Jetblue. I love Jetblue - I've only had one delayed flight with them, the staff is nice, you actually get a snack and you have a TV. When I got in the airport I had to check to see if my carry-on was still carry-on size. My friend in Pittsburgh had a large present for me and I had to expand my carry-on. It turned out to be too big for the smaller plane, though they did offer to let me try to take it on as a carry-on since there weren't a lot of people on the flight. I decided since it was free to check my bag and I didn't feel like dragging the thing around if I was going to end up checking it that I would just check it there. That worked out fine since the suitcase made it to NY. Also my flight got in 40 minutes early and I had to wait for my ride anyway, why not wait the extra 2 minutes to get the suitcase. Which reminds me, they had our suitcases at baggage claim super quick, I don't ever remember getting my bag that quick before!

My rental car... I rented from Thrifty at Knoxville for 3 days. I rented an economy car since it's just me and I don't need more then that. The girl kept trying to up-sell me a bigger car, saying the mountains down by Pigeon Forge were so big I might need more power. I didn't take her offer. I got a Toyota Camry, which is the first rental car I've had that I actually liked, and it had plenty of power for what I was doing. They probably ran out of economy cars and wanted to get me to pay for the upgrade. When I dropped it off, Thrifty was closed so I just dropped the keys in a box, I haven't heard anything since so I'm assuming everything was fine. One thing I didn't like about Thrifty at the Knoxville Airport is that their cars were parked the furthest away from the terminal. But then the airport was so small that it wasn't that big of a deal.

The Burgh - Pittsburgh

I've just returned from visiting Pittsburgh, well actually I was visiting my friend who lives near Pittsburgh. I've been before and it seems like a nice city. I feel like I just see a little bit each time I visit. In the past I saw the Duquesne Incline (which offers great views of the city) and went to a Pittsburgh Pirates game, they have a great stadium. This time we stopped for lunch on the South Side, it was a nice little area with shops and restaurants. Reminded me a little bit of the land area of South Street Seaport in NYC.

I flew out on Jetblue, which is my favorite airline for domestic travel. Jetblue just opened a new terminal at JFK - T5. The food was better then it had been, the terminal was also brighter. The bathrooms was nice - room for you and your carry-on in the bathroom stall. There were some nice restaurants (or an airport) and nicer shops, which I appreciated incase I ever end up there for a long time. It was however lacking in a magazine selection. I'm used to Hudson News which has like every magazine ever written. At T5 there was only CNBC News shops with had a decent selection of magazines, but not as good as Hudson News has, I was disappointed. I did have a strange occurrence on the flight out, but you'll have to read that in another post I'm working on about weird things that happen on a plane.