I’ve flown Jetblue any number of times and had no problem. So it was startling that my return from San Diego was as much of a fiasco as it was, especially considering that I was lied to by virtually every Jetblue employee that I encountered.
I was slated to leave at Noon from San Diego, get into JFK at 8:30 PM and connect to an Orlando flight at 9:10 PM. I wasn’t sanguine about the tight connection, but was assured when I made the reservation that their on-time record practically assured I’d make it.
So we sat on the runway at San Diego for a solid hour, and as I watched time erode, the flight attendant assured me that they’d hold the connecting flight.
Riiiiight.
Well, thanks to reroutes to take us around bad weather, we wound up flying waaaay out of our way and had to refuel in Buffalo. So the flight attendant comes up to me and tells me, at 10:10 PM, that JFK is way behind in its flights taking off, and the plane would very likely still be there. (Unbeknownst to me, the flight from JFK to Orlando had taken off at 10:05.)
So as we approached JFK at 11:10, the same stewardess comes to me and tells me apologetically that the chances were “very slim” that the connecting flight would still be there (since it had departed 65 minutes earlier, “very slim” was a generous assessment at best.) However, she assures me “if the plane is gone, we’ll put you up in a hotel for the night.”
Riiiiight.
“And there will be a gate agent right at the gate to give you all the information you’ll need.”
Riiiight.
So I get off the plane at 11:30 PM. No gate agent, no info. I’m told to go to the customer service desk. I’m waiting behind a guy going to Burlington, Vermont, who’s told that his plane is about to leave but if he runs he can still catch it. Off he runs. They tell me about the already departed flight and book me on the 7:05 AM flight, telling me I have an aisle seat in the front of the plane. I’m supposed to then go down to the main office in baggage claim where I’ll be sent to a hotel.
I pass the angry Vermont passenger who got to watch the door closed as he sprinted toward it. So he wasn’t in much of a good mood either.
In the main office, they give me a piece of paper with a code number and tell me to go to a nearby hotel. “We’ve called ahead, your room will be all ready, and we’ll be paying for it.”
Riiiiight.
So I cab over to the hotel, my “Fantastic Four” t-shirt now soaked through from perspiration. I get there and the desk clerk has no idea what I’m talking about. Jetblue didn’t call, they have no vouchers left with this hotel to comp passengers, and the hotel doesn’t have any rooms available anyway. They’re booked solid. Absolutely no rooms available.
As I’m standing there trying to figure out what to do, the desk clerk asks me if I’ve seen the FF film. Yes, I have. Is he a comics fan. “Huge fan,” he says. I stick out my hand and say, “Hi. I’m Peter David. I wrote the Hulk for 12 years.”
Ten minutes later, I have a room. So that was something. But I had to pay for it myself.
Later that morning I return to JFK where I discover that my ticket has transmuted from an aisle seat in the front to a middle seat in the back. By this point I’m too exhausted to care.
Jetblue will be hearing from me. Oh yes.
PAD
• 
Den – “Food? Are there any airlines that serve a real meal at all anymore? Was there ever a time when the quality was good?”
Flown Japan Air Lines (JAL) recently? I’ve never had any complaints in my several years of flying out to Japan on them. Now, if only they had a direct flight from Ottawa rather than my having to deal with O’Hëll … excuse me, O’Hare … or Vancouver airports for connections. :p
Starwolf, high speed rail is a dream that this country really needs to get behind. We’re now close to a decade behind Europe and Japan when it comes to effecient, affordable high-speed rail lines. It comes down to greed and politics (not quite the same thing): You can’t run modern, high-speed trains on our 19th century rail lines. We have the right of way, or at least some corporation does, but no one is willing to front the billions of dollars it would take to upgrade those tracks to accomodate HSR. There’s some talk of using the existing tracks with newer, faster trains for what you might call a mid-speed rail system, but that’s like running NASCAR races around your circular driveway.
Politicians have the power to address the infrastructure issues facing the country, but lack the financial backing to get it done…thus, anyone proposing a tax increase to pay for such needed projects is prone to failure and loss of elected office.
No, can’t say that I’ve ever flown Japan Airlines.
I always wanted to go to Japan, though.
Which hotel was this? I’m a little baffled as to why they’re is getting a free pass here. After all, the desk clerk was one of the few players in the whole ordeal who said something they knew for certain at the time to be demonstrably false. However, unlike the airline employees, the desk clerk doesn’t even have the excuse of trying to pass off a problem on the next person down the line because he had no real power to fix it, anyway. If he had a room available (as he apparently did), there was no logical reason to say that he did not to a person willing to pay for lodgings.
Alternatively, maybe the desk clerk was not in fact lying, and the hotel was in fact “booked solid.” However, when the found themselves face-to-face with a famous person with no place to lay his head, they un-booked a room. Works out well for PAD, but imagine the shock that other guy is going to have when the hotel has somehow lost his reservation and he doesn’t have a writing credit to trade on.
I’m sure there are other explanations for the sudden appearance of an available room once a name and claim to fame was dropped, but I can’t think of any that don’t involve a hideous breach of customer service standards.
The problem with getting the politicians to fund highspeed rail is that, if you look at the dominant politicians in our country today, they are all from rural disricts or from states where the majority population is rural. They couldn’t give a rat’s ášš about making it easier for people living large or medium-sized urban areas to travel.
Den: Huh, I suppose that’s one way to put it. Unless you’re willing to put in several stops along the high-speed rail system you’re talking about, so the rural areas you’re going to use emminent domain on to put in the new rail lines that can handle the SOTA trains, why would they be in favor of it? They get no benefit except noise, inconveniences due to construction, loss of land, etc. However, I’m assuming we’re talking express, get on in one city, 2 hours later (with no stops) get off in another. If not, then it’s probably going to boil down to trying to get several sets of politicians to shake hands and work together at the municipal, state, and federal level. Good luck with all that…
If, and it’s a big “if,” if someone can develop a high speed rail system that shows definite financial benefits for all the cities, counties, and states involved, you might, MIGHT, be able to get something together. I have not studied how they did it in Europe and Japan, so I would love to hear about how much land was taken with their version of emminent domain, if their environmental impact studies are as rigorous and politically involved as ours would be, and if any of these systems operate on a positive financial basis. Seriously, does anyone know?
Hm, NYC Police just initiated random checkpoints of people entering the subway stations. Checkpoints are set up outside of the turnstiles. Apparently, these checks are not profiling, working on some predetermined headcount and anyone not consenting to a search is turned away from the subway station. I’m not sure how effective that this will be since, in a worst case scenerio for anyone wanting to detonate a device, this will mean they simply need to refuse to submit if they are chosen and leave the station, walk a few block away and reenter at another location.
Fred
Sure there are, Janet. Hotels don’t book every room. Some are out of service for a variety of reasons – it hasn’t been cleaned, something’s broken, a block are reserved for a group that doesn’t need all of them, a room for staff to crash in, etc. Perhaps rules said he had no rooms, but he was willing to bend a rule (or outright break one) for PAD.
They get no benefit except noise, inconveniences due to construction, loss of land, etc.
Inconveniences due to construction hasn’t stopped the expansion of I-25 through the southern Denver metro corridor (an expansion from 4 to 8 lanes each way… yeah, that’ll solve traffic problems).
If, and it’s a big “if,” if someone can develop a high speed rail system that shows definite financial benefits for all the cities, counties, and states involved, you might, MIGHT, be able to get something together.
Voters in the Denver metro last year approved a small tax increase to pay for a 15 year project that will add a dozen new light rail lines around the Denver metro.
Some of these lines are using nothing but existing rail lines.
The hope is, eventually, to have light rail lines extend all the way down to Colorado Springs and north to Fort Collins.
They’ve already started the Colorado Springs line by building a light rail track next to the I-25 expansion for a few miles.
Seriously, does anyone know?
I have no idea. The only thing I know is that these sorts of projects are upon state and local governments.
Already, our government wants to ditch Amtrak and hand it over to private interests and the states.
Traveling on Amtrak isn’t a horrible way to go, IF they’re on time and can get some faster trains on the tracks. That, and if their cars don’t lose power so you’re not forced to sit on a track in the middle of southern Iowa in +90 heat & humidity, making the car feel like an oven.
Speaking of trains vs. planes. After 9/11, I thought it amazing that, after years of letting Amtrack starve, the politicians in Washington couldn’t write a bailout check for the airline industry fast enough.
>Posted by: Bobb at July 22, 2005 08:53 AM
>Starwolf, high speed rail is a dream that this
>country really needs to get behind.
Lyle Lanley: Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!
What’d I say?
Ned Flanders: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What’s it called?
Patty+Selma: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: That’s right! Monorail!
[crowd chants `Monorail’ softly and rhythmically]
Miss Hoover: I hear those things are awfully loud…
Lyle Lanley: It glides as softly as a cloud.
Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend?
Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
Barney: What about us brain-dead slobs?
Lyle Lanley: You’ll be given cushy jobs.
Abe: Were you sent here by the devil?
Lyle Lanley: No, good sir, I’m on the level.
Wiggum: The ring came off my pudding can.
Lyle Lanley: Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it’s Springfield’s only choice…
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What’s it called?
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: Once again…
All: Monorail!
Marge: But Main Street’s still all cracked and broken…
Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!
All: Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!
[big finish]
Monorail!
Homer: Mono… D’oh!
I’ve only had good times flying. Of course my mom works for a major airline and I’ve only flown first class. 🙂
Craig – “Voters in the Denver metro last year approved a small tax increase to pay for a 15 year project that will add a dozen new light rail lines around the Denver metro.
Some of these lines are using nothing but existing rail lines.”
I hope you have better luck with that than we had. Politicos finally decided to put in light rail here. The so-called O-Train. “O” for “Ottawa”, of course, but many people immediately dubbed it the “Zero” train.
Anyway, not being willing to spend what it takes to do it RIGHT, they decided to have a “pilot project” going from an area of low density population to an area of … well, an open field just outside the center of the city, where one then transfers to buses to actually get anywhere. Worse, it, too, runs on “existing lines”. Trouble is, those lines were designed for heavy freight cars. They soon discovered that the lighter O-Train couldn’t run at its specified speed without taking damage on the old, unkept lines.
Way to save money and completely screw up a project, guys. Feh.
Sure there are, Janet. Hotels don’t book every room. Some are out of service for a variety of reasons – it hasn’t been cleaned, something’s broken, a block are reserved for a group that doesn’t need all of them, a room for staff to crash in, etc. Perhaps rules said he had no rooms, but he was willing to bend a rule (or outright break one) for PAD.
**********************************
But yet there was a room. If PAD hadn’t been PAD (or if the clerk had not recognized him), he might have faced a sleepless night in a hotel lobby or in the airport and so on.
Either every room is booked or it isn’t. The exceptions you note are certainly reasonable ones, but what’s not reasonable is not giving an exhausted traveler the full story.
If it’s midnight, I probably don’t care if the room hasn’t been cleaned or if there’s no soap (I’ll run out for some the next morning) or if the TV is broken (I’ll be unconscious the whole time anyway). Just let me know. “Well, we do have this one room… it’s on the 13th floor and is haunted but…”
I’ll even sign waivers if it’ll make them feel better, but don’t tell me there’s no place for me to sleep when there is.
SER: “I’ll even sign waivers if it’ll make them feel better, but don’t tell me there’s no place for me to sleep when there is.”
Waivers aside, unfortunately, people often turn around and sue hotels when they wake up in a potentially hazardous room the next morning. For some corporate-types, it’s easier to deal with the ill-will of turning customers away than the potential lawsuit that could develop out of a customer staying in a poorly kept/dangerous room.
Not to mention the fact that there’s all sorts of bizzaro municipal/federal guidelines that often require hotels to leave a certain number of rooms open, no matter what. I know in the southeast, some states have passed legislation to keep a certain percentage of hotel rooms vacant, no matter what, during hurricane season or expected times of natural disaster.
Not that I’m trying to say all of the above is morally right or anything… I’m just explaining, is all.
I have to agree with Peter; being stuck in a situation in which you have no control is one thing; being told by somebody that they’re doing something to help when in fact they have no intention of helping and they’re just shining you on is very different- and hugely annoying.
Getting the right seat assignment is a very big bugbear for me. When I booked a ticket to London on Virgin last month, I was told I could book an aisle seat for the return flight, but there were no more seats allocated for the outbound flight. The best they could do is put a request in the computer requesting an aisle seat. Needless to say when I got to Newark Airport a few weeks later, the agent said there was no such request in the computer, but since I’d got there well ahead of time, there was no trouble getting an aisle seat. And I double-checked, my seat for the return flight was already booked.
Two weeks later, I check in at Heathrow, only to discover that I had no seat assignment (even though I’d written down the seat number and confirmed it twice). The flight was overbooked because yesterday’s flight had been cancelled, so aisle seats were in short supply, but the agent called through to whoever those mysterious people are that they call and managed to get me an aisle seat. Bear in mind that I had booked that seat almost a month ago, and re-confirmed it twice, but somewhere along the line it disappeared. My wife couldn’t figure out why I was so pìššëd øff, because as she pointed out, I managed to get my seat, and the agent had been very helpful, but my point was, I should have had that seat all along and not needed any help!
As long as I’m on a roll, the other thing that really pìššëš me off is when you try to complaint about the lack of service you got from a previous employee, and employee #2 looks at you with that smarmy selt-satisfied look and says, ‘Oh, do you happen to know who you spoke to, sir?’ knowing full well that most customers never manage to retain that bit of information. Funny how their expression changes when I pull out the moleskin notebook that I always keep in my back pocket and read back the employee name and the employee number that you can get off the ID tag around their neck. So my advice to anyone having a bad flight is, write everything down, even if you’ve got to make notes on the back of cocktail napkins. You’d be surprised at how useful that information can be later on.
Can you tell from the above that I’ve had more than my share of bad travel experiences? James Tichy, I don’t suppose your mom wants to adopt another son?
I hope you have better luck with that than we had.
I hope so too.
They’re obviously building new lines as well, but I don’t think they’d use the existing ones if they didn’t think they were useful.
Either that, or it could just be the land that preexisting lines are on, and they’re going to build new lines next to the old ones, or replace the old lines.
Either way, they’re not tearing down anybody’s house to make this project happen.
People have complained about the noise that light rail generates and I’m thinking that these people need to live next to a real set of train tracks where freight trains go by 2 or 3 times a day, at all hours of the night.
Then they’d have nothing to complain about with light rail. 🙂
Anybody hear read Amazing Spiderman? Remember the issue a few months ago when May’s house burnt down? All she wanted to save was her photograph albulms and everything else could burn. Remember that, and how it made Peter feel?
My grandmother lived in NJ. She was flying out to visit grandchildren in Vancouver, Canada. This was the firt time she was going to see her youngest grandchild out of diapers, first time she would actually be able to talk to him. She loaded up her luggage with a whole bunch of photo albumls to show her grandchildren. (I was the only grandchild of hers who lived on the east coast. She had 5 up in Vancouver.)
Once she got to her son’s house, she found that somebody had gone through her luggage and stolen all the photo albums. People steal old pictures and sell them to people for decorations…so that people could pretend they have family history or something.
Every picture my grandmother had of her mother, her father, her grandparents, and her son and daughter when they were children were gone. Nothing to show her grandchildren.
It absolutely devestated my grandmother. She said it was the single worse thing that ever happened to her that didn’t involve a loved one dying.
Airling never bothered to even apologize to her, even though the robbery happened while the luggage was in their care.
Janet’s point is completely valid. PAD received preferential treatment because the clerk was a fan. It does not appear that he sought preferential treatment or did anything wrong, but he was given a benefit which was not given to someone else, and which was not going to be given to him until the clerk recognized him. JetBlue’s conduct seems to have been abominable; How much of the mess was also the hotel’s fault is impossible to assess.
On the issue of preferential treatment, what is the consensus on the Oprah Winfrey-Hermes situation? I was disgusted that Ms. Winfrey presented the situation as a discrimination issue, when the facts support Hermes: They were not open. It was after closing time, so it is not surprising that they were closed. Hermes does not make a general practice of opening up after hours simply because a prospective customer would prefer that they did. If any non-celebrity were to be denied access to a retail establishment after closing time, the reasonable assumption would be that this was a perfectly normal event, not worthy of further consideration. If I understand Ms. Winfrey’s position, it is that she was discriminated against because she was not given special consideration as a celebrity, rich person and high queen of the universe. I don’t find her position convincing.
ok i’m gonna be cheeky now sorry bout this but i’m coming to the states in september for a month or so can anybody recomend a “good” budget airline for US internal flights as i’m planning on traveling around a bit
thanks
Budget airline? You’re joking, right? I don’t think such a thing truly exists. 🙂
If you’re planning on travelling around alot, on short notice with flights, you’re probably not going to have the best options in the world.
Southwest seems to have a lot of great prices for some routes, but you need to book in advance.
United’s “budget” service, Ted, is also a way to go I suppose.
It’s all going to depend on where you’re going. 🙂
You could also try Spirit Air depending on where you’re going, ATA or there’s a new airline called USA3000 that I haven’t tried yet. Right now, I’m flying Delta to get to Chicago for the Wizard World convention.(Peter, why do you not go there? Do you not love Chicago anymore?) This flight is free because of getting bumped 3 times while in the Ohio airport. THERE was some fun. As soon as I’m off work, I’ll tell you about it.
I’ve been on Spirit Air before and haven’t really had a problem with them. Same with ATA. USA3000 is one I haven’t tried. The only reason why I fly Delta is that it’s the only “major” carrier at the airport that’s close to the house.
We should have gone to San Diego but we rented a car and went to Flagstaff, Sedona, and Phoenix instead. We had a wonderful time. Then we stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Phoenix for a quick dinner. Before the food even arrived, the manager comes through warning anyone parked near the trees in front to move their car, some of the trees were starting to lean. My husband rushed out to move the car and sees, not one, but two trees covering our rental car and the car next to us. We learned that the fire dept. won’t remove trees from cars on private property. Cracker Barrel couldn’t find anyone to come out and eventually got an electical contractor with a chain saw to come out and remove the trees. We were there for over three hours. The manager acted like they were doing us a favor by removing their trees from our car because “it was an act of God and we are not responsible.” He also handed us the bill for the dinner we barely ate, then thought better about it when my husband started raising his voice.
The tree that did the damage looked diseased and rotted in parts, we took pictures with a camera we had to purchase from Cracker Barrel. Our insurance company will send someone out in a few days to check out the tree which is now completely gone.
Fortunately the damage wasn’t too bad and we were able to get home. We have a $500.00 deductible making this a very expensive trip.
just wanted to say thanks for the travel advice i’ll chheck em out
don’t know if anyones intrested but if you come to europe Ryan Air & Easyjet are worth using again it helps if you book in advance as seats are limited
once again cheers
I had a great experience with Jet Blue Customer Service. No joke.
When we went to Orlando last October, someone stole my son’s Mickey Mouse hat out of our baggage for some reason. I called customer service to complain and see if they could try and find it. They called me back a couple of days and asked if I would take a settlement in return for them closing the investigation. Needless to say, that their settlement that was good towards another flight was a much bigger amount than the hat was worth (barring the emotional cost of losing it — not really, my son was 2 at the time and could care less). It could just be their JFK branch but this experience really impressed me and I am a loyal follower to this day.