We have a trip coming up soon to visit our kids back East. I bought the tickets on line a few weeks ago. After that, I didn’t think much about the tickets until Amy wanted to see our itinerary. So, I send her a copy of the email from American showing the flight numbers and times of departure and arrival. She responded, “Boo! Y’all get here so late!!!!!!”.
That response was confusing, because I was pretty sure we would leave here at about 7:00 and arrive about 12:45. The times turned out to be correct, except for a not-so-insignificant difference. The flight departure was at 7:05 pm, arriving at 12:50 am—the middle of the night. I thought we had tickets for a 7:05 am departure time.
I panicked because I’m too old to travel that late. I immediately called American to see about re-booking the flight. As the agent explained to me there is indeed a flight that leaves at 7:05 am and arrives in the early afternoon. I tried to convince her that I had selected that flight (certainly in my mind) and that American had made a mistake. She did not buy that story. I had no evidence that I had booked the morning flight. In fact, I had just the opposite—an email from American showing the 7:05 pm departure time.
When I bought the tickets, Ann was sitting by me so we could select the flight times together. She confirmed that we had selected the 7:05 am departure time. None of this matters. We bought tickets that were non refundable. There is no changing the tickets without paying a fee.
I asked the American agent about changing the ticket to the morning flight. She confirmed that seats were available for the 7:05 am flight, and then she gave me the bad news. At this late date, the tickets for the morning flight were more expensive, and in addition to that, we would have to pay a fee for changing the tickets. The result was an additional $484, just to change from an evening flight to a morning flight! That’s more than we had paid for the entire trip. I tightened up a lot with that news. I told her I would get back to her.
I quickly developed a plan B. Maybe I could get a one-way ticket from another airline that would be cheaper. That turned out to be a good plan. I was able to buy two one-way tickets to DC for about $100 each, and that flight leaves at a reasonable time (10 am). We can use our return tickets from American and call it a day. Mark it up as a $200 lesson–always double check the flight schedule before hitting the buy button. The American flight leaving Little Rock at 7:05 pm will be missing a couple of old people, because we will already be in DC sipping a glass of wine.
