We just got back yesterday after spending about a week in Washington DC and Richmond. We had a great trip, despite the fact that I screwed up buying the airline tickets, which cost us some money and caused a little anxiety.

We flew into DC and spent the night with Amy. We helped her with a small project the next day, and rode with her to Richmond. Amy spent the weekend and returned to DC on Sunday afternoon, so she could go to work on Monday.

We spent most of the time in Richmond hanging out with our grand-kids. They are cuter than ever and smarter than any little kids I know. We also had dinner with some extended family—Ann D’s parents and Aunt Ro.

Matthew and Ann left on Tuesday for Chicago where Matthew attended a surgery conference. We were the babysitters that night. You can only spoil them so much in one night. We tried. We rode the train the next day to DC and spent the night again with Amy.

I posted several videos and pictures at the sunlightbay.com gallery.

The saga of buying airline tickets over the Internet did not end with the $200-dollar lesson that I was previously given.  Because we didn’t show up for our original flight from Little Rock to Washington, we became a “no-show”.  As I learned, that meant that our entire trip had been canceled by American. If you don’t show up for one leg of you flight, your entire itinerary will be canceled. So, when I logged on to try to check in for our flight tomorrow, that’s the message I received—trip canceled.  That news caused me to tighten up quite a lot.

I called the American reservation desk to learn more about the rules. If you are a “no-show”, from that point forward, your tickets have no value. Ouch! I whined and whined and bitched. After the reservation clerk checked a few times with someone higher up (at my insistence), our tickets were reinstated. However, because we went from having a round trip ticket to a one-way ticket, we were charged a change fee. At first, the change fee was $54 for each ticket. But, I kept whining until I got that number down to $29.

On reflection, I concluded that there was no way to avoid a change fee if any change is made to an itinerary. And, of course, we technically changed our trip by not showing up for the first flight.

Another lesson learned.

A little more about our trip to visit the kids back East.

Judy took us to the airport.  Our flight was on time. Everything was lovely.

We had plenty of time to catch our connecting flight in Chicago.  It was supposed to leave at 2:00; we arrived shortly after noon.  We had lunch.  Chilled out.

Then…  A little before it was time for our flight to leave, she announced that our flight would be delayed for 40 minutes.  It was a ‘service problem’.  That’s no big deal.

Then… A little later she announced that there would be another delay until 3:00, another 20 minute delay.  No big deal.

At about 2:45, I looked out the window.  To my surprise, one of the back wheels of the plane was detached from the plane and there were several people working on it.

To me that did not seem like a ‘service problem’.  That seemed like a major mechanical problem.

I panicked.  We had already spent an extra $200 so we would not arrive in DC at an ungodly hour.  Now, it seemed that we were destined to be late.

I intermediately searched for a plan B.  So, I went to the counter and asked if there were any other flights going to DC just in case our flight didn’t leave on time.  (Wink, wink.  There’s no way that plan is leaving without wheels and landing gear).

She said, there is another flight leaving in a few minutes, but, sorry, she couldn’t change our flight.  I would have to go to the gate of the departing flight.  Luckily, the next departing flight left from B3 and we were at B5.  I waved to Ann, hoping she would follow. She did.

Long story, short.  We were able to get seats on the fight to DC that left at about 3:00.  We only got middle seats, not together, obviously.  We couldn’t carry on our luggage, which had to be checked.  But, there was no charge for checking the bags.

We made it to DC only about an hour later than our original flight was scheduled to arrive, and Amy came to pick up up.

We had some wine and ordered out for Thai food.  Life is good.

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.