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shannon_aI was supposed to fly to Buenos Aires this morning to go to the next Rebooting the Web of Trust (RWOT); clearly I didn't.
The Buenos Aires trip was always going to be an exercise in endurance (the trip, not the visit once I got there). It was 28 hours or so each way, aboard four different planes. It was shockingly hard to get a flight from Hawaii to South America, as they pretty much all went via the US, so that meant two hops to the US, then two hops to Buenos Aires.
It was also almost impossible to get a flight that only had one red-eye. I managed it; and I wouldn't have even planned to go if not, but I could only manage it by having Travelocity piece together three different airlines for me: Hawaiian, then American, then someone called LATAM to get there (and then something similar to get home, but I think with Delta instead of American). The whole flight was booked through LATAM.
So, the whole endurance-travel thing is one reason that I'm not totally bereft about not going, but I would still have preferred to.
But that's not the eponymous reason I'm glad not to be in Buenos Aires tonight (or rather, in about 16 hours).
Speaking of Travelocity: I haven't liked them any time recently, because it's always a mess getting your seat assignments and figuring out how you're flying on each leg. You pretty much have to call each individual airline, which is what I did last time I flew using a Travelocity flight, which I think was to Barcelona.
Because, unthrillingly, we had to use them for a while when we were getting RWOT flight money through a particular bureaucratic organization. But, we're past that, and I would have been making my own reservations, like I did to Prague last year, if not for the impossibility of piecing together an itinerary over three airlines to get to Buenos Aires within a day.
And in the aftermath, they've been suck at cancelling.
I mean, I (or rather RWOT) would have been totally screwed if I'd flown LATAM directly, because they had a no-refund, no-cancellation, no-anything policy, and even if you can transfer tickets, what would I have done with more tickets to South America?
Instead with Travelocity, they could theoretically transfer me to any other flight in the world, for a penalty of $300. So, I effectively could have gotten a $300 flight to Amsterdam (since it's cheaper than the Buenos Aires flight), where I hope to be this fall for the next RWOT.
Except RWOT couldn't commit to that until a day and a half before I was supposed to fly out. Which was right when Trump announced his idiot plan to ban trips from Europe. Suddenly Travelocity didn't have ANY European flights, and their phone lines were unreachable. I'd been contacting them via chat (after waiting on hold for a while in the previous week), so I used that to send a couple of requests to change my flights, and they were unsurprisingly ignored.
Which maybe will give me ammunition to try and make them do something, even now, after the fact.
But it certainly has reminded me why I don't use Travelocity. Yes, there's an unprecedented global hysteria that's particularly impacting their particular niche, but ignoring customers is pretty much business as usual at Travelocity from what I've seen.
So: Buenos Aires.
Today the President of Argentina announced a 30-day ban on all flights from the US. It's one of a couple of bans revving up in South America. (Thanks Trump; you started this.)
This is pretty much why RWOT had to cancel: because when the Argentinian government advised against gatherings of foreigners a few weeks ago, we realized that we didn't know what other crazy things they might do. Like banning all flights from the US.
Obviously, this has a reciprocal effect: flights TO the US aren't banned, but they're all getting cut.
It's looking like Monday is going to be about the last day you can get out of Argentina to the US without either having to wait (at least) 30 days or find a way into the US via some other country. Assuming that OTHER country flies to the US.
RWOT10 was supposed to start on Monday.
If I'd gotten on a plane today, I likely would have had to turn around as soon as I got to Argentina ... if I could get a flight out. Bleh.
The Buenos Aires trip was always going to be an exercise in endurance (the trip, not the visit once I got there). It was 28 hours or so each way, aboard four different planes. It was shockingly hard to get a flight from Hawaii to South America, as they pretty much all went via the US, so that meant two hops to the US, then two hops to Buenos Aires.
It was also almost impossible to get a flight that only had one red-eye. I managed it; and I wouldn't have even planned to go if not, but I could only manage it by having Travelocity piece together three different airlines for me: Hawaiian, then American, then someone called LATAM to get there (and then something similar to get home, but I think with Delta instead of American). The whole flight was booked through LATAM.
So, the whole endurance-travel thing is one reason that I'm not totally bereft about not going, but I would still have preferred to.
But that's not the eponymous reason I'm glad not to be in Buenos Aires tonight (or rather, in about 16 hours).
Speaking of Travelocity: I haven't liked them any time recently, because it's always a mess getting your seat assignments and figuring out how you're flying on each leg. You pretty much have to call each individual airline, which is what I did last time I flew using a Travelocity flight, which I think was to Barcelona.
Because, unthrillingly, we had to use them for a while when we were getting RWOT flight money through a particular bureaucratic organization. But, we're past that, and I would have been making my own reservations, like I did to Prague last year, if not for the impossibility of piecing together an itinerary over three airlines to get to Buenos Aires within a day.
And in the aftermath, they've been suck at cancelling.
I mean, I (or rather RWOT) would have been totally screwed if I'd flown LATAM directly, because they had a no-refund, no-cancellation, no-anything policy, and even if you can transfer tickets, what would I have done with more tickets to South America?
Instead with Travelocity, they could theoretically transfer me to any other flight in the world, for a penalty of $300. So, I effectively could have gotten a $300 flight to Amsterdam (since it's cheaper than the Buenos Aires flight), where I hope to be this fall for the next RWOT.
Except RWOT couldn't commit to that until a day and a half before I was supposed to fly out. Which was right when Trump announced his idiot plan to ban trips from Europe. Suddenly Travelocity didn't have ANY European flights, and their phone lines were unreachable. I'd been contacting them via chat (after waiting on hold for a while in the previous week), so I used that to send a couple of requests to change my flights, and they were unsurprisingly ignored.
Which maybe will give me ammunition to try and make them do something, even now, after the fact.
But it certainly has reminded me why I don't use Travelocity. Yes, there's an unprecedented global hysteria that's particularly impacting their particular niche, but ignoring customers is pretty much business as usual at Travelocity from what I've seen.
So: Buenos Aires.
Today the President of Argentina announced a 30-day ban on all flights from the US. It's one of a couple of bans revving up in South America. (Thanks Trump; you started this.)
This is pretty much why RWOT had to cancel: because when the Argentinian government advised against gatherings of foreigners a few weeks ago, we realized that we didn't know what other crazy things they might do. Like banning all flights from the US.
Obviously, this has a reciprocal effect: flights TO the US aren't banned, but they're all getting cut.
It's looking like Monday is going to be about the last day you can get out of Argentina to the US without either having to wait (at least) 30 days or find a way into the US via some other country. Assuming that OTHER country flies to the US.
RWOT10 was supposed to start on Monday.
If I'd gotten on a plane today, I likely would have had to turn around as soon as I got to Argentina ... if I could get a flight out. Bleh.