Phantom updates- flying Delta

So a lot really. Back in December we started officially dating. My Mom was confused as to what that meant. Before when I flew out to Indiana we were dating, meaning going on dates, and we liked each other, but not exclusively dating just the other person. So December we became boyfriend/girlfriend. :) He came home with me the first week of Christmas break and then flew back in time for Christmas with his family and then I flew back up to Utah a few days after Christmas and spent New Years Eve with him at his family party. Which was fun. I'm sure there would be a lot to blog about with that, and also Thanksgiving I guess I saw him too, but I want to focus on more recently. A few weeks ago he was performing in an Opera at his University, so I was flying out to see him in it and as it turned out, his Mom wanted to go that weekend too, so we made sure we got the same flight. I was REALLY looking forward to seeing him. But the day I was supposed to fly out I had a lot to do.

I woke up making sure I had everything packed, and ran a few errands. I was running a little late- because his Mom wanted to leave at a certain time from their house (that's where I was meeting her so we both didn't have to drive to the airport) and I was planning on leaving even earlier just to make sure. Well because I was running late I didn't end up leaving Provo when I wanted to. But I still had enough time to make it there by the time she wanted to leave their house for the airport.... except I ran into traffic- 3 times. The first time was because of an accident that I passed. Then that cleared up and then I ran into traffic for construction. That cleared up and then I hit traffic AGAIN. You know when you get to the point where it starts clearing up and you're looking for the reason traffic was stopped? It was a policeman who had his lights on and had pulled over and was talking to a man with a dog on the freeway. REALLY?! I realize a man probably should not be walking his dog on the freeway or whatever happened- but that's what people were stopped for?! So I was late getting to their house.

Then I get there and realize Phantom's Dad (who was originally driving us to the airport) had to work and so Phantom's Mom had asked her parents to drive us. No big deal. Or so we thought.... Apparently she's getting a little too old to drive on the freeway- and when I say that I don't mean she was completely an unsafe driver but driving over 45 mph made her nervous- and the speed limit is 65... and we were short on time. She got nervous when we got to the interchange and she ended up getting on a different freeway (also not a huge deal, because you can get to the airport from both the 215 and the 15, but it would've been easier for her to STAY on the 215). Overall, it took us a really long time to get to the airport considering it was only a short distance away.

Then my boarding pass and checking in. I had a problem checking in. There was no line to talk to one of the people who work at the desk but they told me they couldn't help me and I had to call some number. Their call service is NOT very efficient- WORST phone system EVER. I pressed a number to talk to someone and still had to press buttons for other options for 5 minutes before they connected me to someone who asked the SAME questions again, I just didn't have to press buttons this time because there was a person on the other end now... LAME! Anyways, it took like 10-15 minutes to check my bag.

Then we got up to security. The line seemed long so we talked to the guy there and told him our flight left soon- I think we had 30 minutes at that time... He told us we couldn't cut, because the line would only take 20 minutes... Well we hadn't gotten half way through in 10 minutes and started talking to other people in line. A lot of people in line with us had flights leaving within 5-10 minutes of our own- so they were in the same boat. We did find a few people though who had an hour before their flight who let some of us cut in front of them. Didn't help enough. Then actual security found some problem with Phantom's Mom's bag. That's fine- they usually take it and run it through again- but they normally do it right away. They held on to it for what seemed like forever and let a few other people pass before putting it through again. It was just kinda annoying.

Running to the gate... Yep- our gate was the farthest from the security point. We did our best to run as fast as we could. I tried to help carry her bag so she could go faster too. And we got to the gate and I could see the lady closing the door. I asked and practically begged her to just open the gate and call back the plane or something- I think the flight was supposed to leave at 4:30- but whatever the time was, it was two minutes before whatever time it was supposed to leave. So they told us we had to go almost all the way back to security to these phones where we could call about rescheduling our flight.

So I called- the SAME INEFFICIENT phone system as before. I finally got some lady. She was very helpful at first and then told me it was going to cost me $600. So I asked her what she could do for me, she said nothing, and so I asked to be transferred to someone who could help me. She just repeated that she couldn't do anything. I was like, look, this is what happened... related most of the story I wrote above and asked her if she felt paying $600 to rebook a flight I'd already spent $400 on seemed ridiculous to her. She said it did, so I said, then can you please transfer me to someone who IS allowed to do something more. Still she resisted and I started getting frustrated. I said, look, you claim you don't know who to transfer me to, but I know you know your boss. You work for someone, and if they can't help me then they should know someone or know someone who knows someone who can help. It took a lot of convincing before she transferred me. So then I talked to this other gal who looked up when I checked in my bag. She claimed she couldn't do anything because my bag was checked like 2 minutes after the 40 minutes before the flight or something? I told her it was because I had problems with the phone system and the person standing there at the desk with nothing to do didn't help me and that on top of that, my bag MADE the flight and I made it to the gate before the scheduled time. So she looked that up and was like, you're right, it left 2 minutes early. So what does she do? She "knocks off" the transfer price and brings it down to $500 and something... I still thought that was ridiculous and meanwhile Phantom's Mom is on the phone with her husband and he had gotten online and found tickets on the SAME flight she was offering to put us on for over $500 a person for $300 a person. RIDICULOUS! Buying a whole new ticket is cheaper than working with their customer service and getting a "deal". So we didn't take that deal. Then Phantom called me and asked how I was and I almost broke down crying. Ok I did cry, but I kept myself from sobbing. I did NOT want to miss my flight. I hate HAVING to talk to people on the phone. I hate dealing with problems- well ones like these anyways. And all I wanted at the moment was a REAL hug from Phantom which I couldn't get because I MISSED my stinking flight. Well we bought the tickets that left the following day. We eventually made it and the rest of the time was great! Things are going well and he got to meet my brother just last week too :) So those are the updates for now.