Worst Trip
Copyright 2018, Harris B. McKee
My favorite fictional travel story is the Down Maine episode when a visitor stopped to ask directions to East Thetford. The cashier couldn't help and called back to Charley in the back room. After an overly long pause, Charley replied, "I can't rightly say. I guess you can't get there from heah."
Everyone who travels can recall a trip from hell when it seemed "you can't get there from heah". For my brother, it came on a sunny morning in Tahiti when all the passengers on his round-the-world cruise ship were called to the auditorium and advised the firm was in bankruptcy and not proceeding. To make matters worse, reservations made by the ship to get them home proved available only when they anted up the fare.
My worst trip, like many experienced by my friends, involved O'Hare (ORD) in Chicago. For several years, I've attended a Dartmouth College Officers Weekend (COW) in the fall. Sometimes I've gone alone but in 2015 I had added a ticket for Mary after a special invitation from my college roommate. The COW meetings begin activities on Friday afternoon, a time that makes a Friday departure from Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA) impossible. Accordingly, we booked a flight leaving XNA at 8:00 a.m. for ORD. We had plenty of time to make our 1:15 flight to Hartford-Springfield. That is, we would have had enough time if our flight departure had not been delayed until 1:00 p.m. because of issues at ORD.
When we arrived at ORD, we were advised that our flight had left but they had put us on a flight leaving at 7:00 p.m. The two-hour drive from Hartford to Norwich, Vermont after the flight would make it a late night but so it goes. But at 6:30, our flight was canceled. The agent at the gate told us cheerily that they could put us on a flight from ORD at 4:30 p.m. on Friday; meaning that we would have missed the meeting that was our only reason for traveling.
Giving up on going to Dartmouth, I asked if they could get us back home to Arkansas. Yes, there is a flight leaving at 7:00 and we could be on it. "What about luggage", I asked. "Do you want to be on the flight or have your luggage", asked the agent. I opted for the flight and we proceeded to the gate for XNA only to find a flight delay. While we waited for the flight, I got a call from the luggage handlers at the Hartford-Springfield Airport. "We see that you are not coming", he said. "Your luggage is here. What do you want us to do with it?' "Send it back to XNA", I said.
The next morning, I began the effort to get a refund or at least a credit on another flight. For Mary's ticket this was an easy task; in two weeks we had a voucher. For me, a million-mile flier with special acknowledgment, it took nearly six months for a similar result. So ended our Worst Trip.