Holiday Traveling

This year for Christmas, we were able to get a really good deal on our tickets by using Priceline name your own price. Basically, this works by you saying this is how much you're willing to pay for a flight on such and such dates and you give them your credit card information. You are only allowed to "bid" once a day I believe. Anyway, it will come back with a price for flights, maybe a little more, sometimes a lot more, and rarely a little less. It then asks if you are willing to accept this price. The kicker: you have no idea what time the flights will be at and whether or not they have lay overs, or where those layovers might be or how long they might last. Still, we did this for our trip to AZ in November and got a direct flights at pretty decent times. However, this time was not quite so lucky.

On Monday the 20th we left for Seattle. Our flight didn't leave until 4:20pm, which isn't that bad of a departure time. However, the flight was delayed about 10 - 15 minutes because of air traffic in Detroit. That's right Detroit, where we had our layover. Why you have to fly East to fly West is beyond me. So we're sitting there because the airplane got to O'Hare on time. During these 10 - 15 minutes, it starts snowing. Now our plane has to be de-iced and we have to wait for the de-icer. And we also have to wait for our turn to take off. End of all this, we end up leaving 45 minutes to an hour late. So much for our hour, hour and a half layover in Detroit, during which we were planning on getting dinner. We land in Detroit and the pilot asks that those with connecting flights be allowed to get off first. Well apparently 95% of the flight had connecting flights. Devin and I literally run to our next flight and they have to open the walkway gate to let us on. Positive thing about this day, the plane has free wi-fi and tv's on the back of all the seats. Devin and I got to watch tv for the first time in months!

Several hours and some really expensive turkey sandwiches later, we land in Seattle. Our flight is on time and Keeley and Karly are ready to pick us up. Problem, our luggage didn't make our connecting flight; it's still in Detroit. Groan. Delta tells us they will send it up to the Bellingham airport the next day and we can pick it up there. We get into the car with family and drive home. By the time we get there, it's about 2am Chicago time. More groan. I borrow some of Karly's pajamas and we're good to go.

Fortunately, our luggage really did arrive in Bellingham the next day.

Now our flights home were on the 29th, Devin's birthday. Poor man. Our flight out of Sea-Tac was at 8am or so. Bellingham is an hour and a half from the airport. Keeley and Karly had work. I.e. we caught a shuttle to the airport at 4:15am. Whimper. Fortunately, our flights that day were on time and we lost no luggage. However, we did have a long layover in Minneapolis, almost long enough that we could have driven home in that time. But we watched Monsters vs. Aliens and got some food to pass the time.

Despite some serious fog, we landed at O'Hare basically on time and didn't have to wait too long for our luggage. Devin's school friend Tom came and got us and off we went. By the time we got home, we had been traveling for 12 hours, and were very happy to be at home with our kitty.

Moral of this story, I HATE layovers, especially during the holiday season and never want to have any ever again.