Until someone left the lights on in the plane.
I kid you not. We arrived at our gate in Saskatoon to learn that the battery on the plane was dead as a result, and that departure would be delayed just over an hour… so long as they could find the mechanic to supervise the recharge, who, though he works in Calgary, lives in Saskatoon.
Said mechanic pronounced the batteries toast, and thus began alternate flight arrangements that resulted in Focus missing his connection in Calgary. As it is me accompanying the dog, and not the other way round, it was a case of “no doggie, no flyee.”
So, Air Canada, bless their hearts, put us up in a hotel and we’re relaxing in Vancouver until morning. For all the criticism they get, in this case I have no complaints with the airline. Big thanks are due agent “Jaydee” for getting it all rebooked, and to the baggage people who hunted down my delayed dog, and missing bag.
Go run up a big tab in the Air Canada lounge and charge it to the airline!
No use complaining about what is now normal.
Have a great trip and try get a handful of those those free Tibets. Who knows when they will start charging for them.
Always be thankful to be safe on the ground rather than at risk in the air.
Hey Kate, (sarcasm) free some Tibetians while you’re there, eh! (/sarcasm) Keep your chin up and enjoy…
Just imaging the doggie arriving un-accompanied in Tibet!!!
Welcome to Vancouver Kate. Thanks for bringing some sun with you. If you doze off in the lounge and are startled awake by loud voices that you don’t understand, despite what you may see, you are not in Old China yet. And don’t get suckered into any of those “Free Tibet” offers, you could waste half a day sitting through a high pressure time share promotion.
well if we’d know earlier r we coulda had a meeting of Vancouver chapter of the SDA Fan Club.
At least it has turned out to be a nice day. We have been having a lot of “Global Warming” here recently so enjoy the nice weather.
Saskatoon to Calgary? Pardon my Ameroignorance but isn’t that like living in Milan and working in Brussels?
RicardoVerde Actually it is quite common for airline employees to work in one city and live in another. A friend is a pilot for Air Canada who lives in Edmonton and flies out of Vancouver. Air Canada cut down on covering the cost of flying passenger for aircrew so he began flying West Jet.
Don’t they eat dogs in China? Be careful 🙂
…watch out for taser happy RCMP’s in the airport Kate!
And watch out! Johnny M may be out to make your trip even worse!
I guess it’s a little late to wish you a BON VOYAGE…
Better luck on your way home!
Safe trip Kate,
Take lots of pictures, keep notes of the trip and share it when you’re back.
Best regards,
Pat
Somebody left the lights on? Sounds like a job for David Suzuki.
Kate, I’m glad AC took care of you; they have driven me crazy over the last week. My best friend was lucky enough to get tickets to the World Hockey Championships (Go Canada!), so off I went to AC’s website to book a ticket at 6 am. Find the flights – $126 Toronto to Halifax, and $84 return. Not bad!
So I try to book the flight on-line. They want my Aeroplan number. OK, off I go to hunt up my card. I find it, enter it in, and then they want a PIN. I haven’t used the card in over three years; think I can remember it? I have multiple bank and brokerage accounts, credit cards, email, etc. How do you remember all these friggin’ PINs? I know enough about computer security not to have the same PIN for everyone; I also know enough not to write them down on a list somewhere. I try their “Forgot your PIN?” link, but three years ago I was with a different email provider, and don’t have access to that account anymore.
OK, let’s call Aeroplan. What’s that? Aeroplan doesn’t open until 8 am EDT. Oh well, at this point, that’s only another 30 minutes or so. Promptly at 8, I call. I get placed on hold, where I have to listen to messages about AC vacations, and where else I can earn AP points, etc. Having worked in the telephone industry for nearly 30 years, I sincerely want to throttle the marketing types that think these messages are interesting and informative. They are not; they are infuriating, as are the “Your call is important to us…” messages repeated endlessly. (BTW, best industry practice is to repeat that message twice, and then play a “You won’t hear any further messages, but please continue to hold”, and then just play the music. The caller can then put his phone on speaker, and do something else until an agent comes available. But I digress.)
Finally, an agent comes available. After a few questions, he wants to know what my birthday is. Now, again, I know that an identify thief armed with your SIN and your real date of birth can do real damage to you financially. So, I always alter one digit – maybe a different month, a different day, a different year – when asked for my date of birth. Think I can remember which change I made for them? Sensing the rising frustration in my voice, the agent finally relented, and agreed to provide with a new PIN. This was emailed to me, I received it, and it was back to the AC site.
By this time it was 8:30 – two and a half hours after I’d started. I go to book the same flights, and what do you know? The prices have gone up $30 in the meantime. Thanks, AC! But I persevere, and I’m allowed to progress until I’m asked for my credit card info. This is dutifully entered, and then I get a message my card can’t be processed. I try again; same message.
Puzzled, I call MasterCard. Is there a problem with my card? Am I over my limit? No and no are the answers. I ask what’s happening, and I’m told “We have a lot of problems verifying requests from AC”.
So I decide to call a human agent at AC. First call – listen to annoying messages about flights to Dusseldorf, etc., and then put on hold, until after about five minutes, poof! the call disappears. (To be fair, this could be due to my crappy cellphone service.) Call back, go through the same run-around, and finally get through to an agent. To her credit, she was helpful, waived the $25 “using a human being instead of our computers” fee, and gave me seat selection. Great everything is booked, expect an email confirmation shortly. It’s a few minutes after 9 by this time, so this whole process has taken three hours so far.
This was Wednesday last week. By Monday, no email confirmation. OK, let’s log in to Aeroplan to check my reservation. Log in goes smoothly, click the “Check Bookings” tab. Message returned “You have no current bookings”. What?! Blood pressure and heart rate start rising.
Call MasterCard. Navigate their primitive system to check for recent charges. Call back to confirm that the charge was to AC. Yes, it was.
Call AC. Wait another 10 minutes to get through to an agent. Explain the situation. Go through the same “name, rank, and serial number” identification dance. Finally, the agent (who was actually quite helpful) confirms that yes, I’m booked, and will send out a confirmation. Five minutes later, said email arrives. Elapsed time: just over an hour.
So that’s just over 4 hours to book and confirm a flight. When I appeared on Jeopardy! earlier this year, I booked through WestJet. Total booking time? Less than 15 minutes. Confirmation? Five minutes after I sent my request. Guess who’s going to get my future business whenever I have a choice?
Scare Canada. what was their motto again. oh yeah.
We’re not happy till you’re not happy.
MY advice,for what its worth:
Opportunity of a lifetime!!!!
Shoot film(old school) like it’s water!
Digital? Use ALL the storage you have.
This trip is not to be repeated!
Unless you run for National office, in which case the opportunities will be, let’s say more frequent?
And eat everything NEW you can!! Plenty of time to recover after, most of the food will be GREAT!
Don’t miss a THING! yeah I’m jealous….
Nice looking dog. Hope he is headed to a good home.
,
Why are you going to China?
Good luck ordering food there. Last time I was there, it was disgusting. And don’t be too surprised if your email mysteriously stops working after a friend sends you a newspaper story that “they” don’t want you to see. I think the block runs for 3 days only.
A man walking in Vancouver’s airport spotted the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on,he had to meet her!She was in uniform so he guessed she was an airline employee.How do I meet her he wondered,I know,I’ll use her company’s slogan.She must be United,you love to fly and it shows,he said to her when he received an odd look from her.Obviously she’s not United,maybe American airlines,come fly the friendly skies he said which garnered him another odd look.Not wanting to screw this opportunity up he realized that she must be Thai airlines so he says to her,smooth as silk to which she promptly responds with,will you get lost and leave me alone,so he replies,oh,Air Canada.