We left our house around 6am and headed to SFO to catch our 9:30am flight. We arrived with plenty of time and even had time to grab a quick bite to eat and a coffee.
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| Preflight Cocktails of course |
We went to our gate and got in the United boarding group #2 to await the boarding. Moments before we were to begin boarding the dreaded announcement of a delay came across the intercom in the airport.
"Flight is delayed due to maintenance, next update in 20 minutes," went the intercom.
At this point we began to have flashbacks to another terrible delay experience with United when flying back from Maui.
We only had about an hour and a few minutes to connect to our international flight. I approached the counter and spoke to the United team member. I asked her how confident she was about the plane actually being ready in 20 minutes or if we were going to get another delay notice in 20 minutes that says there will be an hour delay, etc. She proceeded to talk me down from booking an alternative international flight with such confidence that I went back to the line.
"We've got a plane!" said another passenger moments later. Was disaster avoided? At this point we all got excited in the lines and expected to board soon. Not the case exactly. We stood for easily another 20 minutes waiting for the plane to be ready to board. Then we finally started boarding and it was super slow. By the time we took off the flight attendants came over to us and talked to us about how we still had time to make our connecting flight and showed us maps and the gate and all of that stuff. We had a small amount of hope.
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| Bye San Francisco |
The flight was decent and as we approached Newark, New Jersey our flight crew let us know that we in fact did not make up any time. They said that the 7 folks on board bound for Venice had about 20 minutes to make their connecting flight. Well awesome! The United lady told me that the gate was super close and I had a map!
We landed in Newark and were making pretty good time taxiing to the gate. As we approached our turn for the gate we didn't make the turn, but then instead of turning we kept going straight past it. After a few minutes more of taxiing the flight crew announced that the row was full of planes being backed up and waiting to take off. We had to wait a little before our row cleared out. Then we were sitting for more than 45 minutes. One flight attendant kept looking at his phone telling us our connecting flight had not "pushed back" away from the terminal indicating they have left.
As we finally got to the gate we were something close to 40 minutes after boarding time for the connecting flight. Deanna and I grabbed our staff and proceeded to sprint through Newark airport. As we approached the gate we thought it was, we saw that the sign on that gate was for another flight. We then looked up the gate data again and it said a completely different gate number.
We began running to that new gate number which was on a completely different finger of the terminal. We ran over there and the sign was not indicating our flight or destination. I talked to the lady at the counter and she said that the flight was gone. We would have to go to customer service for help now. She was very rude about it.
We ran over to the United customer service counter at this point. The line was like 10 people deep and going very slow. Now we stood there sweating and being miserable while other people were being helped. Finally we got up to the counter and I began to explain what was happening to the "nice lady" behind the counter. She immediately responded with a pretty hostile vibe which made me realize how I have to adjust the way I'm speaking to her to get anywhere. So I began breaking down the history of what just happened to us in simple terms that she could understand. She said that we were automatically rebooked to a flight the following day at 6:30pm. No notice, just rebooked. I then explained that "it would be ideal for us to try to get on something sooner than the following day so we can try to stay on our vacation plan schedule" and that seemed to get her to look up more options. After much round and round and round discussion with her we settled on an 11:30pm flight with SWISS Airlines. The only part that seemed a bit sketchy was that the United employee helping us mentioned they would reroute our luggage to our new flight. It just seemed like United had no ability to achieve such a task to reroute a bag to a new flight, which left us walking away away lacking that warm and fuzzy feeling that you seek when asking for help.
We left United and headed out of the airport security areas and got in line to the Swiss airlines check in. We had an easy going interaction with them and got our boarding passes. From there we proceeded to a completely new security checkpoint for a group of European airlines. If you know Newark airport it was the B68 area. The line was very long for this checkpoint. At this point in the Newark airport someone set off the fire alarms. We spent the next hour or more dripping sweat, winding our way through our 2nd security checkpoint of the day and listening to a very loud whooping noise from the alarm. The best part (sarcasm) was when the line would wind us back in front of the alarm that is on the pole near the line. So we got the full audible joy from that alarm.
After we got our passports checked we saw a small line open up on the righthand side for TSA precheck folks so we asked if we could go that way and they said yes. We went over there and saved some time. Sweeeeeet! Finally a little win.
We made our way over to the Swiss airlines gate and sat down to relax. All good and ready to board. Our flight was going to go from Newark to Munich to Venice. We were fine with that because it was putting us into Venice at around 2pm the following day. Not too bad of a delay.
We were sitting at the Swiss gate waiting with everyone else when they came on the intercom and announced a 20 minute delay for information. "There is a delay and you will know more in 20 minutes." They said the plane was in Boston right now when it was supposed to be in New Jersey.
About 25 minutes later they changed the flight status to CANCELLED!!!!!!
At this point the entire gate area went into full meltdown mode. People were kicking trash cans. Tears began to flow. Everyone got into the line to talk to the gate workers and we stood there not knowing what steps to take next. We were on United who helped us book a Swiss flight and now that cancelled. Do we now book another flight through Swiss? Do we book through United? The line was so long at this gate it was useless to even try. This got pretty confusing. The Swiss staff got on the intercom and told everyone they better go get their luggage at carousel 1 before doing anything. So we grabbed our carry on luggage and headed out of the airport security area again.
We decided we should go talk to Swiss air check in counter first so we can try to work out our alternative flight options. We stood in line for around 15 minutes when they started yelling out that they would not help ANYONE that didn't get their baggage first from the baggage carousel prior to coming to the counter.
So we left the line and headed towards the baggage claim area. On the way we overheard a kid who was also on the Swiss flight saying that he was able to rebook on the phone just now through SAS airlines and that we should call. YESSS. So I got on the phone and called. After probably 30 minutes on the phone we finalized on an Austrian Airlines flight at 5:30pm on Friday(the day after) that went to Vienna and then connected to a flight to Venice. This would put us in Venice almost exactly a day later than planned. The Swiss support person asked us about our baggage and we provided the baggage claim tickets to her. She found that United had not moved our baggage to the new flight at all. There was no chance we would have had our baggage following us at that point. Hindsight would tell me that keeping that 6:30pm flight from United may have been great, but at this point I personally felt it was not worth giving them another chance. I think I'm done with United(again).
Knowing that our baggage wasn't rerouted we chose to head over to United Baggage claim support services to try to get our bags in hand. This line was pretty long and we learned while waiting that over 30 planes had been cancelled due to weather. Our first flight was maintenance delayed. Our 2nd flight was weather.
When we got up to the counter I explained our story in a soft, calm and relaxed manner to try to approach the counter worker with a good vibe. We were met with pretty good vibes from her, despite the chaos around her. She said that it would be useless for us to stick around and wait for a "retrieval request" because with all the cancellations it was running close to 6 hours for those to happen. Okay, no problem. We mentioned that Swiss was giving out vouchers and that we would be fine with putting in the retrieval and then picking the bags up in the morning. When she overheard us talking about hotel vouchers from Swiss she looked up our original flight plan. When she confirmed that we were not delayed for weather she printed us a Best Western Plus voucher and something like $60 in airport food vouchers. "Wow, sweet win!" lol. So we thought. We'll just come back in the morning and grab our stuff.
We had a quick pizza(actually really good) using one airport voucher and then grabbed the Doubletree/Best Western shuttle to take us deep into New Jersey to our hotel. The hotel was pretty nice actually. It was the Best Western Plus, Robert Treat. It was kind of fancy looking and was nicer than many hotels I've stayed at in New York.
In the morning we caught the same shuttle back to Newark airport. We decided to head directly to the "QOH" window where our bags were supposed to be waiting for us. We approached this window and were met with blank stares from the 2 "wonderful ladies" working in this space. So again, I had to take the words I was saying and restructure them to try to trigger some sort of helpful response from a United employee. I explained our situation and about the retrieval and how we should just be able to get our bags now. The lady working the window told me that "those retrievals get wiped and they aren't active anymore." So nothing we worked on the night before mattered? Great. She then indicated that there was an attempted scan of our baggage that morning on an 11am flight to Venice. But the fact we were not on that plane made the baggage get held again. This makes sense because why would you send baggage where it shouldn't be going? But it was confusing that United would have tried to send the bags with no real connection to our personal schedules. We discussed retrieval options with her. She said that she could reroute it or retrieve it.
We felt that United was having difficulties handling a simple reroute so we went with the retrieval option. I mean we had like 5 hours before our flight that day so we thought it was pretty possible to get our bags by then right? *FORESHADOWING* AMIRITE? This lady put in the retrieval for us and told us to go wait at carousel 9. That's where the retrievals go. We went over to carousel 9 like a couple of expat refugees with no home. I felt like Tom Hanks in that airport movie where he lives there forever. We sat at the #9 as we watched 1 bag every hour come out of retrieval. We knew it was a retrieval because they had a big tag on them that had a giant R in red. We also saw some rando golf club bags come out because this was also the large bag carousel. We kept getting pretty excited every time the buzzer for luggage went off, but also we were losing patience.
After an hour and a half I went back to the same baggage services window and asked for help again. Not the QOH window but the window from the night before. I explained our entire story again(for like the 4th time) to the person working. She was a nice lady and said that we should give it another hour and then come back if there was no sign of our bags.
We waited. And waited. And waited.
It was about 3 hours into the new retrieval request and no action. I went back up to the counter and asked about the situation. I explained our story again for the 5th time and the person helping me suggested at this point that United simply reroute our luggage to the Austrian airlines flights. She even took the extra special step of calling "her man" down in the international rerouting area to double confirm that it would be rerouted. Then she hung up and explained that it would be rerouted. I asked her "how good do you feel about this? Is our baggage going to make it?" to which she replied "I feel really good. It will be there." Well what more can you ask for right?
We left the baggage area and headed back into the B gate security check area again. It was shorter, but still probably took 45 minutes. Luckily there was no fire alarm this time. We were in with plenty of time to get on the Austrian airlines flight. We were astonished that we actually boarded a plane leaving Newark finally! Sorry New Jersey, we need to see other people.
Our Austrian airlines flight was quite pleasant. The staff onboard were hustling. They started us all off with drinks. Then they came by with more drinks. Then they came by with dinner. Then they came right back with more drinks. Then they took a nap. Then they woke up and hit us with pastries for breakfast. I loved the effort and positive attitudes on this plane. I would definitely fly Austrian again.
That is the end of day 1.
Full Pictures linked here.
We left United and headed out of the airport security areas and got in line to the Swiss airlines check in. We had an easy going interaction with them and got our boarding passes. From there we proceeded to a completely new security checkpoint for a group of European airlines. If you know Newark airport it was the B68 area. The line was very long for this checkpoint. At this point in the Newark airport someone set off the fire alarms. We spent the next hour or more dripping sweat, winding our way through our 2nd security checkpoint of the day and listening to a very loud whooping noise from the alarm. The best part (sarcasm) was when the line would wind us back in front of the alarm that is on the pole near the line. So we got the full audible joy from that alarm.
After we got our passports checked we saw a small line open up on the righthand side for TSA precheck folks so we asked if we could go that way and they said yes. We went over there and saved some time. Sweeeeeet! Finally a little win.
We made our way over to the Swiss airlines gate and sat down to relax. All good and ready to board. Our flight was going to go from Newark to Munich to Venice. We were fine with that because it was putting us into Venice at around 2pm the following day. Not too bad of a delay.
We were sitting at the Swiss gate waiting with everyone else when they came on the intercom and announced a 20 minute delay for information. "There is a delay and you will know more in 20 minutes." They said the plane was in Boston right now when it was supposed to be in New Jersey.
About 25 minutes later they changed the flight status to CANCELLED!!!!!!
At this point the entire gate area went into full meltdown mode. People were kicking trash cans. Tears began to flow. Everyone got into the line to talk to the gate workers and we stood there not knowing what steps to take next. We were on United who helped us book a Swiss flight and now that cancelled. Do we now book another flight through Swiss? Do we book through United? The line was so long at this gate it was useless to even try. This got pretty confusing. The Swiss staff got on the intercom and told everyone they better go get their luggage at carousel 1 before doing anything. So we grabbed our carry on luggage and headed out of the airport security area again.
We decided we should go talk to Swiss air check in counter first so we can try to work out our alternative flight options. We stood in line for around 15 minutes when they started yelling out that they would not help ANYONE that didn't get their baggage first from the baggage carousel prior to coming to the counter.
So we left the line and headed towards the baggage claim area. On the way we overheard a kid who was also on the Swiss flight saying that he was able to rebook on the phone just now through SAS airlines and that we should call. YESSS. So I got on the phone and called. After probably 30 minutes on the phone we finalized on an Austrian Airlines flight at 5:30pm on Friday(the day after) that went to Vienna and then connected to a flight to Venice. This would put us in Venice almost exactly a day later than planned. The Swiss support person asked us about our baggage and we provided the baggage claim tickets to her. She found that United had not moved our baggage to the new flight at all. There was no chance we would have had our baggage following us at that point. Hindsight would tell me that keeping that 6:30pm flight from United may have been great, but at this point I personally felt it was not worth giving them another chance. I think I'm done with United(again).
Knowing that our baggage wasn't rerouted we chose to head over to United Baggage claim support services to try to get our bags in hand. This line was pretty long and we learned while waiting that over 30 planes had been cancelled due to weather. Our first flight was maintenance delayed. Our 2nd flight was weather.
When we got up to the counter I explained our story in a soft, calm and relaxed manner to try to approach the counter worker with a good vibe. We were met with pretty good vibes from her, despite the chaos around her. She said that it would be useless for us to stick around and wait for a "retrieval request" because with all the cancellations it was running close to 6 hours for those to happen. Okay, no problem. We mentioned that Swiss was giving out vouchers and that we would be fine with putting in the retrieval and then picking the bags up in the morning. When she overheard us talking about hotel vouchers from Swiss she looked up our original flight plan. When she confirmed that we were not delayed for weather she printed us a Best Western Plus voucher and something like $60 in airport food vouchers. "Wow, sweet win!" lol. So we thought. We'll just come back in the morning and grab our stuff.
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| This was our Retrieval request on the 22nd Evening |
We had a quick pizza(actually really good) using one airport voucher and then grabbed the Doubletree/Best Western shuttle to take us deep into New Jersey to our hotel. The hotel was pretty nice actually. It was the Best Western Plus, Robert Treat. It was kind of fancy looking and was nicer than many hotels I've stayed at in New York.
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| Sign outside our Best Western Hotel in Newark |
In the morning we caught the same shuttle back to Newark airport. We decided to head directly to the "QOH" window where our bags were supposed to be waiting for us. We approached this window and were met with blank stares from the 2 "wonderful ladies" working in this space. So again, I had to take the words I was saying and restructure them to try to trigger some sort of helpful response from a United employee. I explained our situation and about the retrieval and how we should just be able to get our bags now. The lady working the window told me that "those retrievals get wiped and they aren't active anymore." So nothing we worked on the night before mattered? Great. She then indicated that there was an attempted scan of our baggage that morning on an 11am flight to Venice. But the fact we were not on that plane made the baggage get held again. This makes sense because why would you send baggage where it shouldn't be going? But it was confusing that United would have tried to send the bags with no real connection to our personal schedules. We discussed retrieval options with her. She said that she could reroute it or retrieve it.
We felt that United was having difficulties handling a simple reroute so we went with the retrieval option. I mean we had like 5 hours before our flight that day so we thought it was pretty possible to get our bags by then right? *FORESHADOWING* AMIRITE? This lady put in the retrieval for us and told us to go wait at carousel 9. That's where the retrievals go. We went over to carousel 9 like a couple of expat refugees with no home. I felt like Tom Hanks in that airport movie where he lives there forever. We sat at the #9 as we watched 1 bag every hour come out of retrieval. We knew it was a retrieval because they had a big tag on them that had a giant R in red. We also saw some rando golf club bags come out because this was also the large bag carousel. We kept getting pretty excited every time the buzzer for luggage went off, but also we were losing patience.
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| This is how United protects baggage. They just put it behind a rope. |
After an hour and a half I went back to the same baggage services window and asked for help again. Not the QOH window but the window from the night before. I explained our entire story again(for like the 4th time) to the person working. She was a nice lady and said that we should give it another hour and then come back if there was no sign of our bags.
We waited. And waited. And waited.
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| We got some coffee from Dunkin' while we waited. |
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| Carousel 9, our 2nd Home |
We left the baggage area and headed back into the B gate security check area again. It was shorter, but still probably took 45 minutes. Luckily there was no fire alarm this time. We were in with plenty of time to get on the Austrian airlines flight. We were astonished that we actually boarded a plane leaving Newark finally! Sorry New Jersey, we need to see other people.
Our Austrian airlines flight was quite pleasant. The staff onboard were hustling. They started us all off with drinks. Then they came by with more drinks. Then they came by with dinner. Then they came right back with more drinks. Then they took a nap. Then they woke up and hit us with pastries for breakfast. I loved the effort and positive attitudes on this plane. I would definitely fly Austrian again.
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| Austrian Airlines Guide to your Connecting Flights. Very Convenient. |
That is the end of day 1.
Full Pictures linked here.
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