The Red Bag Story

Or How I got home on Friday despite all the odds.

On Friday (December 18th) I had a salutory lesson on travel. What ever could have gone wrong went wrong. But also its a lesson in how knowing the system and actually the generosity of customer service people can thwart the obstacles and get you what you want.

The ingredients are simple. An expensive coach ticket Berlin to Seattle. DL flight numbers AF operated metal (code share). Bad weather across Europe. Incompatible systems AF and DL.

Knowing in advance that things were going to be bad (last friday of the year for travel) I decided to go to the airport early. Just before leaving - I checked my itinerary on DL and found that they had changed my flight to a connection over NYC on DL rather than the AF code share over Paris. OK - I accepted that. (ESP since I received an upgrade). But it meant hanging around for 6 hours at Tegel Airport. Surely there was a better way. Arriving at the airport - I was met with at least 100 people who had the same idea. After a 90 minute wait in line - I made it to the front of the queue. Sorry your AF flight is cancelled and I cannot help you. Go to DL (Who opens in another 30 mins). Schlepping between gates in the snow became a fun exercise.

DL said great yes you are confirmed but no we cannot issue the boarding passes because we need the ticket. Eventually after much tooing and froing - back I go to AF. Cutting in line (it was still about 100 people long) I managed to get them to write a FIM (these are great - its essentially a get out of jail free card). Back to DL who then issued my ticket.

The rest of the journey was very fraught as it was late and there was a huge storm headed to NYC. But with 45 mins to spare at JFK - I managed to get my bags - check in for the next leg and then race across the 2 DL terminals just as the last few passengers were boarding the connection flight to Seattle.

I knew my bags would not make it despite the smiles of the JFK baggage team. Sure enough arriving in Seattle they didn't. And yes the possibility of bags showing up became remote as the day went on. With the East Coast largely shuttered by the storm - the thought of my bags not making it because more and more a fear. However yes - my bags were on the van on its way over. Hurray!!! And yes there were 2 bags and yes the second one was red. Disappointment. The assumption that the second red bag was mine was just too easy.

However by 9PM (now 24 hours later) my trusty red bag showed up.

So no morals here other than some advice.

Here goes:

1. Hardcopy EVERYTHING!!!
2. Be polite and nice and get the person's name at each stage. AND YES THEIR INTERNAL PHONE NUMBER.
3. Always thank them
4. Trust them to know their jobs.
5. A FIM (when your trip is interrupted) is a wonderful thing. Get one no matter what.

And above all...

Be PERSISTENT - it is a required skill in Travel

As a special thanks - I would like to thank Daniela (DL Customer service in Tegel). Her counterpart at AF - Anita. The DL team in NYC for protecting me. And also to DL's baggage service and their contractor in Seattle Bags Inc.

I am now home and the Xmas presents made it also

Cheers