There's no place like the airport for the Holidays

This year we earned a companion pass from delta airlines. We were very excited to think that we would only have to pay one full fare plus $99 for the companion pass to come home for Christmas. Naturally, there were restrictions and we could only use the pass on certain flights. Say hello to Baltimore to JFK to Salt Lake City- a tedious journey before throwing in the Holiday traveling season.

Today we received a call around 7:30 from Delta informing us that our flight scheduled to leave at 2:15 was now leaving at 4:30. No problem, we thought. We gave ourselves a 4 hour lay-over at JFK, just to be safe. We then made the lovely hour and a half drive to Baltimore (it really is a great drive - it only seems like 40 minutes). We parked in the nice long-term parking lot, anticipating being gone for 10 days.

We checked in and everything seemed ok. Our flight was still scheduled for 4:30. We waited. And waited. And waited. Then the flight gets delayed to 5:15. That left us with one hour of layover time at JFK- is that enough time to run from terminal two to three? Well, we decided it was. Trying to ensure our little butts would be on our 7:30 flight from New York to Salt Lake, I made Scott inform the lady at the desk that we had this necessary connection that seemed to be more in jeopardy as the day went on. We were nicely told that we were screwed, as the flight had now been delayed to 6 and we would have no chance of getting on any flight (especially standby) out of New York until December 24th.

Instead of worrying, I became angry and proactive. I mean, I have been sitting in this freaking airport with the freaking sun shining in my face (no bad weather) for five freaking hours. I finally called Delta's customer service. The lady looked in to a few flight options with none of them working. Instead of yelling at her I calmly kept asking her about any possible flight options within four hours of us. After 20 minutes of hoping, praying, and disappointment we were scheduled for a DIRECT flight from Baltimore to Salt Lake City for tomorrow (Monday), one day after our original travel date. The worst thing is that we were daring and checked luggage. Hopefully that will be waiting for us in Salt Lake.

We decided to make the drive back to Hershey instead of getting a hotel. Someone Scott knows from school was on the direct flight from Baltimore to Salt Lake today (we tried to get on that flight but were told that not only was it booked solid, it was overbooked, which made me nervous about our direct flight tomorrow). As soon as we walked in the door we went straight to the computer to see if the lady I talked to had emailed us our new itinerary (I forgot to remind her) so we could make sure we had a spot. Much to our happiness there was an email from Delta...YAY! We checked in and printed our boarding passes and noticed an F. F? What is this mysterious F? That would be first class. We're quite excited about that- it definitely eases the pain of today.

What is the point of all of my complaining? Be nice to people when you are in a stressful situation (I will admit that most of the time I am probably not). They may surprise you with something that will be sweet!

Here's to hoping we make it to Salt Lake tomorrow and can find our luggage.