It started innocently enough.  Suzy went to Delta’s website to check on our seat assignments for the flight home.  What she discovered is giving us our latest challenge!  Our flight home has been delayed, and not just by a few hours.  Our 9:15am flight to Detroit is now scheduled to leave at 11:59pm!  Yes, that’s nearly 15 hours late! That means we will arrive in Detroit in the middle of the night.  Needless to say, we’ll miss our connecting flights to Indy.  We’re still working on the details of what happens next.  But we’ll have details soon, I hope!

This story took an interesting twist during the day on Sunday.  As we tried to determine our flight options, we contacted Delta in the U.S. since the Hong Kong office is closed on Sundays.  Suzy and I told the customer service agent about the situation, and that it was important that if we have to be rebooked, that all of us are on the same flights.  His response was “What would you like me to do?”  That was puzzling.  It seemed quite obvious to me.  Make sure all seven of us are on the same flight.  So I explained that this was a school group and that, as a faculty member, it is important that I can track all student travel.  The agent then asked if they were minors.  I said it depends what you consider a minor.  All are over 18 but some are under 21.  The agent’s response included the phrases “so what’s your problem” and “they’re not going to get kidnapped.”  Needless to say, that did not go over well.  I asked to speak to his manager.  But that never happened.  After waiting on hold for 10 minutes, we lost the connection.  

We called back and spoke to a great rep who took good care of us… at least we thought she did.  After some tinkering, she gave us great advice about options and recommendations for flights from Detroit to Indy.  We were back in business, at least until I went to check my reservation online.  The Delta website couldn’t find my reservation anymore.  So I called again and spoke to another very helpful agent.  She did some typing and determined that my reservation had been deleted!  Oops!  Somehow,the last agent must have done it.  But no harm done.  She reinstated it. 

But I buried the lead.  It was actually good that this all happened!!!  All of it!  As I was speaking to this agent, she agreed to manually move everyone to the same flight from Detroit to Indy.  That accomplished the original goal – to keep everyone together.  She went through each person, but Sarah’s reservation wouldn’t come up, no matter what she tried.  After some research, she discovered why.  Sarah was booked on the wrong day!  Her ticket was for Saturday, not Monday! So technically, she missed her flight.  And Delta couldn’t do anything about it, since Delta didn’t book it.  After we finished our conversation, I sent a frantic email to Marsha, our travel agent in Muncie.  Thank goodness she checks her email on the weekend.  She was able to repair the reservation, and all was well.  Too bad she can’t make Delta run on time.