Hello. I wanted to post about a recent travel experience to both share what we learned and to seek your knowledge.
A couple weeks ago my wife and I went on our first trip to Phoenix, Arizona. I booked the trip in August and thought we wouldn’t have problems with the weather (in the Midwest) during the end of March. I was wrong. On the day we flew out we received and inch of snow but our flight left on-time. However, on the day of our return flight, the city was expected to receive 8-15” of snow. I checked the flight status that morning and everything looked good. I made sure that SMS notifications from the airline were turned on just in case of a delay. I checked the weather and it looked like the snow was going to end about 11PM and our flight wasn’t due to arrive until 12:30AM. Ninety minutes is plenty of time to clear a runway...wrong. On our way to the Phoenix airport, I received the text that our flight was cancelled. I’d never had a flight get cancelled before. And, ours was the last flight of the day from Phoenix to Indianapolis. I pulled over and got out my iPad to reschedule the flight. All of the flights for the next day were booked. I checked the day after and all of the direct flights were booked. I called Southwest and while waiting on hold, found a hotel since it looked like our four day trip was now going to be a six day trip. When I finally spoke with Southwest, they confirmed that no seats were available the next day and booked us on a layover flight the day after...as a one-time courtesy.
The rental vehicle was even more difficult. When we arrived in Phoenix, we waited over an hour to receive our car. Because they had to upgrade us at the counter, we would now be charged full price if we kept the vehicle. I quickly signed up for their loyalty program and made a new reservation through Costco Travel. We returned the vehicle and went to the loyalty counter. The agent could see the reservation but because we registered less than 24 hours earlier, he could not process the rental. We went to the main counter and waited nearly an hour and a half. When we finally did fly out, we still experienced minor issues but did safely return home.
I learned two valuable lessons. First, be a member of every loyalty program available especially the car rental companies. And, signup for the program in advance of your trip. This would have saved us 2-3 hours of standing in line time. Second, be prepared for unexpected expenses. We added two hotel nights, two days of car rental, and two days of airport parking to our total expenses.
What could we have done different? We did we get wrong?
Thank you!