Christmas Pilgrimage Home

I had checked massport.com and my flight was on time. I arrived at the airport to find Continental airline's computers and telephones down. Their flight for 11.45am was cancelled. If I had arrived a little earlier [and not battled the kitty litter], I would have been able to take the 9.30am flight to Newark. Instead they booked me on Delta Airlines to 11.30am to LaGuardia and i was supposed to cab it to Newark with a voucher. After standing in line at the Delta counter only to be turned away, I had come back to Continental's counter 3 more times. Eventually they issued me a paper ticket and walked me over to Delta's counter. I don't know this person's name but she had the far left side of the counter during this time. She has been very helpful.

I made the shuttle with no time to spare. When I arrived at LaGuardia, they had already lost my suitcase, even though I checked in at the Delta desk. It probably never made it to the airplane, since I had to run for it. I had to take time out to report it to the baggage claim.

Then I took a cab to another terminal to the Continental desk at LaGuardia to get the cab voucher. I had to argue with the representative since they would not give me a voucher if the flight was cancelled due to weather -- but the reason for the cancellation never made it into the system since the computers were down in Boston. They issued me a voucher anyway, and checked me in as well. Victoire was her first name.

However, when I was in the cab, I noticed that the name on the boarding pass was wrong. When I finally arrived at newark, I had to check at the desk again to fix the name. They told me that my flight was cancelled! I was freaking out. They apparently had cancelled my whole trip in the ticket-issuing fiasco back in Boston to get me on the Delta flight. They had rebooked me for my trip to Hong Kong for the 26th. By some miracle, they were able to get me in one of the last seats on the plane. The person who did not give up was Wendy Moreno and her supervisor Jimmy Anton. I had to, once again, run for the plane. They were boarding by the time I got there. I arrived and reported my lost baggage to the very efficient and customer service-oriented folks in Hong Kong. They couriered the suitcase a few days later to my parents' home. It's great to see my parents on Christmas Day. I almost didn't make it.