Aug
29
Shortly before we left for vacation, I decided to buy an umbrella stroller to take on the trip. Kathryn was bringing a car seat on the plane with her but no other equipment so I thought a stroller might be good. We could stroll around or just use it to sit Katelyn in at the pool. I would gate check it, take it through the Houston airport and then get it off at Denver. I would have a stroller to use at home when we got back and it didn’t cost too much either. Plus, it folded up very compactly & wouldn’t take up a lot of room in the small rental car we would have; yeah that all seemed like a very good idea!
I couldn’t have been more wrong……..:lol:
We got to our gate to board and they were hurrying us up to get on, the family had wanted breakfast before getting on the plane and it took a little longer than they thought. The flight attendants and pilot saw me coming with a stroller and rushed toward the door to help me. The pilot got it, said he’d take care of getting it on and getting it tagged and the flight attendant would give me a claim ticket, so everything was fine. The only problem was, when I got to Houston to change planes and claim the stroller at the door, there was no stroller anywhere! I waited & waited; they looked under the plane & couldn’t find it so the pilot said he’d go to baggage claim because he was sure they must have sent it there. He said he specifically called back to the gate before takeoff to make sure they put the stroller on and was told they had. He goes to bag claim, the gate people call Jackson & everyone found out at the same time that the stroller never got put on the plane! It is still back at home! They called Denver & arranged for a loaner stroller for us, which was nice, but the whole point had been to have the small one so it wouldn’t take up much room. See how compactly it folds!
As I was making my way to the next gate in Houston, the pilot came and found me. He tells me again how sorry he was & how he called to make sure they put it on the plane; he’s just a tad bit upset! He tells me to make sure when I get to Denver to tell them in bag claim and that it is their responsibility to get it to me when they have messed up. I told him I wasn’t staying close to Denver but he said that didn’t matter. So I do all that when I got there and the lady agreed that is what they are supposed to do but she ends up telling me that it will cost them way more than the stroller is worth to fly it to Denver & drive it 3 hours to where I’m in the middle of nowhere. So she asked if I would be willing to use the loaner for the week, pick mine up when I get back and they would give me a travel voucher to use for later! This sounded like another good idea to me & a good deal! So I agreed. We had trouble from the start with this stroller fitting into the rental car with 2 huge golf cases, multiple suitcases & 4 people. But we finally crammed everything in & were off.
It was very nice to have; had bigger wheels, a canopy, and the seat moved to different positions but it just did not fold up well at all. It folded in half in the middle rather than long ways & took up tons of room in the car. Don wished several times that we didn’t have it! And of course, when we got back to Denver and I went to bag claim to pick up my voucher, the lady I had been dealing with all week wasn’t working that day! I should have figured that one out from the start. So they took down information and phone numbers again and I’ve talked to her since being home. They sent something in the mail that we haven’t figured out yet if we can actually use. I’m pretty sure it can’t be used online so we’ll have to call and see if it’s something we can take care of for future use. If we can use it toward travel, maybe it didn’t turn out so bad after all. Oh yeah, and the stroller was actually at the airport waiting for me when we got home. I wasn’t so sure after everything else that I would ever get it back but I did.
It seemed like such a good idea at the time, take a stroller on the plane!
August 29th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
send those vouchers to me, I will use them !!
so much for being an organized airline, eh?
which airline?
but did you get water on the plane, not much water on our 8 1/2 flight to maui !
August 30th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Actually, I am really impressed, both with the pilot and airline trying to work with you over a $12 stroller. That was really above and beyond in my mind.
Glad you got yours back, and hey, Katelyn got a really nice one to lounge around in while on vacation. Sounds like an “all’s well that ends well” kind of thing to me 🙂
August 30th, 2006 at 10:52 am
It’s always better on the back side of it! It wasn’t a major thing, just an inconvenience and the fact that it was brand new. I think the pilot was just really ticked off that he had asked them personally to do it & they didn’t, somebody just got on his bad side that day & I happened to benefit from that, otherwise I might not have found out that I could get a travel voucher!
September 1st, 2006 at 5:29 pm
What a fiasco! Reminds me of the time I flew to Minnesota with my two kids, without my husband. There were 3 flights (defunct Western Airlines, I believe_) leaving for Minneapolis within an hour. All three arrived in Mnlps within an hour as well – what kind of planning is that?? They had all of this luggage for all 3 flights just sitting there in one place and took as much as they could on each flight, with no regard as to which flight the owner of the baggage was on. We got there, of course, without ours. I had a small carry-on, with a couple of diapers, no clothing changes, no jammies, etc. etc. )(This was before disposables were popular). They had people in Mpls without their luggage and luggage in Mpls without their people. It must have cost a fortune for them to deliver the missing luggage all over the Minneaota/Wisconsin area that night. They got it to me by about 8:30, but the kids were tired, dirty, and I was one cranky mommy! At least they brought it to us. Wonder why they went out of business??!!