Travel right now: FAIR WARNING!

Nothing like the OP starting this thread. We just got back from a wedding. Drove from Kansas City to Cleveland and back. No problems with Hotels, food, etc. Some mental pain with gas prices. However - other relatives flying in from Cal., Nevada, and Washington State had some long waits and interesting re routing? Not like the OP but er - interesting. They all got here more or less on time.

Any planed travel this summer will be by car.

Heh heh heh - :cool:
 
DW flew from OHare to Bangor a week+ ago and is in Bar Harbor visiting friends right now. Her flight was fine. Took off about an hour late but otherwise no issues.

My concern is the return flight being cancelled on short/no notice. A friend drives her from Bar Harbor to the Bangor airport, about a 1.5 hour drive. Bad news to find out your flight is cancelled until the next day when it's a 3 hour round trip for someone to pick you up again or you need to book a room and just hang around overnight.

Cost for the flight seemed reasonable, although we booked it several months ago so perhaps it's more now. 25,000 credit card points for the round trip plus $35 to check her bag.
 
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youbet said:
DW flew from OHare to Bangor a week+ ago and is in Bar Harbor visiting friends right now. Her flight was fine. Took off about an hour late but otherwise no issues.

My concern is the return flight being cancelled on short/no notice.
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Funny you should mention Maine.

I was supposed to meet a friend to do a little project on Friday 6/16. Friend was traveling back from a trip to Acadia NP (Bar Harbor) on 6/15. Got a call a day ahead that he couldn't make it. At least the airlines gave him about an 18 hr warning. We met on Saturday 6/17. When we met, he told me that was nearly at risk. Instead of an early flight out of some city in Maine (can't remember which city), they got a flight from the closest city to NC which was Baltimore. (What? That's 2/3rds of the trip.) There were no other options. They drove a rental to Baltimore and got a late flight out of there. So instead of an early morning flight, they spent much of the day driving, capped off by an evening flight that they were not sure would "stick". Fortunately, at least that flight did stick. He figured if that flight failed, they'd just keep driving the rest of the way.

This is madness.
 
I have related in a couple of other threads that I am stuck in Ireland with Covid and missed half my tour. They left me behind in the middle of nowhere. They refused to fly me out until 7/1. My friend who met me here left from O’hare airport and got stuck in London for half a day arriving in Ireland 8 hours late. I am hoping my trip home is uneventful but it a few days before July 4th.
 
We have traveled to at least 28 foreign countries over the years and although there are only a few places left where I would like to travel that require flying I think I will wait for at least a couple more years. I just hope I am still able. It just isn't worth the trouble for many reasons. In the meantime road trips within a day drive (Southeast US) will have to suffice. Otherwise we will dine under the backyard pergola, enjoy the local seafood, and walk/play on the lightly used beautiful beach that is about 260 yards down the street in our small town. That should be just fine. It is actually much nicer than most beaches that are vacation destinations. We were lucky to have settled here many decades ago. Who knew there was going to be the kind of international problems encountered in the past few years.

Cheers!
 
Teacher Terry said:
I have related in a couple of other threads that I am stuck in Ireland with Covid and missed half my tour. They left me behind in the middle of nowhere. They refused to fly me out until 7/1. My friend who met me here left from O’hare airport and got stuck in London for half a day arriving in Ireland 8 hours late. I am hoping my trip home is uneventful but it a few days before July 4th.
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Maybe you mentioned it in the other thread, but I don't remember; how are you handling the food? Is someone bringing you food? Who's paying for it?


I hope you can leave sooner than July 1st, but it doesn't sound like they'll let you.
 
Congrats on making it! The weak would have given up!

We always sit out summer travel....Way too crowded/expensive in a typical year, more so now w/no one wanting/needing to w*rk now.

We travel in the spring/fall. No guarantees but somewhat calmer with more options for back up and lower prices.

Get out there...Or as they say on our favorite cruise line...Holland America Line..."Savor the journey".

Bon voyage.
 
DW just returned from Newark... No problems, but who flys to Newark intentionally?

We're heading to Italy in September on miles with American (too pricey otherwise). Will let you know when we get back.
 
Badger said:
We have traveled to at least 28 foreign countries over the years and although there are only a few places left where I would like to travel that require flying I think I will wait for at least a couple more years. I just hope I am still able.
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Badger, I think you are bringing up something really important about travel over these last few years: the baby boomer demographic bubble.

Retired boomers are desperately trying to enjoy their remaining productive retirement years. We all want to go. And then Covid complicates it more.

Meanwhile, the bubble also influences the amount of workers available to service us tourists, resulting in shortages.

I'm at the end of the boom, more appropriately a Generation Jones. Maybe we have more time left to enjoy travel. Who knows? But we're holding off this summer because of the chaos. I can only hope it settles down in the upcoming years.
 
JoeWras said:
Badger, I think you are bringing up something really important about travel over these last few years: the baby boomer demographic bubble.
<snip>
I'm at the end of the boom, more appropriately a Generation Jones. Maybe we have more time left to enjoy travel. Who knows? But we're holding off this summer because of the chaos. I can only hope it settles down in the upcoming years.
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I'm also at the end of the boom and got diagnosed with a couple of leaky heart valves 2 years ago- mostly it results in shortness of breath when bicycling or climbing up hills. Not awful in the grand scheme of things- my cardiologist is VERY supportive of my level of exercise and just says not to overdo it- but a reminder that I'm not 40 anymore and I'm uncomfortably close to 70. Carpe diem.
 
Teacher Terry said:
I have related in a couple of other threads that I am stuck in Ireland with Covid and missed half my tour. They left me behind in the middle of nowhere. They refused to fly me out until 7/1. My friend who met me here left from O’hare airport and got stuck in London for half a day arriving in Ireland 8 hours late. I am hoping my trip home is uneventful but it a few days before July 4th.
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We find out how well a business is run when things go wrong. The good ones work to limit the damage to their themselves and their customers -Win/Win. The poor ones are at best Win/Lose, and some are so bad it's Lose/Lose.

This is the second time in the last two years when parts of the travel industry have had to put up with a tough situation. Apparently, and sadly for TT, some of the Win/Lose outfits still need to be wrung out of the system.
 
We did a wonderful 2000 mile driving trip in April and my only complaint was the lower level of hotel cleanliness. On average we paid $150 per night to stay less than 18 hours. Another 'lack of staffing' situation that certainly made us understand the appeal of owning a camper.
 
tmm99 said:
Maybe you mentioned it in the other thread, but I don't remember; how are you handling the food? Is someone bringing you food? Who's paying for it?


I hope you can leave sooner than July 1st, but it doesn't sound like they'll let you.
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The food is room service and the menu only has a few items because it’s a hotel in the middle of nowhere and I doubt most people eat many meals here. I am not allowed to leave my room. The tour company pays all the expenses with this. Basically one meal a day is all I can stomach. My first meal was totally cold so I called room service and explained that I can’t eat cold old food and I was stuck for awhile so I at least needed it to be warm.
 
Chuckanut said:
We find out how well a business is run when things go wrong.
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I agree- and it's partly a function of price. The lower-cost providers will have thinner margins and are less likely to be helpful when things go wrong. I have nothing but praise for UnCruise and Overseas Adventure Travel for their handling of my 2 curtailed trips. It's why I will be using them in the future.
 
Chuckanut said:
We find out how well a business is run when things go wrong. The good ones work to limit the damage to their themselves and their customers -Win/Win. The poor ones are at best Win/Lose, and some are so bad it's Lose/Lose.

This is the second time in the last two years when parts of the travel industry have had to put up with a tough situation. Apparently, and sadly for TT, some of the Win/Lose outfits still need to be wrung out of the system.
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Very true, but it was surprising to see that (in the case of car rentals, at least) pretty much ALL the rental companies were in the same boat. We showed up Saturday mid-afternoon to pick up our car and ended up waiting a grand total of nearly two hours: one hour in line, and then almost another hour to actually get a car once one became available for us. Every other customer, no matter which line they were in (Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty, Sixt, Budget, Alamo, etc.) was having roughly the same experience, from what we could tell. Seemed like every company was extremely short-staffed that day, and the demand for cars was high. My takeaway was that you simply cannot count on your planned travel itinerary going smoothly this summer if it involves air travel or rental cars.

So, IMHO, the best you can do is: Get to the airport early, check flight status early and often, be ready to wait much longer than usual to get your rental car, make sure everything you book is refundable and/or changeable, and try to avoid booking anything through third party apps (i.e. book directly with the airlines, hotel chains, rental car companies, etc.).
 
DGF and I had our own travel issues in late May when returning from Bonaire after our 4 week scuba diving vacation. Air travel to the island is pretty limited as Delta only has three or four flights a week and even that is only during peak season. Our Saturday departure from Bonaire to Atlanta was delayed due to equipment issues on the inbound flight putting us about three hours behind schedule. The plane finally arrived and completed the turnaround only to announce we were headed to Miami instead of Atlanta due to the flight crew time limitations. We were to be on the ground for no more than 20 minutes to pick up a new flight deck crew and be on our way.

20 minutes turned into over 6 hours due to difficulties getting the new flight deck crew and then the flight attendants also timed out requiring a new crew for them as well. They finally decided to have us deplane in Miami and go through customs and immigration there instead of in Atlanta since we were waiting anyway. We made it into Atlanta at about 4:30 AM Sunday when our original arrival time was scheduled for around 7:30 PM Saturday. We were flying first class so had a much easier time of it than some of our friends who were flying coach.

So now we have a cruise scheduled out of Miami in November and a cruise out of Port Canaveral in December for which we scheduled airlines instead of driving. Both were scheduled to arrive the day of the cruise but just this week we changed both to arrive the day before arranging for hotels and transfers for each. It cost us about $500 total for the changes, mostly for hotels and transfers, but gives us some peace of mind as it will still allow time for travel changes if necessary. It would even allow time for us to drive as a worst case scenario. I have no desire at all to drive to Miami from Atlanta as it is 12 hours on a good day and there aren't many good days on the Florida Turnpike.
 
That’s awful. Not as bad but I can add from the experience of a friend.

They had a flight scheduled for Omaha at 8pm last Friday. Got notice the night before that the flight would depart at 9pm - OK, no biggie.

Then they get a message in the morning that the (same day) Fri flight is overbooked and if they’ll take a flight the next morning they can have a $700 credit. My buddy thought versus arriving very late, why not go in the morning and pocket a $700 credit, so they volunteered. Sounds good!

The airline says great. Just show up for your 9pm flight tonight and if there isn’t room we’ll give you $700 and seats on the flight Sat morning.

Seriously, WTH! :crazy:

Our next substantial vacation this Fall will be driving to Hilton Head…
 
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My flight to London was overbooked and they were offering a 2k voucher with lodgings and a seat for the next day. It was for at least 5+ seats and it delayed our flight for an hour before they found enough people.

If I was on my way home, I would have jumped at the chance, but I had a separately booked connecting flight in London and a delay would have been painful to deal with.
 
Our first flight home from Portugal this week was seven hours late. The second flght, next day, was two hours late.

Lots and lots of people complaining about baggage service. We only do carry on so it is easier for us.
 
JoeWras said:
Funny you should mention Maine.

I was supposed to meet a friend to do a little project on Friday 6/16. Friend was traveling back from a trip to Acadia NP (Bar Harbor) on 6/15. Got a call a day ahead that he couldn't make it. At least the airlines gave him about an 18 hr warning. We met on Saturday 6/17. When we met, he told me that was nearly at risk. Instead of an early flight out of some city in Maine (can't remember which city), they got a flight from the closest city to NC which was Baltimore. (What? That's 2/3rds of the trip.) There were no other options. They drove a rental to Baltimore and got a late flight out of there. So instead of an early morning flight, they spent much of the day driving, capped off by an evening flight that they were not sure would "stick". Fortunately, at least that flight did stick. He figured if that flight failed, they'd just keep driving the rest of the way.

This is madness.
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Madness indeed!

I'm just hoping that if DW's flight is cancelled she gets 12 - 18 hours notice so that she and her friend avoid a 3 hour round trip from Bar Harbor to Bangor for nothing. DW would probably be delighted to stay an extra day or two or even more.

Her flight out of OHare to Bangor went very smoothly. They left just under an hour late but made up some time and arrival was only 35 mins late. That meant her ride wan't sitting around waiting for hours.

I'm hoping for a repeat.
 
Even domestic travel isn't cheap...My DD recently got her Masters degree and I told her I'd pay for a ~week long 1st class vacation to the "city of her choice" (US only:) for her and her husband. They got back a few days ago, and it appears it's going to cost me well over 10k.. (I expect 12 to 14k) First class round trip tickets to/from SF, 1st Class hotel suite, meals, car rental (+gas), entertainment, etc... No flight cancellations/delays or other issues. (that they told me about anyway)

I told them to get the best deals they reasonably could but not to scrimp on going 1st class. If I had given them cash for the trip, I'm sure they would have flown coach during off hours, stayed in lower end hotels and ate at McDonalds most of the time.

They seemed to have had a really good time so I'm not complaining.
 
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Long story short.
We had business class tickets for France in June. US to Heathrow then onto Toulouse. British Airways wanted to cancel our return Toulouse leg but would not agree to any way of our getting to Heathrow for our flight to our home airport! (Suggested alternative was Toulouse - Madrid - Dallas/Chicago - home!! - you've got to be joking.) We had only paid just over $3,000 each for our bus class tix - they wanted us off so they could resell, we suspect for double. We realized we could cancel our accommodation and car without penalty, so we did, canceled the lot! Airlines are the worst!

We have just completed an 18 day 3,500-mile road trip in our Tesla visiting Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. It was great!
 
Sojourner said:
Very true, but it was surprising to see that (in the case of car rentals, at least) pretty much ALL the rental companies were in the same boat. We showed up Saturday mid-afternoon to pick up our car and ended up waiting a grand total of nearly two hours: one hour in line, and then almost another hour to actually get a car once one became available for us. Every other customer, no matter which line they were in (Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty, Sixt, Budget, Alamo, etc.) was having roughly the same experience, from what we could tell. Seemed like every company was extremely short-staffed that day, and the demand for cars was high. My takeaway was that you simply cannot count on your planned travel itinerary going smoothly this summer if it involves air travel or rental cars.
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So far my experience with Hertz has been you are much less likely to run into delays picking up your car if you are Gold Member. I am a Gold Member Plus and have yet to experience any delay in getting my car. The last time I rented was at an airport where Gold Member had to pick up their keys from the customer service desk. We saw two other couples being told that no cars would be available for "hours". Whereas ours was waiting for us in the stall.

Sojourner said:
So, IMHO, the best you can do is: Get to the airport early, check flight status early and often, be ready to wait much longer than usual to get your rental car, make sure everything you book is refundable and/or changeable, and try to avoid booking anything through third party apps (i.e. book directly with the airlines, hotel chains, rental car companies, etc.).
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I agree with this. One "benefit" of 39 years of Megacorp traveling is that since the pandemic I have not experienced anything I did not experience before.

Booking directly with the provider is even more important today and worth any extra cost. Having a third party organization between you and the provider just multiplies the possibility of hand-off fumbles between them, especially with both the providers and the third parties having issues these days.
 
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