As anyone who read my last diary knows, I was in Nashville for MLK Jr. to see the Isles take on the the Nashville Predators. No surprise, we lost in a most humiliating fashion. But this diary is not about that. It is about the trip back home.
Prior to last week, Long Island had not received measurable snowfall in over 2 years. Obviously not an effect of climate change, right GOP? Unfortunately for us, snow was predicted for much of Tennessee beginning Sunday night into Monday. Snow, it did. Dropping roughly 5-7 inches. Nothing like experiencing my first snowfall in two years down south where they have no idea what do when snow falls.
Our flight out was scheduled for 6:40pm, but due to the weather, we opted to return our rental car early and spend the day at the airport to be on the safe side. We passed the Delta lounge and my sister hoped we could buy a spot to relax there the way we used to do using our Delta Amex card. I told her I doubted we could especially since it had been years since I had any sort of status on Delta (In college, I was flying at least every other week to Raleigh and climbed to platinum status for a while.) The nice lady working the counter said if we applied and were approved for an upgraded (i.e. expensive) credit card, we could use the lounge. Apparently the credit card companies have gone back to liberally approving people because I was easily granted approval for the card. Off we went to relax in the lounge.
Over the next couple of hours, we noticed flights were beginning to be cancelled while ours still wasn’t until it was. Once it had been cancelled, I went to book a flight for Tuesday on any airline I could finding one on American. My sister then went off to collect our checked bag and come back past security to spend the night in the airport. I stayed behind with all our carry on items. Thankfully, she opted not to take my cell phone with her as she originally planned, so at least we could communicate with each other.
After getting the bag, she attempted to pass through security again but was barred from coming back because she no longer had a valid boarding pass for Monday. She didn’t want me coming back out to the ticketing area because of the lack of seating and places to get food. Even after explaining she didn’t want me alone dur to my medical issues to which the ticket agent accused her of lying about, she still could not get TSA to let her back past security nor get anyone at the Delta counter to find a way to issue her a boarding pass to allow her to pass through security. The only boarding pass we have at that point was on American for Tuesday which was not acceptable for the TSA. (We also had been rebooked on Delta for 6am Weds which we kept throughout the ordeal as a backup.)
Due to the help of the nice people in the lounge, I was able to get her carry on items out to her so she would have her cell phone charger as her battery was running low. After i gave her items to the Delta employee who was bringing them out to her, someone from the club must have taken real pity on us because I was informed they were booking us a hotel room for the night and giving us food vouchers for Tuesday. We took an Uber to the hotel and met a few others who were also stranded by the cancellations. After watching some of the coverage of the Iowa caucuses, we went to sleep.
Around 2am, my sister awoke to find our American flight out of Nashville had been cancelled and quickly booked another flight through Priceline for around 5pm. When I woke up and found out about the cancelled flight, I suggested we scrap trying to fly home and rent a car and drive the 14 hours back. Even though it would be a slog, we would no longer be under the control of the airlines. My sister said she would rather wait and try to fly out. I should mention while a few of our group did manage to get out on Monday, there were a few in our predicament. The hotel was offering to allow all people booked to keep their reservations for another night in case of more cancellations, but my sister opted to have us check out. We took the shuttle back to the airport to wait for the American flight.
Things then went downhill fast. After checking for our American flight and passing back through security, we found flights from NY were having trouble arriving in Nashville causing more delays and cancellations. We kept hoping our flight was late enough in the day that planes would finally be arriving, but not such luck as our flight to Charlotte was cancelled around 1pm. My sister quickly booked n Southwest hoping to find a way home. We walked to the Southwest gate to check in and get boarding passes. I waited their with our stuff while my sister went back out to move the checked luggage from American to Southwest. At the American counter, they told her it would likely be 3 hours before the bag came back to the airport because it was already on the plane. I am not sure how that was possible considering planes weren’t arriving from NY. Since our Southwest flight would be leaving before then, she wanted to know how we would retrieve our bag. They said we could file a claim when we arrived home and they would deliver bag, so she went back through security to join me.
Our Southwest flight had us going to St. Louis first and changing to a flight flying back to NY. Because of all the delays, we did not want to miss the connection and pleaded with the Southwest agents to convince St. Louis to hold the connection as there would be no later flights to NY should we miss the connection. The gate agent told us it was likely they would hold the connection considering how many people on the flight were also flying to NY and were in the same predicament. However, they would not give us a definitive answer, so we decided to cancel the Southwest flight rather than risk being stranded in St. Louis and went back to the Delta lounge to see if there was anything they could do for us.
When we got back to the Delta lounge, the lady who had been helping us put us on stand by for a flight leaving around 7pm direct to NY. Unfortunately, this is where I made a glaring error by not looking at the boarding pass for the date of the flight. My sister again went back out to retrieve our checked luggage not realizing the boarding pass was for Weds and not Tuesday and again got stuck outside TSA. No one would again issue her a temporary boarding pass to allow her to pass through TSA. It was at this point she decided we would just drive home. Since I now had all the carry-on items and jackets, it was near impossible for me to bring everything back out. Once again, the nice employees in the lounge were able to help me bring everything out to meet my sister.
It was now 5pm, a full 10 hours after I suggested we drive home that morning. We went down to the rental car agency that has an office where we live and rented a Corolla to drive home. Our journey began at 6pm CST on Tuesday. The drive home was relatively easy. We stopped a couple of times for gas, a couple of times to nap and once for breakfast. We hit almost no traffic until we got to the Belt Parkway but even that traffic was light by NY standards. We finally arrived home around 3pm EST Weds, 20 hours later.
We were able to cancel all the flights we still had booked including the second half of the Delta flight we could not complete and received refunds for everything. Since the rental car was only $320, we actually ended up saving money.
Our time in Nashville was very enjoyable even if the return home was not. That being said, it will always make for a good story. Finally, as much as I despise the fact that money=favors, if not for applying for the expensive credit card, I doubt we would have received the help we did from the Delta employees. I am still conflicted about that.
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