Sometime last year David's mom called to tell me she was sending us two free airline ticket vouchers. I said "Thank you," and the first question out of my mouth was, "Can they be transferred?" She said they could and I waited for these magic tickets to arrive in the mail. When they arrived David's parents' names were on them with the word "non-transferable". Sirens went off in my head but David's mom said they could be transferred so I shut down my inner bitch/pessimist. In the back of my mind I knew it wasn't going to be easy.
Fast Forward to now. We've had these tickets for almost a year and FINALLY David decides to take a vacation. I would have gone home a hundred times myself by now but I get panicky and freak out in airports without a chaperone.
We picked a Saturday to take the vouchers to the airline ticket counter and try to book our flight. We were trying to book about a month out. I was hoping we would waltz up to the counter and the ticket agent would be wearing a jaunty little scarf and smile and say, "Why I sure can book you a flight with these tickets! Where to? How fun! Are you movie stars? Can I get you a soda while you wait?"
Our agent was nice and patient but since my last name isn't the same as David's and therefore not the same as the last name on the vouchers she could not book us a flight. (IRONY ALERT: That Saturday was the one-year anniversary of not changing my last name when we got married.) The ticket agent could reserve us a flight but we would still have to mail the vouchers back to David's mom (in California) and then she would have to go to a ticket counter and complete the reservation. I called and told her we were mailing her the vouchers and a confirmation number. She said she was going to the airport in about a week (to drop off another family member) and would take care of it then. I had a difficult time telling David's mom it couldn't wait she had to get to the airport sooner. I would never wish extra trips to the airport, any airport, on anyone.
We find the nearest Post Office and it would have been awesome if they had sci-fi technology to beam the vouchers to So-Cal. They didn't, so we priority mailed them. I was stressing and since we were close to a Macy's, I demanded David take me to the mall so I could engage in some retail therapy. David was hungry and he wanted to go to Denny's. Any other time I would have loved some pancakes but we were in one of the most ghetto parts of Cleveland and there was no way I was going to a Denny's there. I am almost positive I walked through a metal detector at the Post Office. I probably would have been patted down at a Denny's. I needed the safety of the mall, the smell of new clothes and the promise of shiny things preferably at half-off. David could eat at the mall while I shopped.
We get home and I'm on a retail high then I remember the airport, the tickets and my head starts to hurt. I remember we are going to fly home soon and that means security checks, lay-overs and no liquids over 3 ounces and I have to lay down. There is nothing we can do on our end.
David's mom gets the vouchers and finds a smaller, local airport she can go to get the reservations completed. When she gets there she finds an un-staffed ticket counter with a sign that says, "Will Return at 3:15" She goes home gets on the Internet and makes a few calls to the airline and gets nowhere. When she calls and tells me that I say, "Oh yeah. No, don't bother trying to call the airlines or use the Internet for this. I tried that months ago when we first got the vouchers nothing but dead-ends." She goes back to the airport and still no staff at the ticket counter. So she jumps the baggage-conveyor thingie and knocks on the door behind the counter. When she told me this I screamed, "OMG! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! AND YOU DIDN'T GET TASED?" When David heard that he said, "I love my mom." David: "The glass is half-full."
Anyway, long story short: Our reservations are gone so David has to rebook over the phone. Tickets get emailed to us and hopefully, HOPEFULLY, everything goes smoothly from here on out. I won't believe it until I'm on California soil having successfully made it through the airport and flight. Samina: "The glass is half-empty and you are going to knock it over and then where will be? You are going to get me another glass of whiskey is what you are going to be doing!"
Lessons learned: Free ticket vouchers are the equivalent of Denny's coupons. The airlines are going to make it extremely difficult for you to use them or transfer them. They don't want you to use them. They want you to give up and pay MONEY for a ticket. Obviously, they have never met my husband's family. My family would have just cussed a lot and maybe thrown a few punches. Both very effective.
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:)
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