The Devil Wears Prada. And is Also in Charge of United Airlines, I’m Pretty Sure.

Well!  I know I promised I was going to write about how I fell headfirst into some fresh concrete as a baby today.  Soon.  Right now, I’m too busy plotting how I can get revenge on United Airlines. 

“This voucher can be used on ANY UNITED FLIGHT with an open seat”

That’s what the flight attendant in Chicago said when I agreed to give up my seat on a rainy night last October. 

"You should book the frequent flyer ticket first, because that has restrictions and the voucher doesn't." 

That’s what telephone booking agent told me last week, when I called to make sure the flight attendant hadn’t lied.

"There will be no problem, just call us right back when the miles have transferred into the account, and we'll book those tickets for you."

That’s what the OTHER booking agent, the one who informed me that to fly for a mere 25,000 miles you also need to throw in a little bit of your soul and make an animal sacrifice, told me yesterday. 

But that’s not what agent #3 told me today!  No, there are “restrictions” on vouchers she said.  And oops!  There are no flights on the day you want to fly available using a voucher.  I’m so sorry about that.  Would you like a few stabs with my pitchfork?  No? How about a redeye flight, with a quick 3-hour layover in San Francisco in the middle of the night?

I can’t say what I want to say right here, because I hear you can get arrested for making bomb threats nowadays. 

But here’s the good news.  I managed to fake them out and pretend I was my mother on the phone, without slipping up once.  One time they tried to trick me, and asked me   “What’s your first name again Ms. ?” LINDA, bitch, and don’t you forget it.  Now get back to booking that ticket for my daughter and her boyfriend to go on vacation, because I am strangely able to make travel decisions without consulting them and I’m sure that they’d prefer the 2:07 flight through Denver.   

So, to make a very, VERY, long story short, I booked a ticket for myself with frequent flyers, and reserved one for Joel with the voucher.  It’s a day before we wanted.  But that’s OK.  We also had to come back a day earlier than we wanted, so it all sort of worked out. 

Except, not so much.  You know what’s possibly the best thing about this “free” voucher that can NOT get you on any United flight?  In order to use it, you have to either mail it into United, and trust them to receive and process it in a timely fashion, or you have to take it to the airport in person within 24 hours of booking the ticket on the phone.  Um, there is no way in HELL – pun very much intended – that I am going to drop this precious slip of paper (which, coincidentally looks sort of like I could have printed it on my own computer if I was a little bit better at Photoshop) into a mailbox and entrust it, first, to the United States Postal Service, and then to the friendly demons at United.  Oh, I don’t think so.   

So MY ticket is supposedly booked and all set.  I’ve been waiting for email confirmation since 11am, nothing yet.  I decided to call them, just to make sure, and I had a long conversation with a friendly robot-phone.  I got him to read the email addresses on file with relatively little trouble.  And the lady who booked it this morning?  Who CORRECTLY SPELLED MY EMAIL BACK TO ME LETTER BY LETTER? She typed it into the computer wrong. SURPRISE!!!! 

Well, I tricked them.  I got the computer to fax it to me, and now I am in possession of one very official looking slip of paper that I could DEFINITELY have printed off my home computer that suggests I have a ticket to Seattle and another home from Portland. 

So all that’s left to do is go to BWI, and officially transfer my voucher to Joel, thus booking HIS ticket.  You have to do this in the presence of a United Agent, with 2 forms of ID if you don’t mail it to them, which is reminiscent of what we went through trying to get a home loan, except I didn’t have to drive to an international airport within less than a day’s time in order to convince a bank to lend me a few hundred thousand dollars.  United has higher standards, I guess.  One can never be too vigilant in the war against free airline voucher fraud.

I’ve been assured by the latest telephone agent that Joel does not need to be present for this transfer to occur.  Which is good, since HE’S IN CHICAGO.

So, I’m off to the airport.  Anyone have a crucifix and some holy water I can borrow?

Comments

[Carolyn J.]

Hi, I saw you at Dooce's place and I want you to know, my husband is exactly the same as yours when it comes to pointing things out on one's face. Damn, that's annoying!

[janet]

gahhhhhhhhhhh just reading it makes my head spin! I once entrusted a voucher to the mail, and...it got there!

I want to go to Seattle!