I thought I would update everyone on the final leg of my journey back to Gillette.

I make my way down to the Great Lakes gates and up to the ticket counter.  I’m thinking this should be a slam-dunk, seeing as how I have a ticket.  Well, not so much.  You see, my ticket was a United ticket for a Great Lakes flight.  The problem lies with the fact that now, Great Lakes has to get their money.  On the United ticket, all of the payment information is there: cost of ticket, taxes, more taxes, etc.  Here lies the problem: the computer wouldn’t accept the payment info.  For some reason, I could get checked in up until the time that you insert the payment information.  Unknown to the Great Lakes staff, the computer refused to accept the payment information.  In short, I had a ticket, was checked through to the flight, but couldn’t actually be checked in to board the plane.  Three people tried working on this and eventually, they just told me to go and that they would worry about this.  I was the last person on the plane; actually, I was holding up the plane.

I get on board the plane and listen to a couple of other people who were slated for the original flight that got canceled.  It seems that they received the run-around about rebooking their flights as well.

Once I got home, there were a couple of items that I needed from my favorite place on earth (um, not really): Walmart.  Actually, it was mostly food, but I did manage to get something which is oh so yummy: White Castles.   Unfortunately, you can’t get the real thing here, so the microwaveable will have to suffice.  This looks like it could be a scrumptious lunch.  Too bad my wife isn’t here to enjoy them!

So now the fun really starts: At 9:32 pm last night, I get a text message saying that the 9:24 pm flight would be departing at a later time than what was originally scheduled for.  Below are the text times and the “revised” departure times.

Seeing as how I never received any more texts, I can only assume that the 9:24 pm flight eventually left at 10:45 pm.  Had I stayed there, I would have spent 12+ hours from my original departure flight to my rescheduled flight.  Good times, eh?

Oh the fun of traveling in the airport! 

My wife’s brother-in-law took me to the Orlando International Airport this morning at 6:00 am for my 8:31 am flight.  Not bad.  I get there and unfortunately, not a whole lot of choice to get anything to eat.  I was reduced to a two-pack of mini-sandwiches, which weren’t all that good.  While on the plane, I was able to watch a movie on my new laptop.  I found this movie on Google Video some time back.  Unfortunately, I don’t think this is available on DVD (or VHS for that matter!).  I think this might be one movie that George Lucas wishes he didn’t have his name on: Howard the Duck.

I got to Denver International Airport just fine.  For some reason, there was a line of planes landing and there was another plane at our gate.  Actually, that worked out as I would have had to make quite a hike from the original gate to my departing gate.  I found a food joint and grabbed a quick sandwich, chips and drink.  I get to my gate and I asked if they were boarding the plane yet.  She told me not yet.  Ahh, a moment to breath.

I sit down and start eating some of my sandwich.  Suddenly, I get a text message informing me that my flight had been canceled.  Oh, this was not making the Preacher Man happy!

I proceed up to the ticket counter and was informed that yes, my flight had been canceled.  My original flight was scheduled for an 11:32 am departure with me arriving back in Gillette at 1:03 pm.  The next available flight would not be until 9:24 pm and arriving at 10:55 pm.

I speak with the lady at the counter to see if I can get that flight changed to Great Lakes so I can get home at a decent time; she “kindly” informed me that United will not transfer tickets.  Needless to say, I was not in a happy mood and things were getting worse.  I called Great Lakes to see when the next available flight to Gillette was.  There was a flight at 12:30 (the current time was 12:00).  I asked her if it was available.  She placed me on hold while she contacted DIA.  Unfortunately, they couldn’t do ticket sales 20 minutes prior to the flight.  She told me that the next flight would be at 5:55 pm.  I booked it, wanting to get home before midnight and not wanting to spend the next 9 hours walking the concourses!

I went to the United Customer Service Center to speak about a refund.  I spent almost the next hour in the line.  Finally, the customer service agent informed me that yes, they could port my United ticket to Great Lakes!  Lovely!  I just dropped $311 to get me a ticket home when if I would have spoken with someone who knew what they were doing, wouldn’t have cost anything!

I proceed to the Great Lakes counter (in a different terminal, of course) and speak with the agent.  They can’t do refunds, but gave me the 800 number for Great Lakes.  I call them and they say that yes, they can do a refund.  However, it will take 1-2 weeks to complete.  At this point, I didn’t care.  I just didn’t want two tickets for the same flight.

After all of this was complete, I needed a drink.  Lo and behold, there was a grille and bar and I had me a nice cold glass of Samuel Adams.  Now that I was rehydrated and relaxed some, I did some walking around the terminal.  I found me a nice quiet spot to work on my sermon a bit.  Finally, after sitting for a while, I thought that I would grab me some food since I still had about 2.5 hours to kill.  I ate and now here I sit typing this.  I have enough time now to post this, use the bathroom, grab a drink and head on down to the Great Lakes gates.  Hopefully, at 7:15, I will be pulling into Gillette like my ticket says and I can call it a night. 

So, here’s hoping for a good flight.  Wish me luck!