Thursday, December 02, 2010

Just to make it interesting

Things are always so boring in my life *rolls eyes* but just to make it interesting booking my flight to Kentucky sure pulled out all the stops.

I ended up drinking Coke in McDonalds to use the wifis...

Found a flight with United, and made it as far as the billing address... you see I have a Canadian credit card, which really wouldn't make any difference in the world except that it is associated with a Canadian address. Besides having a postal code instead of a zip code my province doesn't show up in the list of states.

No big deal, I'll just phone it in... oh right, automated voice activated system... pretty cool actually... Oh you want the 5 digits for my zip code? I know you're sorry that doesn't match what you're expecting... you're going to transfer me to a reservations associate? That would be great thanks.

Hi Cody, yes I'm trying to book a flight... yes those are the correct details... (wow your phone system *actually* transfers the details?!?) I'm trying to book it with a Canadian credit card. No, no it's okay it's not your fault your program wont do international bookings... You can transfer me to the international reservations? Great, thanks.

Hello, yes I'm trying to book a flight... from San Diego to Lexington Kentucky. On December 3rd. Yep, that's fine. Sorry you're going to have to charge me an admin fee for booking with your airline even though I can't do it online?

She says: Have you tried booking on our Canadian site?

Me: Even though I'm flying between two American cities?

I do need to interject here, that she was very nice and absolutely brilliant. She even offered to connect me to the internet reservations department so I could ask them. I declined figuring that if I couldn't find the United airways canadian site I deserved to go through the whole ordeal again.

One guessed url later I was filling in my flight plan details for the umpteenth time, only to have my laptop battery warning pop up. Luckily by this point I already knew what to fill in, and had all my details handy. With two percent remaining before my laptop goes into automatic hibernation I got the confirmation email. Boo yah!

*phew* Who needs sky diving when you can have this much excitement booking a plane ticket?!?! You don't even have to leave the comfort of McDonalds.

PS McDonalds, if you're going to advertise the free wifis you need more electrical outlets. One is not enough, luckily there was a nice lady who shared her table with me so I could sit close enough to plug in. I returned the favour, and helped her out with nerd advice on increasing the font size of her hotel confirmation number.

See, us nerds come in handy from time to time... just keep that in mind.

No comments:

Post a Comment