Our last Sunday in Melbourne was spent with mum and dad at friends of ours, Sofie and Michael’s place. They put on an unbelievable BBQ for us and we had a ball with them all afternoon just chatting away. Beautiful fresh food and taking it easy before the big flight home. When we got home last night the reality hit that we had only a short amount of time left! Ev came over that night to hang out and say goodbye and with that – we did our final packing and had our last sleep in a bed for 40 hours!
When we got to the airport we had an unbelievably smooth run traffic wise. We got a park close to the departures hall and checking in was hassle free. We got a seat at Hudson’s Coffee and sat there with mum and dad just passing the time. This is the worst bit of leaving. Just the waiting as you know what is to come.
We then decided it was time to go through the big doors into the immigration area. The hugs, tears and “I don’t wanna go” words were all happening. I just couldn’t stop crying – and it was the ugly, can’t breathe, face is all red and snot everywhere tears. It is the worst. I hate it. We got though and into the security area and I still couldn’t stop. Of course normally it would be so embarrassing crying like that but for it just doesn’t matter when you are saying goodbye. I buried my face into Bill’s polar fleece and tried to compose myself but then I’d think of mum and dad walking out of the airport and it would start again.
Once we were through into the duty free area, I had got enough emotion out that we thought it would be a great idea to buy six double packets of Tim Tams. We then headed to the Qantas Club for 10 minutes downtime before we would have to board.
This is when our adventure was just getting started. Our plan was the next couple of days was – flight from Melbourne 10.30am, land in LA at 7.30am, on the JFK flight at 9am, land at 5.30pm, home at 6.30pm, dinner, showers, bed and asleep at 10.30pm, alarm at 6am, at work at 8am. I have done it many times before… it works a treat.
We were putting on our compression socks on when there was “Attention passengers..” message. Our flight was delayed. This went on for another 4-5 hours. This was absolutely heartbreaking. Not because of the delay – I really wasn’t that fussed at the time. But it was all that extra time that I could have spent with mum and dad. We could’ve left the airport and come back. What made it worst was they would have known about this when we checked in. It was horrendous. I think I rang mum another ten times from the lounge in that time. We knew straight away there was also no way known that we would make our connecting flight to New York. We emailed work and said that in all likelihood the chance of us being in at work the following day was slim to none. Qantas can’t tell you what is going to happen at the LA end of things. So we were just going to have wait until we got there to sort that out. I’ll do another post about the flight itself – it was bearable and we slept a little bit.
When we got to LA we were booked on an American Airlines flight… FIVE HOURS LATER. Eeekkk don’t even go there. I have to say, my years of paying for Qantas Club paid off with these delays. While we were sleepwalking, we managed to pick up our bags, recheck them, change terminals and get to the AA lounge. In another mess up, the AA check-in guy tried to charge us multiple fees for all our bags – not realizing about all the extra allowances I get. So I had to argue that with him to get my post across that this is something I pay for already. When we got to the lounge there was no decent food and by this time we were starving. So we had our showers (BEST SHOWER EVER! BEST SHOWER OF ALL TIME!) and ended up leaving the lounge and hanging out at Chili’s trying to pass some time and stay awake. We then went to our flight gate as our seats had been separated. I was told there was nothing they could do. Uh-huh. So then we went back to the lounge, hung out some more while trying to stay awake some more and then went back to the gate. When we finally boarded I was pretty much out of my tree exhausted. Bill was sat behind me in the seat ‘beside’ me. There was a girl beside him and I had a girl beside me – both travelling on their own. We politely asked if either of them would swap… they both said no. I was in shock and just baffled. I would NEVER do that to another passenger. With the emotion of leaving Melbourne, being tired, feeling gross and all the flight issues I sunk down in my seat and just cried. I didn’t cry thinking it would change the girl beside me – I cried because I was just over the whole thing. The girl beside me then had a change of heart and said she’d swap and move to the seat behind us. I thanked her profusely and with Bill there I was able to just lean on him and try and stay awake some more. I didn’t want to sleep as I wanted to be able to sleep when we got home.
Of course, being an AA flight, we missed out on a lot that we had already paid for with Qantas. It is so convenient of them to do this SO often. We had no meal, no personal entertainment system and our paid in advance seat allocation was not honored. This is stuff that all Qantas passengers pay significantly more to use – I hate that they are able to push Qantas travelers on to AA flights because of their delays and nothing ever comes of it.
The only bonus on this flight was there was wifi ($15 – best thing ever) and so I did inflight shopping, did our Fresh Direct order and got a great Talbots order through. It was funny because my coupon code wasn’t being accepted so I was live chatting with Talbots representative and they had no idea I was flying!
We eventually landed at JFK at about 2.30am. We were meant to land at 5.30pm the previous day. The terminal was empty and all I could picture in my head was our bed, slippers and pyjamas. This all changed when our bags came off the carousel and they were both wrecked. Our small case had a huge chunk taken out of the side, a bolted in wheel was ripped out and it was basically unusable. My good Samsonite and the stand on the bottom all smashed and the guards all broken. So now, we had to drag our stuff to the baggage counter and line up and file a claim about our bags. While we were there, there was a couple from Melbourne on their honeymoon. They only had five days in New York – now only four because of Qantas. To make it worse, their bags were nowhere to be found. So after being on the same nightmare trip, missing a ‘night’ in their hotel, a day in New York.. now they didn’t even have their things. My heart was just breaking for them. It was so sad.
I was so angry by this point. We were told if we wanted them repaired WE had to return the bags within 30 days TO THE AIRPORT. Whatever – I just wanted to get home, so I stormed out and grabbed a cab. I could smell my shampoo waiting for me in the shower!
We got in the door at 3.30am. I called mum and dad to let them know I was still sane and we were home. By 4.30am we were sound asleep. We woke up at 11am and decided that some sunshine was needed so we walked to the post office to collect our two backpacks of mail. We went to the diner for lunch, I went to get my nails done and headed back home to unpack.
I stood the damaged little bag up so I could open it and just shouted to Bill “BILL – OH MY GOSH – BILL!!!” White powder was pouring out of the hole in the side of the bag and all over the floor. Of course, I was panicing and was heavily influenced by many episodes of Homeland Security and COPS. I was thinking we had a massive load of drugs planted in our bags.
I didn’t want to open it so Bill did. We were shocked. This was the case that we had all of our food in it. We love the refreshing drink Salvital, so we bought 4 cans of it back with us. It looks like salt or sugar when you open it. It was here we realized that security had opened our bags, punctured a can of Salvital (fair enough – it does ‘look’ dodgy) and then they actually threw it back into our case – OPENED. ARGH! WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?! So with that we had what was basically a bag of sugar tipped through everything and now, all over the floor. It was through everything. So now I had to deal with cleaning everything in the case, vacuuming and getting every little bit of this stuff picked up. UGH!!!!
Getting in to New York at that time of ‘night’ then set off two weeks of the most awful jetlag I have ever had. I am talking the kind of jetlag where I would be at my desk at 8am, work through the day, get home at 5, and stay awake all night and then be back at work at 8am the next day. Bill would be sound asleep through this.. then the next night, I would finally sleep and Bill would be up all night. We couldn’t kick it no matter how hard we tried. I don’t know how we managed to work, but we did. It was like those two weeks were just a complete fog. I am so used to my flight and sleep routine with so many international flights that I have not suffered from jetlag for years. This was just unbearable.
So it is safe to say that from the time we got to Canberra airport, Qantas pretty much ruined the end of our holiday and the next two weeks of our lives. It then took three months of fighting with them to get the $40 seat reservation fee for LA – JFK refunded. Passengers who are bumped are entitled to a refund so I did it on principle. It wasn’t until Bill made a rant on Twitter about the ridiculousness of the situation did they not only refund the $40 but all of our other seat reservation fees as well.
After spending a Friday night heading back out to the airport to return the cases, the broken bag was classed as unrepairable. That took about ten calls back and forth with the repairers to organize a replacement. My Samsonite was returned after about two weeks. We then also had to send multiple emails and make multiple calls to get our frequent flyer points credited to our accounts. To make it even worse, we found out that Bill didn’t even qualify for points for the MEL – JFK leg. Then of course, we also used up another day of our vacation leave. Vacation time is precious here – we are so lucky we have understanding bosses! So with that, I have made a resolution that I will now quite happily look at other airlines when travelling back and forth. If I get a Qantas flight, fine.. but I definitely won’t pay more (as I have done in the past) to be loyal. There has only been one time I have not flown here on Qantas out of all my trips here and that was because I had no choice as it was a group flight. Unfortunately, the relationship has been damaged beyond repair. My loyalty is no more… and that makes me sad.
I won’t lie, leaving everyone in Melbourne (not the city itself) was sad… but by golly it was SO good to be home after all that drama!
Read about the rest of our trip here –
Bliss on JFK-MEL
So we got off the plane…
Colonial Tramcar Restaurant
Back to the ‘G
A sheep or two and a kangaroo…
Melbourne and Norflandz
Queen Vic Market / Grand Final Parade / Parl
One day in Sept… oops… October
Show Day!
Melbourne – Albury
Albury – Parkes
Parkes – Canberra
Canberra