Ok well I guess I should just start at the beginning. We found out that Rick's exam was being moved up so we thought that it would be nice to come back home early. Simple idea. Well I got in touch with my mom who helped make all the plans for us to come back home. For some reason I was unable to call the airline directly so I was having to get my mom to be the go between. I have a great mom because a lot of time that we were on the phone together I was mostly fussing due to stupid people that she was talking to. It was probably a good thing that I was not talking to them myself. Finally after what seemed like forever and many days of this mess, me and my mom were able to finally talk to someone with some sense. At first US Airways wanted me to fly to St. Maartin to trade paper tickets because that was the closet airport with a ticket counter for them. Well that did not go over well with me and I had to tell my mom that we were not close to St. Maartin at all. Well like I said they finally got it straight that we were to fly into Puerto Rico and just get the changed tickets. Since we had so much problems with them we were not charged anything for changing the tickets.
I got an e-mail in my Orbitz account, who I used to fly us down there in the first place, that showed me that in fact the tickets were changed and even gave me a new itinerary. All that was left to do was go to Point Salines Airport and have them change our Liat tickets. So Ashlee, Ce Ce and I went down to the airport to get them changed...that was a total waste of time for everybody. They would not let me change the tickets and told me that I would have to get a travel agent to change them for me. So I go home and have completely had it with airlines all together. I make Rick call Liat and he has no problem changing our tickets. Figures. They were just going to charge us $130.00 US for the change when we got our new tickets the day of our flight. Fine no problem.
On the day we are scheduled to leave Grenade we thought that if anything we would have a problem with Liat who is supposed to have horrible customer service. Little did we know. We get to the airport all nice and early and low and behold Liat did not charge us anything for the tickets. We were even able to eat at Rituals Cafe before boarding with our belly's full and some coffee. This probably worked out a lot better than it could have since I am a grump when I am hungry. We got on the plane and had a nice uneventful flight all the way to Puerto Rico.
Until....Well we land in what I will refer here on out to "The Hellhole". We get out of the plane right off the runway-no terminal for us, walk all over the place then go up some stairs to finally get into the terminal. By this time we are getting happy because we are back to American soil and American food. We go through all the customs and everything then go through the maze of the airport. They are doing construction there and we literally had to exit the building just to get to the check-in. We are not worried about time since we are supposed to have a little over 2 hours here.
We finally find US Airways check-in area. We wait in the line very nicely until we get up to that self-check in thing. I tell the guy we are supposed to change our tickets in for new ones. We give him all of our information and he says that he does not see us on that flight. Ok just a glitch right? He then tells us that we are going to have to purchase new tickets but the flight that we want to get on is full and so is the one that leaves after that one. Ok temperature rising. I then inform him that we are supposed to be on that flight and that I got a confirmation email stating this. He gets a manager to help me. Well when the manager says that we are yes in fact going to have to purchase new tickets and that he showed us on the flight but our seats were just reserved. Temperature really rising now. I drop my book bag and turned to Rick and told him that I have to walk away now before I blow. That was me exhibiting being a mature adult.
So the only thing I know to do is call my mom. Thankfully my mom knows me really well because when she answered her phone I said "they are telling me that I have to purchase new tickets" not much else was said by me but she knew how hot I was getting and by her voice she wasn't too thrilled about this news either and she said with irritation in her voice "I will call you back". So I was going to give this another try with the ass of a manager now that I've gotten mom on it.
So calmly I go back to the counter and explain the process all over again. He then changes the story and says now that all he can do is just charge us the difference in the amount of the tickets. I ask well how much is that and he states $52.00 US each. I said fine! Whatever gets me off of this rock. I am thinking that it is not so bad since we were able to get out of Grenada without Liat charging us. Well Rick gives him the credit card to run. I tell Rick "Why don't you go and get us some McD's", since I figure me and this ass were going to be going back and for for awhile. After Rick leaves to get us our first American food, the ass informs me that it is going to cost an additional $150.00 US each for the change in ticket fees. So I am about ready to blow and I am steadily watching the clock get closer to our flight time. In one of my tones I told him to "charge the damned card whatever will get me the hell out of here". It is going to run us over $500.00 US to get home. He then informs me that there might be a problem with our tickets since one showed something different on it than the other. Something dealing with that I got checked in before the last check-in for boarding but Rick didn't. I so did not care what he was talking about as long as we got out of there. By now I am highly irritated.
So we finally get our tickets and we have less than 20 minutes to get on our flight. I am standing there waiting for Rick's head to pop out of the crowd so that we can make a mad dash for the security checkpoint. I finally see him leisurely eating some fry's and when he finally sees me jumping up and down then I take off running. He gets the idea because he takes off too. I finally get to the check point where we encounter a long line. I lean over the ropes to talk to one of the security chic's in as nice of tone as I can manage now and say "Hey, We are getting ready to miss our plane is there anything you can do for us". Well she ignores me. So I have finally had all I can take at this damned place and blow my top. I turn and start yelling that I hate this fucking place that I am never coming back here ever again. I am one person you can tell how mad I am by how many cuss words are coming out of my mouth so there was quite a few. Well you get the point. When I see Rick I see that he is about to blow his top too. Not good if we both lose it. About this time I am certain that instead of getting on the plane and getting our asses out of there, I am going to be visiting the jail for a while. The security chic that ignored me comes over and lets us through to her lane. We get through and we are stuffing our faces with McDonald's while we are waiting on our turn to go thorough the screening machine. The guy manning it tells me to put the quarter pounder through the machine so I am like whatever! Ok why if I bought it in the airport would I have to put a burger through the x-ray machine. What do they put in the burgers. So we get thought the machine and I take off running with my book bag on my back, my wrist brace in one hand and the laptop in the other. Don't you know that when we finally got to our terminal that the ass that gave me all the problems was there to take our tickets to board. All this damned time his ass could have gotten us through the checkpoint without all the drama that ensued from him, not to mention that we were very lucky to get on the plane at the last second.
Well while we are waiting for take-off that ass comes on board. I am like ok I am getting yanked off this plane because off my blow-up earlier and I am still not calmed down yet. I tell Rick that I am not going peacefully. Thankfully he does nothing and deplanes. By then I am still ranting about the hellhole. I then pose the question to Rick about can we give this damned island back to whoever we got it from and vow never to fly into that hellhole again.
We get to Charlotte and I get in touch with my mom again. She has spent our entire flight time on the phone with US Airways. She insures me that they did not charge our cards for over $500 US for the tickets and that the person she was finally able to talk to only showed we were charged the difference in the tickets and something like $50.00 US. Well to listen to her talk about what she had to go through to get any answers - it was best that I didn't have to call them. My mom is usually the one who loses her temper last and I do believe that those people caused her to lose it. She told me that at one point that they were telling her that I needed to talk to them and she told them that they don't want to talk to me right now. They even caused her to cuss and it is not often that I hear her swear. So everything eventually worked out but boy did it leave me bitter about that place.
When we got to Charlotte we felt really good about being in the states finally. We were able to get Starbucks for the first time in 5 months. During check-in at Charlotte, I went up to the desk and told the guy that the ass messed up our tickets in Puerto Rico and asked him if there was going to be a problem boarding. He said yes it was but fixed it very quickly for me and without a lot of drama. The rest of the trip was peacefully and we had no other problems that occurred.
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