hatelife is..

oh, wait, wrong website.

DAMN IM PISS-

oh, wait, still the wrong website. (HE HE HE)

so, i’m sitting at home today when i should be in the air on my way to see my stephanie. why? because one amoebic arm of delta’s corporate machine gave me some bad information about taking pi with me, and when i showed up at the ticket counter today, the enforcement arm of the machine denied her passage.

here’s why:

delta has an “embargo” on pets-checked-as-luggage between may 15 and sept 15. this is due to a liability concern, because apparently pets have died on the tarmack waiting to be loaded onto planes during the summer months. fair enough. they require that passengers traveling with animals use the delta ‘pets first’ service, a division of their air-freight arm. their air-freight arm keeps its packages (like pi) in climate-controlled warehouses, and loads them onto the plane at the last moment possible, to ensure that they’re not affected by inclement weather. it’s also more expensive, because it’s not a branch of delta’s consumer division, and they do some handling of animals as needed.

the problem is that when i called a week ago to confirm pi’s passage, the delta rep didn’t tell me this. she told me that there would be no problems if i showed up to check the dog just like i’d done last december. operating on this knowledge, i went to the airport this morning to be told that the dog couldn’t come and these-are-the-reasons-why etc.

upon hearing that i was given misinformation, they checked my customer record to confirm that someone had made a mistake. well, clever consumer that i am, when i called to confirm i asked that the rep place a note in my customer record indicating that i called about these concerns. and now, no such note existed, so they had no proof that i’d called about this.

almost immediately (to their credit, since i had no proof of what i was saying) they offered to change my flight to anything else. but i wanted to see first if there was any way pi could come with me at all, today, without changing anything. sadly, the answer was no, so after hours of discussion and bickering, i had them give me a mid-day flight for monday to newark, and a return flight direct from JFK, at no cost to me (which was decent because i’d bought the cheapest, most non-refundable ticket..) and pi’s freight shipment is arranged for tomorrow as well – actually on the same plane as i am, but because she’s travelling as a part of their air-freight division, she is handled differently.

still, now i am at home instead of arriving at the islip airport. sigh.