That I wanted to take my nieces to Paris was something I've known for a while. I have four: Joe and Mary's daughter Lizzy, Bill and Tracy's Sarah, Meghan and Rachel.
Why the desire? I had my first international trip (hell, my first plane ride ever) in 1984 via a tour the Heinz Chapel Choir (Pitt) took to Ireland and France. It was a life-changing event for me, and one that opened my eyes to just how much there was to see and experience, and how fascinating it is to attempt navigating different ways of speaking, thinking, being and of course, eating.
Tracy and I started planning this trip about a year ago. Active planning started in October, and we plunked down money for airfare and lodging in November (right before the Paris attacks alas).
Perhaps the more one desires something, the more one has to work for it and accept setbacks and obstacles. Which makes this trip maybe the one I've desired the most; it has certainly had the most obstacles that needed to be overcome.
The plan seemed so simple: We'd all rendezvous in Newark on July 18 and catch an 8 pm flight to Paris via British Airways's OpenSkies airline, flight BA8004. Joe and Mary decided to come a day early and have a day in New York City with Lizzy before meeting us in the airport. Tracy, her sister Carol Ann and the girls would fly from Columbus OH to Newark in the morning. And Paul and I would have time all weekend to pack and get ourselves ready to head out on Monday, swinging down to Edison NJ to drop the dogs off with best friend and pet sitter par excellence, Janet.
Alas, things started to go sadly wrong on Friday.
While laying a replacement cable in my front yard, the workers didn't see that they were digging across my septic line (running from the tank downhill to the leach field) and cut it in half. I went out to find them attempting what I thought was a repair using a sawed off portion of an orange traffic cone to bind the two pieces of pipe together. "20 minutes! 20 minutes!" was all the worker could say. "No! No! Not acceptable" was all I could manage (well, I did manage a few vulgarities).
A call to the cable company and an angry agitated 1 hour wait for a return call included the communication that the workers' intent was to *temporarily* bind the pipes with the traffic cone piece until proper pipe fittings could be bought from home depot and the job done right. (!!!!)
Language barrier. The pipe was properly fixed, but I am still waiting for the cable company to send me a letter acknowledging the pipe break and accepting responsibility for say 2 years for any breaks or leaks. Interestingly, the cable company workers only laid a new cable, they did not disconnect and take away the temporary cable running across my lawn. This becomes pertinent on Monday.
On Friday as well, a worker showed up to start digging up the back patio near the house (which I thought was starting on Monday). This work is needed because it turns out I have a leak in the foundation of the house in the back part, exposed when the downstairs bathroom renovation required workers digging into the concrete pad the house sits on). Had to scramble to save a few of the bulbs and flowers I'd planted. Ultimately the recommendation is having a new system of draining pipes in the back of the house AND putting a sump well/pump in the first floor of the house.
Monday brought the workers back, as well as my weekly lawn service, and while we were finishing up packing, etc., the internet went out. You guessed it; the lawn service people ran over the temporary cable and severed it, eliminating all internet access in the house. Fortunately I had printed most of what I needed early in the morning.
Just as we are trying to get ourselves out the door, we receive a call from Tracy alerting us to the fact that their plane from Columbus was not allowed to depart, due to weather in Newark. She seems to be unworried, but I am immediately concerned.
Sure enough, as we drive to drop the dogs off, the texts keep coming: Plane taxiing back to gate. We are getting off.
I call OpenSkies/British Airways customer care, and the call center people I'm connected to coldly inform me that my tickets are non-refundable and the only option for Tracy et al in the event of them missing the flight is for us to rebook them and pay the difference in cost. Grrr. The ticketing manager at our check-in counter is not much help either, and to make matters worse the flight is on time to leave and we have to board immediately. Paul, Lizzy and I are literally being pushed onto the flight so they can close the door, and I'm trying to talk to the OpenSkies Newark ticketing manager AND Tracy - should she continue on to Newark, or what's the plan? The Newark manager assures me he will take care of my family, that he *could* have rebooked them on a later flight thru London, but we'd already made the decision for them to give up on the flight, so thanks for telling us about this option at the very last minute when it does no good, and that's it. We're in the plane, door shut, and we're off.
Aside from our upset, which the flight attendants smooth away by reassuring me that someone from OpenSkies/British Airways will be there to meet me when the flight arrives, the flight is decent. I liked OpenSkies' use of IPads as personal entertainment devices instead of an in-plane system a la the 777.
We arrive in Paris Orly Tuesday morning -- big surprise! No one there to meet us and help us. It was a ruse to shut us up. I head to the British Airways ticketing desk, and are told we'll have to wait for the manager to come. How long? Shrug. 20 minutes? 30 minutes? I call customer care again - it will be $2000 per person to rebook Tracy et al. My blood is boiling. Finally the manager comes, and she is no help, because she can only help with ticketing for flights out of Paris Orly. She first tells me I can *write* to BritishAirways (I howl in outrage) and she quickly changes her tune and says I should call customer care again. (Not that she'll start the call for me or anything like that!) To make matters worse, the fact that the girls missed their outbound flights means that the return may be automatically canceled and not honored. Tracy (still up!) reports that they had no more luck with British Airways on their end, and their United rep was shocked at the attitude he got from the British Airways person. I am sick with anger and skeptical about calling British Airways customer care again, but this time I call the *UK* customer care phone number (my cell phone is using a UK prepaid travel SIM that gives me use of Paris mobile networks at a really good price), and AHA. A very helpful woman named Clementine is able to in a matter of minutes split the original booking in two and can get them on a flight out of Chicago, Can the girls get to Chicago? Tracy's quick call to United says they can, and all is arranged.
So, Paul, Lizzy and I get to the house feeling good, get a nap, and then go check out the Buttes Chaumont park, find some dinner, and come home and get a full night's sleep. Tuesday evening, we get a text from Tracy that after some hiccups between British Airways and American Airlines (whose flight BA was codesharing) and some suspenseful minutes, they were in fact booked on the flight out of Chicago, but it was delayed due to a mechanical difficulty. Won't arrive until 1 pm in the afternoon Paris time on Wednesday. Bad luck for Tracy et al, but Lizzy, Paul and I can sleep in! Our plan: head to the Paris tourism office to get our Passlib passes and see what we can do to rebook the skip-the-line Eiffel Tower tickets, then head to Charles de Galle to meet the girls.
We wake up the next morning, grab breakfast and head into the city. And the next bit of drama commences: we arrive at the Rue des Pyramids, find the office, and after waiting a LONG time, ask if we can forfeit our current Eiffel tower skip-the-line tickets and purchase a new set at the same cost.
No no no, says the representative. She speculates she might be able to give us the option if we *upgrade* our current passes (which will be expensive), but then her manager tells her that can't be done. We are quite discouraged and upset when all of a sudden, she suggests that we get a refund for our Passlib passes and buy replacements, which would give us the option to pay for skip-the-line Eiffel tower tickets again at the same cost. In other words, we'd only be losing the money spent for the skip-the-line tickets we cannot use today. HURRAY! (And I wonder why this option wasn't suggested when I made my original proposal, which from a cash flow perspective winds up being the same. Ah well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth!
So, into a taxi to take us to Charles de Galle. But fate has another set of kicks for us. I discover that somehow either my cash (~$600) was taken from my travel sac (I'd forgotten to zip the compartment shut) OR it fell out, OR I left it at the travel bureau. Fortunately the taxi takes credit cards, and then the next kick comes. The Chicago flight was canceled late the night before, and my chcking flight status on my iphone didn't pick up that fact. It turns out that the equipment failure required a plane change, and by the time the new plane came, the flight crew had timed out and there was no option to get another crew. Tracy and the girls quite dispirited on their end. We're not much better. We headed to CDG for no reason. We get some McDonald's at the airport (Lizzy and Paul are happy), get back in a taxi, contact the tourist office and they do NOT have my cash, so it's all a loss. I'm out $100 for the taxis and $600 for the lost cash. I comfort myself with the fact that I did not have to rebook the girls for $2000 a person and feel better, if still angry with myself for my carelessness.
Wednesday evening, Tracy tells me that now the plan is for them to fly Chicago to Boston, then Boston to CDG, arriving early Thursday morning. This time, we decide Lizzy and Paul need to sleep in, so I venture to CDG by train by myself to meet them, and AT LAST they arrive at ~8 am local time.
All the anger and stress of the past few days starts to release, though we have lost 2 precious days in Paris as a result.
My takeaways: OpenSkies is a seriously flawed venture with generally unhelpful people on the ground, poor systems supporting their personnel (the hiccups in ticketing that Tracy and the girls experienced), and terrible US customer care. I will figure out how to register my displeasure in as many social media forums as I possibly can; while I should be grateful for the eventual outcome in terms of cost to myself, I am disgusted with how UNHELPFUL their on-the-ground personnel were, how little initiative they took to be of assistance to us, how they lied to me repeatedly on the flight, reassuring me they'd take care of Tracy and that a representative would be on hand in Orly to meet us and figure something out. Disgusting way to treat a customer who spent so much $$ on tickets!!
Why the desire? I had my first international trip (hell, my first plane ride ever) in 1984 via a tour the Heinz Chapel Choir (Pitt) took to Ireland and France. It was a life-changing event for me, and one that opened my eyes to just how much there was to see and experience, and how fascinating it is to attempt navigating different ways of speaking, thinking, being and of course, eating.
Tracy and I started planning this trip about a year ago. Active planning started in October, and we plunked down money for airfare and lodging in November (right before the Paris attacks alas).
Perhaps the more one desires something, the more one has to work for it and accept setbacks and obstacles. Which makes this trip maybe the one I've desired the most; it has certainly had the most obstacles that needed to be overcome.
The plan seemed so simple: We'd all rendezvous in Newark on July 18 and catch an 8 pm flight to Paris via British Airways's OpenSkies airline, flight BA8004. Joe and Mary decided to come a day early and have a day in New York City with Lizzy before meeting us in the airport. Tracy, her sister Carol Ann and the girls would fly from Columbus OH to Newark in the morning. And Paul and I would have time all weekend to pack and get ourselves ready to head out on Monday, swinging down to Edison NJ to drop the dogs off with best friend and pet sitter par excellence, Janet.
Alas, things started to go sadly wrong on Friday.
While laying a replacement cable in my front yard, the workers didn't see that they were digging across my septic line (running from the tank downhill to the leach field) and cut it in half. I went out to find them attempting what I thought was a repair using a sawed off portion of an orange traffic cone to bind the two pieces of pipe together. "20 minutes! 20 minutes!" was all the worker could say. "No! No! Not acceptable" was all I could manage (well, I did manage a few vulgarities).
A call to the cable company and an angry agitated 1 hour wait for a return call included the communication that the workers' intent was to *temporarily* bind the pipes with the traffic cone piece until proper pipe fittings could be bought from home depot and the job done right. (!!!!)
Language barrier. The pipe was properly fixed, but I am still waiting for the cable company to send me a letter acknowledging the pipe break and accepting responsibility for say 2 years for any breaks or leaks. Interestingly, the cable company workers only laid a new cable, they did not disconnect and take away the temporary cable running across my lawn. This becomes pertinent on Monday.
On Friday as well, a worker showed up to start digging up the back patio near the house (which I thought was starting on Monday). This work is needed because it turns out I have a leak in the foundation of the house in the back part, exposed when the downstairs bathroom renovation required workers digging into the concrete pad the house sits on). Had to scramble to save a few of the bulbs and flowers I'd planted. Ultimately the recommendation is having a new system of draining pipes in the back of the house AND putting a sump well/pump in the first floor of the house.
Monday brought the workers back, as well as my weekly lawn service, and while we were finishing up packing, etc., the internet went out. You guessed it; the lawn service people ran over the temporary cable and severed it, eliminating all internet access in the house. Fortunately I had printed most of what I needed early in the morning.
Just as we are trying to get ourselves out the door, we receive a call from Tracy alerting us to the fact that their plane from Columbus was not allowed to depart, due to weather in Newark. She seems to be unworried, but I am immediately concerned.
Sure enough, as we drive to drop the dogs off, the texts keep coming: Plane taxiing back to gate. We are getting off.
I call OpenSkies/British Airways customer care, and the call center people I'm connected to coldly inform me that my tickets are non-refundable and the only option for Tracy et al in the event of them missing the flight is for us to rebook them and pay the difference in cost. Grrr. The ticketing manager at our check-in counter is not much help either, and to make matters worse the flight is on time to leave and we have to board immediately. Paul, Lizzy and I are literally being pushed onto the flight so they can close the door, and I'm trying to talk to the OpenSkies Newark ticketing manager AND Tracy - should she continue on to Newark, or what's the plan? The Newark manager assures me he will take care of my family, that he *could* have rebooked them on a later flight thru London, but we'd already made the decision for them to give up on the flight, so thanks for telling us about this option at the very last minute when it does no good, and that's it. We're in the plane, door shut, and we're off.
Aside from our upset, which the flight attendants smooth away by reassuring me that someone from OpenSkies/British Airways will be there to meet me when the flight arrives, the flight is decent. I liked OpenSkies' use of IPads as personal entertainment devices instead of an in-plane system a la the 777.
We arrive in Paris Orly Tuesday morning -- big surprise! No one there to meet us and help us. It was a ruse to shut us up. I head to the British Airways ticketing desk, and are told we'll have to wait for the manager to come. How long? Shrug. 20 minutes? 30 minutes? I call customer care again - it will be $2000 per person to rebook Tracy et al. My blood is boiling. Finally the manager comes, and she is no help, because she can only help with ticketing for flights out of Paris Orly. She first tells me I can *write* to BritishAirways (I howl in outrage) and she quickly changes her tune and says I should call customer care again. (Not that she'll start the call for me or anything like that!) To make matters worse, the fact that the girls missed their outbound flights means that the return may be automatically canceled and not honored. Tracy (still up!) reports that they had no more luck with British Airways on their end, and their United rep was shocked at the attitude he got from the British Airways person. I am sick with anger and skeptical about calling British Airways customer care again, but this time I call the *UK* customer care phone number (my cell phone is using a UK prepaid travel SIM that gives me use of Paris mobile networks at a really good price), and AHA. A very helpful woman named Clementine is able to in a matter of minutes split the original booking in two and can get them on a flight out of Chicago, Can the girls get to Chicago? Tracy's quick call to United says they can, and all is arranged.
So, Paul, Lizzy and I get to the house feeling good, get a nap, and then go check out the Buttes Chaumont park, find some dinner, and come home and get a full night's sleep. Tuesday evening, we get a text from Tracy that after some hiccups between British Airways and American Airlines (whose flight BA was codesharing) and some suspenseful minutes, they were in fact booked on the flight out of Chicago, but it was delayed due to a mechanical difficulty. Won't arrive until 1 pm in the afternoon Paris time on Wednesday. Bad luck for Tracy et al, but Lizzy, Paul and I can sleep in! Our plan: head to the Paris tourism office to get our Passlib passes and see what we can do to rebook the skip-the-line Eiffel Tower tickets, then head to Charles de Galle to meet the girls.
We wake up the next morning, grab breakfast and head into the city. And the next bit of drama commences: we arrive at the Rue des Pyramids, find the office, and after waiting a LONG time, ask if we can forfeit our current Eiffel tower skip-the-line tickets and purchase a new set at the same cost.
No no no, says the representative. She speculates she might be able to give us the option if we *upgrade* our current passes (which will be expensive), but then her manager tells her that can't be done. We are quite discouraged and upset when all of a sudden, she suggests that we get a refund for our Passlib passes and buy replacements, which would give us the option to pay for skip-the-line Eiffel tower tickets again at the same cost. In other words, we'd only be losing the money spent for the skip-the-line tickets we cannot use today. HURRAY! (And I wonder why this option wasn't suggested when I made my original proposal, which from a cash flow perspective winds up being the same. Ah well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth!
So, into a taxi to take us to Charles de Galle. But fate has another set of kicks for us. I discover that somehow either my cash (~$600) was taken from my travel sac (I'd forgotten to zip the compartment shut) OR it fell out, OR I left it at the travel bureau. Fortunately the taxi takes credit cards, and then the next kick comes. The Chicago flight was canceled late the night before, and my chcking flight status on my iphone didn't pick up that fact. It turns out that the equipment failure required a plane change, and by the time the new plane came, the flight crew had timed out and there was no option to get another crew. Tracy and the girls quite dispirited on their end. We're not much better. We headed to CDG for no reason. We get some McDonald's at the airport (Lizzy and Paul are happy), get back in a taxi, contact the tourist office and they do NOT have my cash, so it's all a loss. I'm out $100 for the taxis and $600 for the lost cash. I comfort myself with the fact that I did not have to rebook the girls for $2000 a person and feel better, if still angry with myself for my carelessness.
Wednesday evening, Tracy tells me that now the plan is for them to fly Chicago to Boston, then Boston to CDG, arriving early Thursday morning. This time, we decide Lizzy and Paul need to sleep in, so I venture to CDG by train by myself to meet them, and AT LAST they arrive at ~8 am local time.
All the anger and stress of the past few days starts to release, though we have lost 2 precious days in Paris as a result.
My takeaways: OpenSkies is a seriously flawed venture with generally unhelpful people on the ground, poor systems supporting their personnel (the hiccups in ticketing that Tracy and the girls experienced), and terrible US customer care. I will figure out how to register my displeasure in as many social media forums as I possibly can; while I should be grateful for the eventual outcome in terms of cost to myself, I am disgusted with how UNHELPFUL their on-the-ground personnel were, how little initiative they took to be of assistance to us, how they lied to me repeatedly on the flight, reassuring me they'd take care of Tracy and that a representative would be on hand in Orly to meet us and figure something out. Disgusting way to treat a customer who spent so much $$ on tickets!!
