Really. I promised a post on how I actually completed my outbound travel. Let’s start with the sweet tingling sensation of being whacked by a pack of bricks what was the realization that my ticket was an our one way, while my flight was 45 minutes the other way. Of course my first course of action was to talk to the American Airlines ground staff. Oops, just realized I do have a paper ticket, but I forgot to bring it. “You can reprint that, right? I’ll pay a reprinting fee???? I hopeful.
No, reprinting is not possible. This is a Swissair ticket, so you’ll have to talk to them. Swiss does not have a representation in Oakland. Or to your travel agent. By the way, you’re not going to be on this flight. Buh-bye. No-no, buh-bye now. Actually, they were very professional. Numerous calls to the travel agent and Swissair occur, and the latter eventually agrees to put me on standby for a flight from LAX to Zürich later that day. Oakland to LAX is served just about every hour by Southwest, who sell no-hassle one-way tickets through their website. This is a sizeable gamble, because the Swissair flights tend to be full of ski enthusiasts around this time of year. However, it’s the only feasible way to get going without buying a full-fare ticket (going rate about $3000, which I can not justify). I buy my Southwest ticket at 1:30PM for the 3PM flight, make my way to LAX and end up just about the last passenger called for standby on the Zürich flight… Aaaarrgh!
Moral of the story: E-tickets rule, because you get on flights by just telling the airline who you are. This reduces the amount of stuff you can’t fly without to an important extent. And if you happen to end up with a paper ticket, grasshopper, do not forget to bring it. Fold it in your passport (I did bring my passport) or something. The only reason I ended up in Amsterdam at all is that the Swissair ground staff was very, very nice to me and allowed me to fly out of a completely different city with a ticket that was absolutely non-changeable.
