Category: Wanderlust

So I just came back from a three-week vacation to Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. Now I need a vacation from our vacation.

Over the coming weeks I’ll post pictures and musings (Scotland and Ireland are both incredibly beautiful countries), but for now I just wanted to share a few tidbits I learned (and perhaps I should’ve known) about vacation planning and execution to international destinations.

Most importantly, do NOT book airline travel through a third party such as Travelocity. They do not actually do anything except book your flights and blow hot air. More on this in a minute. As a corollary, with perhaps a couple of notable exceptions, it’s best to book with an airline domestic to your country of origin. “Codeshare” is merely a marketing ploy and doesn’t actually mean the booking airline has any knowledge or control over your connecting flights in a country where it’s not a domestic carrier. It’s merely a convenient way to market an international destination.

The Specifics

The trip: Miami- Dublin, Dublin-Miami. Airlines involved: American Airlines for Miami-Philadelphia and United Airlines for Chicago-Miami. Aer Lingus for Philadelphia-Dublin and Dublin-Chicago. (No one flies direct to Ireland from Miami.)

My Tale

After much research, I booked our flights to and from Ireland through Travelocity because ostensibly we’d save @ $400. However, by the time I was done paying for seat selection and luggage, I actually paid @ $100 more than if I’d just booked directly with Aer Lingus. Why? Because of the myriad “economy” designations airlines use today. All economy designations are not created equal. My best guess is when you purchase through these online only travel agencies (a misnomer-in my opinion, they’re actually just resellers), the airlines factor in their reduced profits and adjust accordingly.

Monetary considerations aside, my saga continued. In my scenario, you must still contact the individual airlines directly to select/purchase seats and/or prepay luggage, which I did. Since I booked our travel @ six months in advance this meant every time there was a change in the flights, I had to contact each airline to transfer our seat selection as this does not happen automatically. There were three flight changes and three airlines involved before we left. Wait times varied but I calculate I spent at least 6+ hours on the phone making these changes since it’s not something that can be done electronically.

*As an aside, at least with Aer Lingus, if you book through a third party you lose the ability to check in or access your boarding pass through their mobile app, which means check-in at the airport requires a stop at their customer service counter (with its attendant long lines).

A week before our scheduled departure I logged in to confirm our flights. I started with Travelocity and confirmed there were no further changes to our itinerary. However, since they don’t track your seats or prepaid luggage selections, I logged into the individual airlines to confirm the particulars.

The plot Twist

This is when United Airlines informed me the flight we were originally booked on from Chicago to Miami was cancelled. They said we had a credit and they were waiting on Aer Lingus to tell them whether to refund or put us on another flight. Since it was a “code share” with Aer Lingus further complicated by the third party reseller, I did not have the authority to make the change myself.

I contacted Aer Lingus, whose representatives told me I was misinformed and the flight was confirmed. I contacted Travelocity who said much the same but promised they’d look into it and get back to me within 72 hours. I never heard back from them (to this day) and we left with this issue unresolved.

I decided to cross the bridge when we arrived back in the US and enjoy our vacation. When we checked in with Aer Lingus in Dublin for our return flight to Miami via Chicago, they still confirmed the non-existant flight to Miami and told us our luggage would be checked through to our final destination and our boarding passes for the next flight issued in Chicago. Interestingly enough, the luggage claim checks we were given listed a different flight number for the Miami flight than the one they claimed we were booked on (but I didn’t notice this until we landed in Chicago).

We land in Chicago and we know we need boarding passes. The Aer Lingus gate agent tells us to proceed to the United terminal and they would issue our boarding passes at the gate. I press him on the details but he dismisses me with an indifferent “we don’t fly domestic” and tells me United will take care of it. We have four hours until the supposed flight so I know without needing to check there will be no gate assigned yet (at least not one posted for the public) and that there certainly will be no gate agent responsible for our flight at the as yet undetermined gate (for the imaginary flight). But there’s really no point in arguing with him so we start to make our way to the appropriate terminal for United.

I thought of calling Travelocity itinerary support but we didn’t want to sit in Chicago for three days waiting for them to get back to me-which is when I examine the luggage claim checks more closely and discover the discrepancy in the flight number. While we’re walking, I check the United app and note the flight number on our luggage is actually from a flight to Chicago from Detroit that already landed. By now, I wouldn’t be surprised if our luggage is actually on the way to Dubai but I check the airtags and confirm they arrived with us in Chicago.

We stop at the first United counter we come across. It’s cordoned off and in order to be allowed to speak to a customer service rep you first have to explain to the cordon guardian why you can’t simply use the automated kiosk. I kid you not. I was only about 1/3 of the way through my explanation when he finally let us through, after confirming the discrepancy between our luggage claim checks and our final destination.

The United agent at the desk confirms what I knew a month before, we’re not actually booked on any flight to Miami. But she finds our previous reservation and corresponding credit and tells us there’s room on the 6:30pm flight to Miami (which was more less the same time of the original cancelled flight). Through yet another mistake of Aer Lingus or Travelocity (who knows), we were booked first class originally so they put us in first class back to Miami. (I figure at this point we’re owed so mum was the word.) But, she says, there’s nothing she can do about the luggage because Aer Lingus hasn’t transfered it to United yet. We could only hope once the luggage was transfered to United and they discovered the discrepancy they’d put it on the right flight. Otherwise we’d have to file a claim at the Miami airport for our wayward luggage.

The Happy (relatively) Ending

By the time we arrive in Miami at 1:30am we’ve been awake and traveling for almost 24 hours and I’m resigned to maybe seeing our luggage sometime the following week (and uncaring as long as I get to sleep in my bed), but low and behold, when I check the airtags, our bags are indeed sitting in Miami with us. There were no new tags on them, but somehow they were put on the right (only) flight to Miami. So all’s well that ends well I guess.

Lesson Learned

I will never again use third-party resellers or online only travel agencies for international travel. They’re a good source for exploring itineraries and getting an idea for flight prices, but they’re lousy at actually providing any customer support when you need it. We could’ve flown United, for example, for all legs of the trip for the same price and saved time and most importantly preserved our peace of mind during our trip.