Travel woes

It was not my week for efficient travel, I can tell you that much!

I'm back from my journeys, and very, very jet lagged this morning. A quick recap:

Our Friday flight to Denver was cancelled right before boarding. That led to so much chaos, picking up our checked bag (Nick's ski boots), getting a hold of United, getting the car out of parking, driving to SFO in the middle of Friday afternoon traffic, and flying into Denver at 12:30 am, instead of the 7 pm expected. Of course, I called Avis & let them know about our delay & they "added a note to our file" & promised to hold our car for us. Spoiler, they overbooked by over 100 cars, so when we got to the Avis counter at 1 am, they had no cars. We were told we could rent a 12 passenger van. Folks.... that is an absolutely huge vehicle. M did an admirable job driving it to my friend's house. Luckily, we weren't staying in the city, and my friend let us borrow her car for game day & Boulder on Saturday.

Intermission to the traveling woes. We had an incredible (but short) trip with Nick in Boulder. So, so much fun meeting his friends, spoiling him a bit, taking everyone to lunch, attending a frat party (I smelled like beer afterward), getting him some skis for the winter, meeting the roommate, stocking them up on drinks & snacks (not beer, just sparkling waters & protein drinks). ;-) We also attended the big football game, and had an absolutely wonderful weekend. It more than made up for the fact that we got no sleep on Friday. Miss that kid. 

On Sunday, M, my BFF & I went for a walk while the teens slept in. Then we left reasonably early, got the skis, took Nick, another friend & a roommate for lunch. It's so fun chatting with teens. They are so innocent & lovely & energetic & such good kids. M & I returned the rental car, which, as you can guess, was a total fiasco on Sunday, because they had sold out of literally every car that weekend, and most people were returning on Sunday.

My flight to London was pretty uneventful. But, I landed, headed to my hotel & immediately had to get on calls & work until 7 pm. Do not recommend. My body doesn't like jet lag. The work week was okay. Nice to spend time with everyone, but always difficult to juggle the actual work with the meet & greets, social events, & the sessions we were attending.

On the flight from London to SFO, we were advised to get to the airport early due to the cyber threats, outages, etc. So, we left London at 12 pm, as another coworker & I both had flights leaving around 4 pm on Friday. Stopped by the lounge, had lunch at the airport, and then boarded the plane. An international flight boards about an hour early, so we were all on board ~3 pm. Pilot comes on at expected departure time to announce that there is a problem with a fire detection system, and they would need to have the mechanics fix it. Four+ hours of sitting on the tarmac on a very warm plane (they couldn't use the auxiliary power to keep the plane cool) & the crew timed out & the flight was cancelled. Now, i'm stuck at Heathrow on a Friday night, with no way to get home. 

Folks, you also have to exit the aircraft (people were freaking out, so this took longer than normal) & go through CUSTOMS again. I get why it's required, but I was so frustrated by that point.That took another 90 minutes. 

Because I was in business class, I was "lucky" in that I got a reservation at a hotel at the airport. Took another ~60 minutes to get from customs through the airport, multiple train rides & then standing in line at the hotel for my reservation. Got on the phone with United when I could finally check into my hotel room, as my phone was dead & I needed a charger. It was nearly 10 pm by that point. When I got a hold of the very nice individual at United, and he mentioned that the following day at 12:15 was the soonest available, and there would be only an economy middle seat, I'm embarrassed to admit that I cried. Not with him. I was really nice, did not have a melt down on this guy, booked the flight, & carried on. But friends, I have all of the hormones coursing through me right now (have to assume I'm going through/about to go through menopause), it was a VERY long work week, with 12-14 hour days, some challenging people conversations, and all I wanted to do was get home. I'm not a princess, but my company books business class, & it was very frustrating that for my $10k flight, I was stuck in a middle seat in economy for almost 14 hour yesterday. I try to drink a lot of water on flights, and get up a lot to go the bathroom & stretch my legs. As you can imagine, that is not super conducive to a middle seat in economy, vs a full bed recline in business class. My body is so, so jacked from that experience. One of my rules as I approach 50 & have lupus & feel all of the aches & pains is that I will only fly business class for work international flights. Luckily, that aligns with my company policy for folks at my level. If I'm expected to roll off of a full day of traveling & be productive... 

Anyway, I really needed the weekend to recover, but definitely going to have an abbreviated version of that now. M picked me up yesterday (landed around 5 pm, local time). I came home & put a few things away, then we sat outside & drank a glass of wine & chatted, I got to give Sam a hug before he went to work, and then I showered & went to bed. 

Today is going to be rough! But, the week ahead is going to be very difficult. I have some tricky people stuff, and a huge project due on 10/10 that I'm really struggling with figuring out how to approach. Anyway, on to today. Here's what I need to get done:

• Work out. Going to the 9:30 workout class. I missed my team triathlon yesterday, as I was stuck in London. Another thing that frustrated me. I haven't worked out (other than walking to & from the office) in a week, so it's going to be a rough go for me. 
• Laundry
• Finish unpacking
• Menu plan
• Schedule for the week
• Maybe carve out an hour to work on my 10/10 project. Emotionally, not sure I'll get to that.
• See if I can squeeze in a massage at the very functional place near me. My back is seriously messed up after yesterday's flight & super long day. 
• Call Nick
• Call a friend who left me a few messages when I was in London
• Provide a job reference for an old coworker

I suppose on the frugal front, I'm going to receive a lot of United credits & travel vouchers? So far, here's what's happened on that side. Also, I'm just going to say that I would ALWAYS prefer a smooth travel experience, but here's where I'm at so far:

• $150 travel voucher (from Denver flight cancellation)
• 10,000 United miles (Denver cancellation, the "reimbursement" for having to pay for parking in SFO, after our flight was changed to that & we had already paid for parking at San Jose. We had to provide a receipt for this).
• A $15 food voucher, which I put on my Starbucks card, to avoid waste.
• We had paid to change our flights to leave much earlier on Friday, as we wanted to avoid the airport scramble on Family Weekend, and get more time with Nick & avoid being tired ahead of my international travels. I asked United to refund us for that change, as we obviously left even later than our original flights. They agreed, so we received a total of $635.98 back in a credit card refund. 
• A $650 travel voucher (from London flight cancellation) 
• I'll be getting back a check (?) I think as part of the UK travel laws, for around $700
• I assume my company will get a refund for the drop in service from business class to economy middle class. But, not sure how that all works out. Given I'm the one who got to "enjoy" the great reduction in service, I'd love the reimbursement as a future flight credit, but I'm guessing that's not how that works.

On a positive note, I did get to do my first London "touristy" thing last week! We had a team event & got to go on the London Eye. It was very fun and nice to see the city from that view. It was also a super gorgeous evening, & there was champagne! ;-) 

I'm hoping that you have all had much better weeks than me!