Seems like everywhere I travel this summer, flights are oversold or overweight or overtired or whatever: and they’re invariably looking for volunteers to get on a (much) later flight.
A good idea when traveling solo, but at 7:30 this morning, packed and screened and geared for movement with two parents and two kids under five, is it really that tempting?
Yes. We may have no sense, but we’re still into chasing that dollar. $600 vouchers on Continental, because the piddling airplane (was it a 737? It looked like a Cessna) that they had to fly from Newark to San Francisco had no room for both passengers AND enough fuel to make it around several weather systems.
A good flight to stay off of anyway, in my opinion.
Anyhow, the unexpected beauty of having paid–for the first time–for a ticket for our now-two-year-old is that all the perks of volunteering were now magnified by four. Four breakfast lunch and dinner vouchers for the group (good for any of the plasticky food items at the airport), and the real payoff– four $600 vouchers for Continental flights in the future. We look forward to flying on one of their dingy Cessnas a very long way next year when we have some time.
The key in the bargain, though: a “day room” at the lightly tarnished EWR Ramada hotel. We just woke up from our naps, which were a must after the 4:30 alarm this morning. And we are going to try this again.
The real question, though, is whether we’re going to actually make it for the remainder of our voyage. We don’t reach San Francisco until 12:30am our time. Then rental car, driving, situating, etc.
Greed may have gotten the best of us yet.
We always offer to be bumped, and got $1,200 each (plus overnight hotel and meals) for staying an extra day in Anchorage once. Turned that into three free trips, and nearly got bumped off of one of those, with our not-quite 2-year old in tow.