TIFU by making my own itinerary
I'm just throwing this out there as a lesson learned, in hopes that no one else ever has to go through this. I have always enjoyed creating my own itineraries, combing through airlines and AirBnB for the best possible deals. I've saved a lot of money over the years by doing my research. I did the same for this most recent trip, which was supposed to be 2 weeks in Nepal with a one day side trip/layover in Qatar. I got a killer deal on the tickets through Qatar Airways ($900 round trip!), and as always used my Southwest points to connect for free in a large city. I live in a small city with very few international airlines, so I ALWAYS use Southwest to connect in a bigger city. I've always seen this as an advantage, mainly because I can use international airline hub airports which makes the flights cheaper, and also because I always have enough Southwest points for free flights.
So yesterday I get to the airport early and find that my SW flight to Chicago is delayed due to fog. It ended up being 4 hours delayed, which put me in Chicago with an hour and a half to get across the city from Midway to Ohare. With 45 minutes left until the doors close on my Qatar flight, the subway shuts down due to an "unauthorized person on the tracks". If I'm being honest, there's no way I would have made it anyways, but this was the icing on the cake. I go find a place to sit down and call Qatar airways, thinking I'll just switch my flight to tomorrow. Delays and cancellations happen on connecting flights all the time, no biggie. Except it was. Qatar refused to recognize my 4 hour delayed connecting flight since it wasn't booked as a package with their flight. They gave me 2 options: refund my ticket minus a $650 no show fee, or pay another $1000 for a flight out over a day later. Dropping $1000 spur of the moment on a plane ticket isn't in the cards for me, so I'm basically throwing $650 down the toilet on the refund. Worst of all, is I'm absolutely crushed that I'm not going on this trip. I've saved and sacrificed for a year to go on this trip, and all I ultimately got was one day stranded in Chicago and wasted PTO at work. I suppose this is my fault, but it still sucks. I would have never dreamed an airline wouldn't acknowledge a delayed connecting flight, but here I sit....
tl;dr Made my own itinerary, one long delayed flight dominoed into a canceled trip.
Submitted February 08, 2019 at 05:55PM by dualrollers http://bit.ly/2Do2OAH
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