A wedding in Washington: the final week!

Hello dear readers! We’re cracking on with another post in the wedding series!

In all honesty this’ll be a pretty boring post as far as the series is concerned but nevertheless, it’s an important part of the story as my time in Washington was theoretically coming to an end.

Before I crack on I’m going to give you a quick reminder on all of the logistics for this trip. I did talk about it in the first post of the series but that was a while ago so let me rejog your memories.

I think any couple getting married have much to think about before a wedding but an international wedding added some further things to think about and in terms of trip lengthy I ideally wanted four weeks in the USA – which my employers were perfectly happy to approve given the circumstances.

I figured having two weeks before the wedding and two weeks after the wedding was a good balance and allowed time for things to potentially go wrong before the wedding (me and my family all had our flights cancelled!) whilst also allowing a bit of time after the wedding to enjoy the first days of married life!

It was a perfect plan but a small spanner in the works was Haleigh’s cousin, Michelle, was getting married in Utah at the end of the month – three weeks after our own wedding.

I wouldn’t have missed their wedding for the world. They’re the cutest couple and I adore them both but it did pose some questions about what I now do about my own trip. Do I push for five weeks off work? Do I want to take five weeks off work for one trip? Do I leave myself less time before the wedding and more time after the wedding to go down to Utah? What do I do?

I’m very mindful of my annual leave each year. Our company offer a scheme that allows you to buy an extra week and with the wedding in mind I took full advantage of this to bump my leave off up to six weeks but for an entire year that is still not enough – give me 26 weeks, please!

I think this influenced my decision making a little so I stuck with the original plan. I was going to Washington for four weeks, flying home for a few days of work and then I’d fly back to Utah for a long weekend to catch the second wedding. It wasn’t ideal but any days annual leave spared this year was a blessing!

Anyway, with all that in mind, this was my final week in Washington. I’d already had three weeks on the West coast by this point so the final week was just about making the best of the time I had left in Washington before we’d separate again. Admittedly I’d be seeing Haleigh and some of the family down in Utah in a couple of weeks but there’d be other family I now probably wouldn’t see until Thanksgiving maybe.

We spent the first half of the week doing the boring post-wedding stuff. The marriage licence, name changes for Haleigh, you get the gist..

The second half of the week was spent enjoying Walla Walla, visiting a few favourite hangout spots and bidding farewell to family I wasn’t going to see any time soon. On Thursday evening myself and Haleigh had ourselves a final date night as I’d be leaving on Saturday and the Friday happened to be Haleigh’s brother’s birthday so we had a meal out planned with a number of people.

It was bittersweet to think that two weeks after getting married it was back to the long distance stuff.

‘Til bureaucracy, immigration laws and visa restrictions do us part” as the famous vows go.

On the Friday I was trying not to think about that and looking forward. Yes, I was leaving tomorrow but when would I be back? What time were my flights to Denver the following Thursday? What time were my onward flights to Salt Lake City? I did the logical thing and had a look!

Now, anyone familiar with the British Airways app will know the first thing it shows you when you open the app are the details of your next flight. I was specifically looking for my London to Denver flight information but up popped my next flight.

“Seattle to London – delayed!”

Wait, what? It’s Friday morning, my flight isn’t until Saturday evening. I can’t even check in yet, how can my flight possibly already be delayed!? I thought it was weird but okay, whatever. Tell me more, how long is the delay – *click*

I was facing a 20 hour delay! Twenty! What the fuck?

Seriously, let’s revisit the plan because what the hell do I do from here? I was flying in to Seattle on Saturday morning and now leaving some time on Sunday afternoon with no accommodation inbetween. I was supposed to be back at work on Monday but wouldn’t be landing in England until Monday lunchtime and for what, a three day turnaround? I’d be back Stateside in just a few days which was arguably illogical to begin with but a huge delay was a real spanner in the works.

Now what do I do? I had six upcoming flights to think about over the next week and a half, I had three days of work to consider and every solution was a form of unnecessary hassle. It’s worth reiterating at this point that BA had cancelled my flight coming here too so they’d inconvenienced me on both ends of the trip.

Of course this nonsense doesn’t happen when it’s one solitary flight does it? Here were my issues:

1) The flight times are what they are. With no changes, I was stranded in Seattle without accommodation for a night. Do I book accommodation in Seattle for a night?
2) If I don’t book accommodation, can I possibly move my domestic flight from Walla Walla to a day later?
3) Either option, means I leave a day late. I miss work on Monday? Is there really any point in going home for just two days of work?
4) Let’s say I don’t go home, how does that affect work? How does that affect the Utah trip?
5) Let’s say I don’t go home, I sort out work, I drive down to Utah with Haleigh and the family. How do I then get home? Do I drive back to Washington with them? Do I try and fly home from Utah?
6) Let’s say I drive down and fly home from Utah? Can I actually fly home from Utah? How do return flights work if you miss the first leg of the journey? I was flying with BA from London to Denver and then with Frontier from Denver to Salt Lake City. It only takes one of those airlines to see I haven’t traveled and not save me a seat for the return flight. That’s conversations with two airlines to make sure I’m not stranded somewhere.
7) Let’s say I drive down to Utah, drive back to Washington after the wedding, when can I actually get home? The wedding was Saturday and my flight home had been Sunday which worked fine with Monday being a public holiday in England. There was no way I could fly home from Washington in the same timeline if I stayed. 

The knock-on effect of one flight delay was ridiculous. Also, 20 hours!? Come on!

After much deliberation I settled on a plan. Scrap flying home, I’m staying. I’m not leaving on April 23rd (now 24th), I’m leaving on Saturday the 7th of May. We’ll drive down for the wedding, we’ll come back, we’ll apologetically work remotely and we’ll make it work. Two more weeks in the USA – perfect!

“Computer says no.”

Alaska Airlines couldn’t have made things easier for me. My Walla Walla flight was amendable at no extra cost, infact I actually got a voucher for the difference in flight costs as I guess the flight I changed to was cheaper, and this was all doable online. Bish, bash, bosh!

British Airways? Ugh, horrendous! I could change my flight but only for a fee. Hardly my fault that this situation was not of my own making but great, I’m going to have to talk to an actual person.

“Phone says no.” – call back another time, thank you!

I’ll admit, patience was still with me at this point so I waited and called back a little later. I reached the point of being placed on hold at least and persisted with it before eventually getting through to a person.

“BA says no.”

This is a good time to add that this shit-show was discovered entirely out of good fortune. It’s only because I was investigating my next batch of flights that I even spotted this delay. There was no phonecall, no text, no email, no notification of any kind to make me aware that the schedule had suddenly changed so it’s here where things start going sour.

In fairness the phonecall started positively with a “let’s get you home” kind of attitude you want from a customer representative but it was shortlived. I laid out my demands if you will – “my flight has been delayed, can you move it to this date..” and after a first failed attempt, BA were suddenly backtracking.

“Impossible to change the status..”, “you’ll need to speak to Seatac Airport..” and “you should have contacted us sooner..” among a selection of favourite catchphrases. How I was supposed to achieve the latter is still a mystery to me given I hadn’t been informed of the delay to begin with.

I went round and round in circles with the BA rep, insistent that there was nothing she could do beyond cancel my flight with a flight voucher unlikely to cover the cost of booking a new one-way flight.

Now I’m a pretty agreeable person. It’s arguably one of my best and worst traits. I’m a people-pleaser, easy-going. Don’t make too much fuss, you know? So I’ll give myself some credit here for my persistence. This phonecall was not ending without a solution that didn’t leave me out-of-pocket. I was getting increasingly irritated at an attempt to just fob me off but when it comes to travel, I know my rights.

Many “I’ll put you on hold” instances later and my BA rep achieved what had reportedly been impossible an hour earlier. “We can’t change your flight when it’s in this status” seemingly didn’t ring true. They did change my flight, they did so at no extra cost and I got exactly what I’d asked for an hour earlier.

It was honestly infuriating. I’m such an easy-going person but I was so wound up by the end of the phonecall. I’d never want to be the person to take that out on the customer service rep but it’s not easy when you’re being told something can’t be done which seemingly can be done with enough pushback. It shouldn’t take that much pushback and it still leaves a bit of a sour taste.

After an lifetime hour on the phone, it was time to go out and celebrate with the birthday boy. We returned to a Walla Walla favourite, Clarette’s, and had a good time with the family. The next few days were pretty chilled. I had to work remotely for the first few days of the week of course and on UK times but it wasn’t too bad.

Soon enough the out-of-office was back on and we were heading down to Utah! More on that next time!

Stay tuned!

Jason

P.S – if you’ve missed any of the previous posts in the series, you can catch up below!
A wedding in Washington: an introduction! 
A wedding in Washington: week one! 
A wedding in Washington: wedding time! 
A wedding in Washington: the honeymoon!