Last night I logged into my Delta account just to check my itinerary. I'm glad I did because I noticed that the flights I was supposed to be taking back from China was no longer there and in it's place were 11 different flights and none of it made sense to me.
When I originally booked my plane ticket I wanted to leave China on an afternoon flight so that I wasn't trying to get to the airport in the early hours of the morning. About a month ago Delta changed their flight schedule and the flight I was on was changed to leave very early in the morning. I called Delta to see if there was anything that could be done to get me on a flight that was late morning or afternoon. After an hour and a half of working with the delta agent we came to the conclusion that the only thing I could do was fly through Amsterdam. She said "unfortunately you will be there for 23 hours." Whatever. Unfortunately my foot. I'm all over 23 hours in Amsterdam because I've never been to Europe. So I got the confirmation email and I'm set.
So last night when I called to find out what happened to my flights the Delta Supervisor (who btw was amazing) informed me that when you fly overseas you have to fly there and back over the same ocean. The way the lady in May changed my ticket I was flying over the Pacific to China but over the Atlantic to get back to the good ol' USA. She said something in their computer system told my ticket there was a glitch and that couldn't happen and so it just kicked my ticket out.
My problem is that I've prepaid for my hotel in Amsterdam and it wasn't cheap. The lady told me she could refund my cost to the hotel and I told her honestly that stunk because I had never been to Europe and I was really looking forward to that. She said thats cool and thanks for being honest and then asked me to hold and she would see if there was anything she could do.
So long story short after two hours she told me if I had flexible travel she could hook me up. So now I'm flying from Little Rock to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Amsterdam on Wednesday and then Thursday I fly from Amsterdam to Hong Kong. Yes, I know its crazy. My dad just laughed and didn't really say anything else. But I really wanted to see Europe.
Between my Atlanta to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Hong Kong flight I have 13 hours to check out Amsterdam so I've got more time there now and I'm pretty excited. I almost ask her if I could fly out Tuesday and she could get me stuck in Paris for 24 hours but I didn't want to push my luck.
I calculated how many miles I will fly on this china trip. It's about 22,000 miles. That's crazy because I'm literally flying around the world.
The rest of our team is flying from Tulsa to Hong Kong through Newark so I wasn't traveling with them to begin with anyways. I've got points to use on Delta and because I always fly Delta for work and to see Landon I have some status as a Gold Medallion and I really loved the comfort of having that, especially since I'm staying a few extra days to go to Beijing.
So the journey starts in about 36 hours and I can't wait. Lot's to do tonight and tomorrow but this will be a great adventure. I'm excited to see what "he" does in all our lives!
