I made it!

One of my secret wishes finally came true the day I was to fly out of Reykjavik to Montreal, one blustery Dec 15th of 2007...

"Would you like to fly to New York instead of Boston and receive either 200 USD or a return ticket anywhere Iceland Air flies?"

Would I! I have wanted to be asked that question since I boarded my first plane back in 1996. But, as far as I was concerned, I had a connection to catch in Boston to take me to Montreal and there was no way I was willing to miss it. The problem was that the day before, Reykjavik was racked with winds up to 100km/hour and all flights had been cancelled, meaning the day I was to fly, all flights were overbooked. I told the check-in woman about the Boston-Montreal connection and she dutifully checked my bags through Boston to Montreal. I should have known something was up when she suspiciously *didn't* give me a boarding pass, informing me, rather, that I would have to go through security and get the boarding pass from the service desk on the other side.

The line at the service desk was short, but each person in line was taking up to 30 minutes to be served. The problem was that nobody wanted to take the "fly to New York instead" deal because they all had connections to make in Boston and so the service desk workers were trying to re-route all their flights.

If I learned anything about Icelanders while I was there, it's that they do not love to offer good customer service; it's just not in their nature. So when the people in line kept moving to the front (concerned they were going to miss the Boston flight, which turned out to be delayed 2 hours) the other people in line got mad at them. It didn't behoove the service desk workers to walk out to the line and inform us about what was happening, rather they were content to lose my luggage tags, lie to me (Just wait here, I'll be right back to help you out.), and eventually put me on a flight to New York instead, give me an open return ticket anywhere Iceland Air flies (even though I asked for the 200 USD), book a new flight to Montreal from New York for the next morning and offer to pay for a hotel that night in New York. Fine.

When I got to JFK, my bags weren't there to be collected. I was fine with this: I figured they hadn't been moved to the new plane, they were still headed for Boston, even though the woman who served me assured me my bags would come to New York with me and didn't give me back my old luggage tags. I got over the bag situation because I had my carry-on with enough stuff to last my night in the hotel and get on the plane the next morning for Montreal. Except that I wasn't fine with the fact that 40 people were arriving from Reykjavik who were supposed to be headed to Boston and were meant to stay in hotels at the airport, but Iceland Air hadn't bothered to call ahead to warn JFK about this. Instead, we waited 2 hours for Iceland Air at JFK to call hotels and book us in.

Naturally, there weren't enough rooms for all of us at the JFK hotels, so about 10 of us were booked into hotels at La Guardia. There is no shuttle between these two hotels (or that's what they told us at JFK) and so we were to cab it and send the receipt to Iceland Air. My flight to Montreal the next morning was from JFK, but was then changed to leave from La Guardia so that I could just take my hotel's free shuttle instead of taking another cab back to JFK.

Of course, you will recall that on Dec 16th, there was a big snow storm in New York and Quebec (and other places in that area), so my flight was cancelled; all flights that day from New York to Montreal were cancelled. I took the shuttle to La Guardia and the check-in woman said my flight was cancelled but I could still make the flight to Montreal from JFK. So I ended up taking a taxi back to JFK, but the flight was cancelled there too. I had to stay in a hotel again that night and finally arrived in Montreal via American Eagle on Dec 17th, still with no luggage.

If you've never lost your luggage before, you may not know this: no matter how your bags were tagged, no matter which route they were supposed to take or ended up taking, you can only report them lost with the last carrier you flew with, even if that carrier never touched your bags. My bags were tagged to go to Boston with Iceland Air and then to Montreal with Air Canada, but because I'd flown to Montreal with American Eagle, I had to make the claim with them, which I did. In the end, I got my bags back on Dec 27th! I might have had them back sooner if I'd had my original luggage tags, or any tags at all, but because my bags were supposed to have been transferred to that New York flight, my tags were never given to me and new tags were never issued.

So that's my big adventure in trying to get home through two storms in three countries. I was a little peeved that I was given the open round-trip ticket anywhere Iceland Flies; I thought, "Why would I want to come back here after this horrible service!" - but now I see that Iceland Air flies from Toronto to many places in Europe, so I'll have to go on a congradulatory graduation trip in the Spring!

Of course, I had a wonderful holiday and I'll write more about it in upcoming posts, but for now I'll tide you over with my mother's delicious arancini...


And the new Transformers Trailor Director's CUT