It has been a while since I have posted on here, but I wanted to drop a quick post on here. I recently saw this video on my buddy’s blog, A Soldier’s Perspective. I spend many a nights out of the year in hotel’s and have been staying in hotels for over eight years (except for the 16 months deployed). Either way, almost everyone has seen the 20/20 show where they go into the hotel room with a black-light finding DNA all over a room. The hotel chains have heard enough from the customers how the customer does not like the polyester blankets that used to be on most hotel beds, which were never washed on a regular basis.

Well here is a new issue with hotel’s and their lack of concern for customer safety, health and experience. To see what I am talking about, check out http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1329217643.

Some days flying just sux. Last night I flew my normal Red-eye flight home on Thursday night from San Francisco to Buffalo. It was already going to be a bad flight because I had two connections through Minneapolis and Detroit. This means I was not scheduled to get home until noon, after leaving CA at 12:40 AM. Well Minn had some terrible storms this morning as we were supposed to land. They were so bad that they have the whole airport shut down and are not allowing any traffic in or out. So we flew around in circles for a while getting thrown all over the place by the storms. It was a very rough flight at this point. At some point the pilots got smart and decided to push it out a little further away from the storm. So we circled there for a while also.

At some point they realized we were running out of fuel, so we flew to Bismark ND to get gas and wait out the weather hold. As I type this, I am sitting in Bismark on the ground in a red-eye plane full of people, all wanting to be somewhere else except here. Well a plane-full except for one lady. I guess she was going to connect in Minn to fly to Bismark, so they just let her off the plane here. What luck is that. Anyway, there are four other planes sitting here also, all waiting to get to Minn. The crew is trying to do what they can, they have the door open to let in fresh air, they are serving coffee, water and juice. People are able to walk around, use their phones, computers, etc.

They are now telling us we will be leaving soon, and then it will be 90 minutes to Minn. By the time we get there, the storm “should” be gone. That will be when the fun starts, as I and thousands of others will all be fighting with attitude-having gate agents to get re-routed. Ohhh, what fun!! The only thing that would have been worse would be sitting in coach during all of this. Thank God I was upgraded for this leg of my flight to 1st class. I was already upgraded for my two connections, but I am sure I lost those now.

Well now I am in Minn and am rebooked to arrive in Buffalo at 4:30 PM. That makes a total travel time of 13 hours. Luckily I stayed booked in 1st class, and actually they had everyone on the plane rebooked when we walked off. They had itineraries lined up, so all we had to do was look for our name in alphabetic order, grab it and go. They also provided everyone with a 5-minute phone card and a $35 off coupon for the next ticket I buy, woo hoo.

Troy

Well I must say that even though dealing with the lost suitcase was a major PIA, the hotel came through and did the right thing. Right before I left for vacation, the hotel informed me that they would be turning over the estimates I gave them to their insurance company and I would be hearing from them within a week. While on vacation I realized I had not heard anything and figured that I would get back to work and then have to start chasing things around and having this all drawn out.

Surprisingly I came back home and picked up all my mail to find in there, a envelope from the hotel. Inside was a check for the complete amount I told them everything was worth. They decided to just pay it from themselves and not even turn it over to their insurance company. There was no arguments, squabbling, etc over amounts or items. They made a mistake in letting the bag get stolen, but they did the right thing in paying very quickly. I guess this is why I love Marriot and why I have been a dedicated Platinum level customer for over 4 years now.

T

I have been traveling for many years now and thought I have seen everything, however new things surprise me all the time. On June 2nd I left my Marriot in the morning and did my normal actions. I went to the front desk, checked out, and asked for put my big suitcase and some freshly cleaned shirts and pants in the bellman’s closet. I informed the clerk that I would be gone longer than the normal (2 weeks because of my Annual Training). She turned around to ask someone that looked to be in charge if that would be ok and he said yes. They gave me my half of the tickets and then they wrote on the back of the ones attached to my stuff “return 6/20/05”.
Well when I returned on the 20th, low and behold only my hanging clothes were there. The suitcase was nowhere in the closet. The bellman that night went all over the hotel looking for it. They called me in the morning to tell me they were still looking for it and were going to investigate it all day as each new shift came on. The bottom line is that it is gone. They have no idea how, because they say they always require a ticket. Which if that is the case, means someone authorized to go into the closet walked off with it, or someone broke into a door that is right in front of the check- in desk and made off with it and nobody saw them. Regardless it is gone.
As you can imagine they were very apologetic and sorry. But that does not bring back your stuff. Luckily I always travel back and forth with a small bag and had enough on me that week to carry me through the week. I had to put together an itemized list of items with approx values (which I did off of store websites). I gave them that list with values, which totaled a little over $950.00. They have turned it over to their insurance company and I am waiting to hear from them.

I am still loyal to Marriot brands, but this has shaken my trust a little. I don’t know how this could have accidentally been handed away, but of course it was a standard 25” black Samsonite bag that looks like thousands of others. Either way, I have to get to the store to start replacing some stuff. Losing the stuff was not the biggest pain. The biggest pain was that I was in the middle of reconciling our bank accounts when that week ended, so I put the bank statements in the bag planning to finish it up when I got back from AT. So because the statements were in there with our names, address, and account numbers we are now going through the nut-roll of creating 3 new account and converting over all of our drafts, direct deposits, etc. That is the biggest PIA of this whole issue.

So the lesson here is, whenever you leave a bag at a hotel overnight or over 14 nights, be prepared not to see it again. Never leave anything in there that can compromise your personal security or finances or anything that you cannot easily replace.

I have been doing this same thing for almost 5 years (leaving bag over weekend while I went home) and this is the first time it has ever been an issue. It can happen to anyone.

Sometimes traveling really, really sucks

Troy

Last night after just falling asleep, the fire alarm went off at my hotel. This is about the 5th time this has happened to me, of which about 3 of them were for valid reasons. I learned a while back that it is a good idea to have your necessary items pre-positioned in your room for such an event. The alarm went off around 12:30 AM so just about everyone was asleep and it looked like it when they came down to the street.

I had a t-shirt, my jeans, wallet, cell phone, and room key in one place. When the alarm first went off it only lasted about 30 seconds and then went off. So I think most people did what I did, thought it was a false alarm and then went back to sleep. About 2 minutes later it went off again and stayed on. If you have ever heard a hotel fire alarm you would know they are friggen loud and annoying.

I threw on my stuff on went downstairs and so did 300 rooms of other people. Some people were dressed and many others were in everything from robes to shorts, to nightwear. Many were cold since it was misty/raining and they were not happy. We ended up being out there for 45 minutes so it was past 1:00 AM.

By the way, it was for something in the kitchen and the 2 fire trucks of fireman left with a expended fire extinguisher. Not sure what it was, but there was a real reason.

Bottom line, when the alarm goes off it pays to have your important crap together.

TS

Not really a travel post, but here is a very funny link that is travel related. This guy is my type of pilot.

http://www.barry.fireflyinternet.co.uk/fun/files/pilot.htm

TS

If you are looking to join the best rental car company program, by best I mean with the most benefit for you, then join the National Emerald Club. National’s emerald club is the only one that has tier levels like the hotels and airlines. They have emerald club, Elite Emerald club, and Executive Elite club. The higher the status, the more free days you get, and the nicer the cars they give you. Also you get higher percentage of discounts on every rental.

The nicest thing about their entire program is that you pay one price (Intermediate Car Size) and you can drive any car on the emerald line. This means SUVs, sports cars, mini-vans, convertibles, premiums, etc. You don't have to worry about having upgrade coupons or sweet-talking the rental agent like you do at other agencies. '

If you are going to join a rental car program, stay away from overpriced Hertz, or Rip-off Avis and go with National. www.nationalcar.com

TS

The idea of this Blog will be to share many of my lessons learned when it comes to traveling. Things to look out for, tricks you can try to reap big benefits, the best travel site for cheap prices, how to get preferred status fast and easy. These are all examples of the types of content which will be posted here.

Enjoy and Safe flying…..
T