After a great time in New Orleans, it was finally time to head home. We had a little bit of a snafu on our return flights, so that definitely made things interesting the night before (read: a lot of time on hold with AA). Here’s how we spent our last few hours in town.
US/AA reservation mix-up
So really, this one is my own fault. I’ve written before about how I can be…obsessive. It bit me in the butt a little this time, I’ll explain a bit so hopefully people don’t make the same mistake.
Basically, I took advantage of the free changes to AA awards to search for better flights home. I found flights I wanted searching online and called in to make the change. The agent said he didn’t see the flight I wanted, which is when I made my first mistake.
Instead of hanging up and calling again, I just decided to take what the agent was offering me. But after I changed the reservation, I checked online again and the space on the flight I wanted was still there. At this point I determined the agent had just messed up (I was booking US metal with AA points) so I decided to call again.
The next agent saw the space I wanted and switched our flights for us. Long story short, AA thought we were on one set of flights while US thought we were on another. I didn’t find this out until I tried to check in so I had to spend an hour on the phone fixing our reservation the night before we left.
Basically, if I had waited until one set of flights was ticketed before changing, it would have been fine, but I tried to change the flights while they were still on request so that caused the computer ever. Lesson learned.
Wandering the French Market
The upshot of the flight change was that we had enough time in the morning to go visit one more site in New Orleans. We were thinking about visiting the Mardi Gras or the Children’s museum, but ultimately we settled on taking a walk so as not to feel rushed.
We made our way back towards the Riverwalk and eventually ended up at the French Market. Unfortunately it was too early for the food stalls to be in full swing, but we had a nice time wandering around the flea market area. We even bought a Blue Dog print – M had become obsessed with the dog over the course of our trip.
I would have loved to see the French Market in full swing but that wasn’t in the cards. We took one last stroll down the Riverwalk and made our way back to the Intercontinental – picking up a muffaleta and a salad from Merchant along the way.
Flying Home
There are no directs between MSY and BOS on US/AA, so we routed through Charlotte on the way home. Our flights were pretty uneventful and peaceful, M fell asleep for a good portion of the second leg.
Staring out the window, I was just reminded of my love for lying and travel – we got to see a nice sunset and we landed parallel to a second US Air plane which was pretty neat. All in all a peaceful journey home after a great trip.
Final Thoughts
I never really thought of New Orleans as a family destination, but after this trip I realized that it has a lot to offer for both kids and adults. Though I’m finding as a parent that every city is that way – you just need to know where to look. Maybe we’ll go for Mardi Gras proper one of these days – until then I’ll be dreaming of gumbo.
Other Posts in this Series
JetBlue has a daily nonstop between MSY & BOS
Yeah I meant on US/AA which we were flying. The going rate was also $1000 at the time!