Delta Airlines Archives - asthejoeflies

Jun 02 2017

Compensations after travel delays: my experience and how to ask

Originally I had planned on lambasting Jetblue after how they handled weather delays on my flight home from Orlando last week. Apparently I am destined to have bad return trips from Orlando every single time. But…Jetblue ended up dealing with compensation proactively so they’ve spared you the rant. So instead I decided to write about travel delay compensation, specifically weather related compensation.

Note that for the most part, airlines usually don’t owe you anything due to weather related incidents. While I’d love to blame American Airlines for thunderstorms, they actually have no control over that. So according to the contract of carriage, weather does not entitle you to any compensation.

Has your flight been canceled or delayed? Looking for travel delay compensation? Learn from my experiences and find out how to get compensated. — It might be clear skies over Boston right now, but that’s not always the case

Still – airlines do recognize the bad optics of major delays during weather. For example, last week in Orlando during my delay, it was 70 degrees and sunny. In Boston, my destination, it was overcast but no storms. Yet bad weather in Washington D.C. delayed my flight for five hours. So while airlines don’t technically owe compensation, I think they understand in reality it’s difficult to look a customer in the eye and say “tough luck.” (For the record, I would be 100% okay without receiving compensation for weather related issues).

Let’s take a look at some compensation/allowances I’ve received during weather travel delays.

1) Rerouting onto a different carrier (US Airways)

Five or six years ago my wife and I jumped on an amazing sub $400 fare from Boston to Madrid. It rained in Boston the night we left. For some reason US Airways flights were very backed up, though most other carriers were getting out.

The first person I spoke to at the airport said we had to go home and return the next day, which wouldn’t work since we planned a three night trip. I decided to wait in line again and the next agent put us on a Delta flight and we got to Madrid only four hours later than originally planned. We also ended up with a nice little layover in Amsterdam.

I only realize now how very generous that agent was, but agents do have a lot of power to get you to your destination, even if it is on a different carrier.

2) Free changes onto alternate flights for same carrier (All airlines)

Generally when airlines know bad weather is on its way, they offer free changes or cancellations. A lot of this can be done online, though I’d say the best experience I’ve ever had is with Delta. Delta preemptively gave me the option to change flights right from my app. I could look at the different flights and just click on what I wanted without speaking to a human being. I found that incredibly useful. If people know of other airlines that allow you to do it from the app, please let me know so I can give them a shoutout.

3) Automatic $75 travel bank credit (Jetblue)

One nice thing that Jetblue does (and did last week) is automatically credit a $75 travel credit to your account if your flight has been delayed for a considerable amount of time. I received $75 a day or two after my severely delayed flight (I got home at 4 AM that night). A friend of mine on Twitter also had the same experience and I’ve seen people write about it elsewhere. It’s nice that Jetblue does this proactively. Yes, the purpose is to build good will, but the bottom line is they didn’t owe me any compensation since my delay was due to weather but they did it anyway.

4) Compensation for night of hotel, car rental, and a gift card (Delta)

My single best weather related delay compensation also came from a MCO-BOS flight. After getting stuck in Orlando for an extra day due to a blizzard in Boston, I rented a car and a hotel room for the night. Delta not only offered me Amazon gift cards for the delays (which, again, were out of their control due to weather), they also reimbursed me for my car rental and hotel room. Excellent compensation in a situation where the company didn’t owe me anything.

So how can you maximize your chances of receiving compensation from weather delays? Admittedly, I’m not the best at this, but here’s how I’d recommend thinking about your course of action:

Getting travel delay compensation for weather delays

1) Focus on getting home first (and stay calm)

There’s definitely room for argument here, because sometimes the thick of the delay situation might be the best time to ask for compensation. However, since I’m normally traveling with my kids, it’s not feasible to talk compensation when I have two ticking timebombs in tow.

So what I’d suggest you do is calmly figure out a way to get to your destination. I generally get on hold with the airline while waiting in line for a live representative to wait in two lines at once. Also, it’s important to come up with alternatives yourself, that saves time. “I noticed that a flight leaves tomorrow at 8 AM, is there any space on that one?”

Obviously if you change your flight, change it online. But first and foremost, make sure you’ve dealt with the immediate issue – being stuck at the airport.

2) Fill out an online form clearly explaining the situation and stating your frustrations (without blaming the airline)

Since my aforementioned distaste for human contact, I like to fill out online forms. Each airline website will have a feedback or complaint form. Keep it simple and just explain what happened and how you and your family were inconvenienced. I also find it important to highlight any good customer service that I had as a result and to remain positive.

I don’t find threatening very useful, instead I try to politely ask for some compensation. For example, I might say something like “I recognize everyone was trying their best but it still was an unacceptable situation. I would appreciate compensation for the hotel and car or anything else if possible.”

I don’t rush filling out these forms, I usually wait until the trip is over and done with or when I have found some mental space after dealing with the stress from the delay.

3) Be prepared to expect the outcome, even without compensation

I like to take a long view on things, so if I don’t get compensated for a particular instance it doesn’t mean I’ll change my policy on asking nicely. Remember, I am talking about travel delay compensation for weather related issues. The airlines don’t owe us any!

So every time I ask for compensation, I am fully aware that I might not get any. And that’s okay with me, I will just bear that in mind when making choices in the future. If we were talking about bad customer service or things that clearly were the airlines fault, I might take a different tactic, but this is how I handle weather delays.

Final Thoughts

In the end, the airline’s job is to get us safely from point A to point B. When bad weather hits, that might not always be possible to do in a timely manner. Still, long delays are inconvenient, so it’s okay to ask for compensation. I’ve found that airlines can be very generous – you just need to remember to ask.

Anyway, this is just my policy. Have airlines compensated you for weather delays? Do you like to ask, and if so how do you do it? Let me know in the comments!

Apr 07 2017

A quick look at Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges

I actually scheduled this article to be posted while I visit Hong Kong next week, but since people are flipping out about Delta’s latest devaluation I moved it up the queue. When I wrote about Korean Air award holds the other day, I decided to poke around and test out some flights to Europe on Skyteam partner airlines. I found that Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges run much lower than I had thought. I’d argue that travel hackers should look more and more to using Korean Air miles.

I spent most of my time looking at fuel surcharges to Europe in business class, because that’s where the real sweet spot is. 80,000 Korean Air miles for round trip in Delta business class vs. 140,000 Delta miles for the same flights, IF the fuel surcharges are worth it. Before I get into my East Coast biased research (that’s not a joke), let me say that I’m just positing that you should consider Korean Air award tickets as an option, but by no means do I think they offer a slam dunk. Some things you should know before we get started.

Korean Air Skyteam awards must be booked for round trip travel
Virgin Atlantic can also book Delta flights (but not other Skyteam). 90K RT from select East Coast cities like Boston, 100K RT otherwise, no stopovers
Korean Air Skyteam awards allow one stopover
Like with all Korean Air awards, you can only book for family members in your family plan
You can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards to Korean Air

Why Korean Air is worth considering

Straight up, Virgin Atlantic presents a better value than Korean Air for Delta flights to Europe. No fuel surcharges and it’s cheaper. When you decide between Korean Air and Delta miles, you need to ask yourself whether 60,000 Delta miles (the price difference) are worth the cash outlay for fuel surcharges. For Virgin Atlantic that difference in miles is as low as 10,000 miles, so in general you’re better off with Virgin Atlantic, since both KE and VS transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards.

However, you still should keep Korean Air in your arsenal. With Korean Air, you can get one stopover, you can’t get that with Virgin Atlantic so that might make it worth it. You also need to go through the regular decision making process – do you have a surplus of X currency lying around, can you get a better deal transferring MR to Virgin Atlantic instead, etc. etc. For this post I only used itineraries that you can’t book on VS, but tons of itineraries on VS exist so I suggest you seek them out.

So let’s not bury the lede here: in many instances paying the fuel surcharges on Korean Air might be worth it. Especially if you have a lap infant since they only cost 10% of the miles instead of 10% of the revenue fare (which could be $600-$1000). Now lots of this hinges on Delta availability, which can be great for Bostonians like myself, but not so great if you live in a small city. Still, Delta business class availability for four this July:

BOS-CDG (one way)

JFK-CDG (one way)

DTW-CDG (one way)

Award availability should be similarly good to cities like London. A lot of people live in those three cities and award availability is decent from others, so don’t let people tell you otherwise. Delta sucks because of unpredictability, but that doesn’t mean its award space sucks.

Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges to Europe on partners

So before I get into the numbers, I should address that I mostly focused on business class flights. That’s because the mileage difference is way more stark between Delta miles and Korean Air miles for business (140,000 vs. 80,000). In economy, a 10,000 mile difference (60,000 vs 50,000) presents much less value.

So let’s see what we got, starting with my hometown of Boston.

So this itinerary costs you 80,000 KE miles and $513.22. On Delta:

On Delta it’ll cost you 140,000 miles and $139.76 (I chose the wrong flight for screenshot but the fuel surcharges should be the same). So the question to ask yourself: Are 60,000 Delta miles or Membership Rewards worth $373.46 cents to me?

There’s no right answer to that question. Maybe you use Barclays Arrival points to pay the $373.46, that’s different than using cash, which, famously, is fungible. But that difference came out much smaller than I had expected.

Here’s Detroit-London:

So Detroit to London in Delta business class using KE miles costs 80,000 miles and $546.59. Delta?

So Delta costs 140,000 miles and $260.66. So again, are 60,000 Delta miles/MR worth $285.93 to you?

To me, there’s no right or wrong answer here, but this definitely puts Korean Air on my radar in terms of options to Europe.

One Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharge example to Asia on partners

One award redemption that had Gary Leff downright chagrined was LAX-PVG. I didn’t search this route for my original post but I let curiosity get the best of me so I figured I’d share. Here’s LAX-PVG outbound on Delta:

PVG-LAX return on Delta:

I included both options since the rage revolves around how it costs 15,000 extra miles on partner airlines (justified rage). Anyway, this flight costs anywhere from 160,000 Delta miles and $220 to 190,000 Delta miles and $350.

On Korean Air:

The equivalent flights on Delta would cost 175,000 miles and $220. So in this case, are 20,000 Delta miles worth $200 to you? Again, just presenting the data (though in this case I personally would go Delta. But if only partners were available, KE becomes very attractive).

One Korean Air stopover example

I did mention that Korean Air offered the stopover benefit, so I wanted to share one example of how great that can be. I took a look at BOS-CDG // CDG-LHR (stopover) / LHR-BOS. Basically, visiting both Paris and London.

The itinerary looks like this on Delta:

These flights cost 165,000 miles and $327.76. You need to pay an extra 25,000 for the business class leg between Paris and London since Delta no longer allows stopovers. Same itinerary on Korean Air?

Booking the same flights on Korean Air cost 80,000 Korean Air miles and $701.24. So this time, we’re talking 85,000 Delta miles/Membership Rewards points for $373.48. A clear and present value? In my mind, yes, but do what works best for you and your family.

Final Thoughts

Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges really came out lower than I had expected. They are still at that level that would make me need to make some hard decisions, but it’s great to have another option to get to Europe, especially from the East Coast. Yes, Delta’s unpredictability sucks, but I find little use whining about it these days.

Instead, I encourage you to leverage their decent award space and book with other partners. I used to think that Virgin Atlantic and Flying Blue were the only viably realistic ones, but looking at the sizable yet not exorbitant Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges, now I’ve got a third option. And so do you! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to write another post to schedule for vacation. Thanks for nothing, Delta!

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Featured image courtesy of Pixabay

Feb 15 2017

Daddy, daughter, delays!

I had an amazing time at #DisneySMMC but I’ll post about that another day. Instead, I’m writing about my trip home while it’s still fresh in my mind. On Saturday, while I enjoyed some much needed rest and relaxation on Disney’s private island Castaway Cay, a cloud still loomed in my mind.

My four year old daughter and I scheduled a flight home for 12 noon the next day. I figured that was enough time to get to the airport (it was) but had a growing concern about the potential blizzard moving into Boston, our destination. As the title would indicate, we ended up delayed. Here’s how we made our decisions and dealt with the interruption.

Debarking the Disney Wonder

Just a quick note, a 12 noon flight would have been no problem getting off the Disney Wonder. It’s a small ship and even though it was mostly full, we were off by 8 AM and on a bus by 8:10.

On board airline check in rules: you put your checked baggage out with tags by 10:30 PM the night before and then pick them up in your home airport. We had nothing to declare so pretty much walked straight through customs. We were at the airport before 9:00 AM and I joked that it was the earliest I’ve ever been at the airport for a flight (it is, as far as I can remember).

Going to be three hours early for a flight for the first time in my life thanks to @DisneyCruise transportation
— Joe Cheung (@asthejoeflies) February 12, 2017

One final point, the checkout checklist said that for flights before 12 noon you need to be off the boat by 8 AM or else they’ll pull your bags. Didn’t stick around long enough to find out but it’s something worth noting.

Delay 1: IRROPS

Being three hours early for a flight was a very foreign experience for me. Luckily we ran into Leslie from Trips with Tykes – her daughter V and M had bonded quite a bit on the trip. Everything seemed all good as the two kids celebrated their favorite part of the cruise:

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A post shared by Joe Cheung (@asthejoeflies)

Then at around 10 AM I got a text from Delta saying our flight had been delayed by one hour. Uh oh. It looked to be because of delays at Logan, but now the total time I had to kill at the airport had ballooned to four hours! Let me give Delta credit here: sometimes with American I don’t hear about the delay until, you know, after departure time. It helped to get the text before we went through security.

We ate an early lunch and ended up going through security around 11:45 AM. Boarding was a piece of cake and M was happily watching Peppa Pig as the cabin doors closed. All good, until…

Delay 2: Mechanical

So we taxied onto the runway. I heard the engines spin up and then…nothing. After a bit of a delay, the pilot came on the intercom to say there was an equipment issue and he was waiting for advisement from the powers that be. Ten minutes later he announced what we all knew: we were headed back to the gate.

How my four year old and I dealt with a bunch of travel delays thanks to Delta and Disney — Get me out of here!

We soon found out the number 2 engine starter had an issue. The pilot said that if MCO had the part, the delay would be about an hour. If the part had to be flown in, all bets were off. Well, by the time we got back into the terminal: all bets were off.

Again, Delta did the best they could – there were sodas and water within minutes of us deplaning. Sandwiches arrived about 10-15 minutes later. But at this point it was 2 PM, we were only scheduled to get an update at 6:00 PM, and I had been at the airport for five hours. Decision time.

Making alternate plans

At times like these, I generally like to utilize all avenues available to me: humans, phone, internet. So I started waiting in line at the gate counter while on hold with Delta. Thankfully, I can surf the internet while on a call so I checked my Delta app too. They were offering a free flight change but worried about my two checked bags I stayed in line.

Eventually I realized that there was a Delta assist station. This was a bank of phones that put you in contact with an agent immediately: agents who had as much power as the gate agents. This was pretty clutch. At this point I figured I had two decisions:

Wait until 6 PM and hope the flight got out that night despite the blizzard
Find a hotel and fly out the next day

I still had one day left on my SMMC Disney ticket, but I wanted to do whatever was easiest for my daughter. Ultimately I decided that spending another four hours at the airport for the chance to go home that night was probably too much to ask of her.

So I rented a car ($35) and a room at the Doubletree at Disney Springs ($110). The helpful “gate agent” on the phone rebooked us for the 740 PM flight the next day, the only flight free.

In the end, my flight did end up taking off around 8 PM, but as my dad told me, I made the decision based on the knowledge I had at the time. While I was out ~$150, I know I made the right decision. It was just too big of a risk to stay. I was still worried about my bags but Delta assured me that they would be automatically moved to the flight.

Disney Springs, Take 2

Our first night in Orlando, we didn’t have the greatest time at Disney Springs. But due to Doubletree proximity (15 min walk), M and I decided to give it another shot. We weren’t disappointed. This time, we happened upon the World of Disney, aka the largest retail Disney store in the world. That place was a LOT of fun for a Disney fan. I managed to get out of there only buying two items, but it was pretty difficult!

We also enjoyed our return visit because we had some “magical”, unplanned moments. First, on our way down from the pedestrian bridge, we got a great view of a set of floor lights shaped like a Mickey. M was so excited to run down there and just walk around in circles, tracing Mickey with her path and I just marveled at how much fun a 4 year old can have doing the simplest things.

We also ran into a “fairy” who sprinkled pixie dust on M’s head. Honestly, if I had known it was going to be glitter I probably would have passed! But M was so excited to have the pixie dust PLUS the fairy was from “the kingdom of Burlington, MA” so we had a nice chat about Boston’s Frozen Ever After situation. Moral of the story? Extended daddy daughter time is rarely a bad thing.

One final flight change

Before we left for Hollywood Studios on our final morning (M loves the Disney Jr. Live! show), I decided to see if we could get on an earlier flight. The logistics of getting home at 930 PM are pretty difficult!

For this, I tried out Delta’s Twitter account, @Delta. This Twitter account houses the true wizards. They confirmed me (not standby) on an earlier flight and made sure my bags got rerouted for the second time. It turned out to be a lifesaver because the 740 PM got pushed to 930 PM (still due to Boston weather).

I can’t say enough about Delta’s entire customer service team through this whole experience – while I wish their plane didn’t break down they did such a great job accommodating us. We got one extra day of magic with the least amount of stress thanks to them.

Final Thoughts

Flight delays are tough. Day long flight delays are tougher. Making decisions with a 4 year old might be the most stressful part of all. Still, thanks to my Fairy Godmother (my wife, helping me make the right decisions from afar), the seven dwarves (Delta’s Customer Service team), and Minnie Mouse (my surprisingly non melted down daughter), we had one extra magical day in Orlando!

Update: Delta is even giving us $150 for our trouble, yay!

Jul 10 2016

Surveying Scotland: Handling kid jetlag and other potential disasters

Here’s the thing. When you take a redeye (or any flight) to Europe, you lose five hours that you will not get back. Not until it no longer matters at least. That means that even if everything goes perfectly to form, you have to find a minimum of five extra hours of sleep for your kids. Of course, being low on sleep means your family is more susceptible to potential catastrophes.

Last time we came to Europe with M, she was 18 months old, we had a great flight in Lufthansa first class, and I still slept for 16 of the first 24 hours in Germany. Subtract two grandparents and add a one year old baby: that was our situation in London for the first three days of this trip. Here’s how we dealt with our travel mishaps.

jetlag — Prepared to quickly prove his ability to break out

Delta One

I’m not going to review the flight too much except to say that Delta One stands as a pretty solid business class product. The seat and bed were comfortable and the Westin comforter/pillow a nice touch (though not necessarily game changing). The food did not impress, it was maybe a step or two above economy food, but I am a sucker for ice cream sundaes and the wine was solid.

The flight attendants and service really stood out. They were friendly, attentive but not too in your face, and great with the kids. Overall they seemed to handle the entire cabin deftly and with ease. One flight attendant even took H for a tour of the cabin for 30 seconds before landing – we got a LOT accomplished in those 30 seconds!

Review over.

Sleeping with kids on the plane

One thing we did not anticipate was how much M wanted to play on the plane. She takes great naps on planes but hasn’t flown long haul for a year or so. We went through her regular bedtime routine and put her seat into its lay flat position but she basically played by herself lying down until Jess finally transferred her over so they could sleep together. I’d say M got around three hours of sleep, Jess one and a half max.

H was my problem for the most part. He slept better than expected. I had to put him in his carrier to rock him to sleep during the meal service (which ran an hour past his bedtime). He fell asleep eventually and when the cabin lights were dimmed I put him down in an empty, fully reclined seat. Having a half filled cabin was great.

The only issue with having H in a separate seat was I couldn’t sleep myself. The seatbelt doesn’t quite fit around him. Well, it does, but he can escape easily. They would have happily let us bring his car seat on but it won’t buckle into a business class seat (shoulda flown coach, the back was empty!). So instead I just accomplished my normal “catch up on movies I wanted to see in theaters but we chose to have kids so I only watch movies in theaters 2X a year” thing.

Zootopia, lots of fun. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, meh but got the “seeing this on a plane” boost plus I’ll watch pretty much anything with Tina Fey in it.

At some point I had to transfer H to my seat and I slept for about 20 minutes with him on top of me. I’d say he got about four hours overall on a six hour flight: decent.

Remember to take all belongings with you

We took the fast track lane through customs so that was pretty straightforward, though we were definitely starting to feel it. The kids to their credit were hanging in there but I could tell they were pretty tired. Adrenaline only accounts for so much.

I bought roundtrip Heathrow Express tickets – if you buy them months in advance they are pretty cheap (like £5.50 each way). It was super crowded for the 15 minute ride to Paddington Station but the kids continued to hold it together.

We made our way up to the taxi stand, taking one of the few elevators that exist in London train stations. As we were entering our taxi, we realized we had forgotten one of our backpacks on the train. BUGGEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I almost lost it at that point. Steam must have been coming out of my ears because the taxi attendant told me to relax, haha. Good advice.

I ran, literally, back down the platform looking into every single train car for the bag. When you are tired it is quite tough to remember exactly which car you were in besides “the middle.” At some point one of the Heathrow Express attendants said, “Can I help you, crazy person?” I explained my plight and she went into an office and came out with a backpack.

She needed me to correctly identify the luggage tag on the bag. My mind flashed back eight hours to check in when my wife said, “Hmm we should probably tag and put at least your e-mail address on this backpack”. JESSICA YOU ARE A SWEET GENIUS.

Over at the taxi stand, the kids once again held it together and soon we were on our merry way.

Status pays off

Even after all of that we got to the Hyatt Regency The Churchill by 9:30 AM, way too early for check-in. I had a confirmed Diamond Suite Upgrade due to our need for two rooms. Of course, all of their suites were filled with (probably fake) Diamond members like myself. Still, they graciously allowed us to take breakfast in the lounge. Pretty smart business: costs them nothing and makes us feel special.

By 10:00 AM H was about to lose his mind so I took him for a walk outside. He did the “freak out while you are putting me into my car seat and then fall asleep in literally 15 seconds” thing. One kid down. M colored with Jess but by 11:00 she was soon going to lose it as well.

At this point Solhi (sp?), my new favorite Hyatt employee, came over and said we looked so sad and pathetic that he decided to upgrade us to a slightly larger suite so that we could spare the lounge any potential meltdowns. I’m paraphrasing. Dude is the man, though. The bigger suite was nice but not necessary, getting into it at 11:00 was life saving. We were about to go out on the town just to spare people from the aforementioned meltdown but that would have been brutal on the adults in our family.

We got into the room and three of us passed out while the fourth acquainted themselves with the room. I literally do not remember who stayed awake – M maybe? Best not to ask questions.

Sleeping with kids with jetlag in a hotel

Nothing to sugarcoat here: the first night was rough. Like “hey it’s our first night in the hospital with a brand new baby and we have no idea what we are doing and we are too stupid to let the nurses take her for the night” rough.

We actually spent a full day out on the town. Probably should have taken it easy but oops we’re horrible parents. Nobody was going to sleep in the hotel room that afternoon anyway, strollers were the way to knock them out (it worked).

Still, these kids were a minimum of five hours short of sleep and thus super overtired. H especially was feeling it. From 8 PM-1 AM he essentially slept 45 minutes and then wanted to play for like 45 minutes. We did not let him play, and he let us know his displeasure. With force. At 11 PM I realized that if I put him in his carseat and pushed him back and forth in the room he would at least stop voicing his displeasure.

At some point I was just lying on the couch pushing him back and forth while deliriously dreaming about making better life and travel decisions. At 1 AM I had the hypothesis that it was his normal bedtime so he could probably be put down normally. Even a broken clock is right twice a day and I nailed that one.

The next day he went down for good at midnight, the day after at 11 PM, etc. etc. We’ve actually pushed our kids’ bedtimes later than they would sleep at home; I think next time we come to Europe we’ll just start with that mindset. Go to Spain, for example, and you don’t have to adjust your kids’ bedtimes at all!

M handled the jetlag pretty well, except when she woke up the next day:

She’s got a fever…and the only prescription…is more playgrounds

Travel stresses the body out. When we planned to travel with two kids for 2.5 weeks, I figured the easy money was on one of them getting sick. H had a cold the week before we left, so naturally that kicked in for his sister around when we arrived in London.

M definitely had a fever, we purposely left our thermometer at home to save space so we’re not sure to what degree (oops). We’ve seen enough fevers to get a sense of when they are really bad. Considering all M could talk about was going to museums and playgrounds, we determined she was not that bad off. Judge us if you must.

The fever in and of itself had little effect on our time in London: M still wanted to see everything we had talked about before arriving. It’s indirect effect was a much whinier kid than we are used to and much more bribing than we are comfortable with. Compromises were made, french fries were given, toys were bought. Sigh.

We did take her to playgrounds every evening, and in a weird way it helped. It improved her spirit and also helped us to gauge her energy levels. I probably would have been more worried if she had NOT wanted to go play. Of course, keeping her out at the playground later didn’t help H’s jetlag situation.

I think that’s the real challenge with two kids. Dealing with H’s jetlag and M’s fever should have been no problem separately, even in our sleep deprived state (we’re parents we’re used to that). The combination made it tougher. You just make do.

The aftermath

Considering I have the time to write 1500+ words on this, you can probably gather that things have smoothed out. We made it to Scotland and the Isle of Skye with a much better adjusted son and a still whiny daughter. Said daughter’s fever broke this morning so I’m hoping that means she will revert to her normal “not incredibly whiny but whiny enough to remind us she is three years old” state tomorrow.

Averted disasters notwithstanding, London was actually pretty awesome. We actually left thinking we could have spent an entire week there, especially at a kids’ pace. Next time.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for indulging me this overly long description of stuff that went wrong our first few days. Jess’ has started using a fun new refrain she asks me every time something goes south on this trip: “Wanna do this again?” As of right now, the answer is definitely yes! Some thoughts on how we handled London with kids in the next post.

Surveying Scotland: Introduction

Two kids creates more than twice the work. That holds true for regular life and travel. Nonetheless, we took it upon ourselves to travel to the United Kingdom to celebrate our son’s first birthday. Just kidding, it’s just when we were free.

As always, we paid for the majority of our flight with points. We even booked our first transatlantic flights in coach for the first time in five years. Slumming it! Just kidding, I’m just practicing what I’ve been preaching in my family travel hacking guide.

Read below for details of what we booked and the thought process behind it all.

Flights for Four

I wrote about booking our flights to the UK awhile back. Man, can’t believe I booked this trip back in August 2015. Either way, Delta availability still remains great. We elected to book in Delta One (aka business class) for the extra space. We figured since it was a redeye it’d be good for the kids to have “beds” overnight. I had to pay about $560 for the infant ticket: on international flights you pay 10% of the base fare even on award tickets. So overall call it 187.5K miles + $600 in taxes and fees for the four of us.

I'm convinced screen time is half the reason she flies — I’m convinced screen time is half the reason she flies

On the way back, the decision was between buying three business class tickets on United or four coach seats. Like I said, we haven’t flown coach across the Atlantic in years (though we did fly it to Aruba). That being said, we would fly our kids to California in coach and Europe only takes an hour longer.

Here’s how the pricing broke down:

Business Class (3 seats plus lap infant): 172.5K miles + $819 taxes and fees + ~600 for infant fare

Coach (4 seats): 120K miles + $384 taxes and fees

So basically, flying coach would save us 52.5K miles and a thousand dollars.

This ended up being a much easier decision than expected. You can do a lot of things with $1000… Plus 52.5K Ultimate Rewards points is like another $500. Anyway, we decided to fly in the back on the way home: it’s a day flight anyway. Gonna be interesting!

Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We'll see how the return goes — Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We’ll see how the return goes

We also used some Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards points to book a quick hop from London to Inverness, not much worth writing about there. Miss you Wells Fargo!

Lodging

While we use miles and points to save money, at this point we have committed to traveling to where we want to go – not necessarily where we can get everything for “free” (note: not free). Thus we decided on Scotland knowing full well that the Scottish Highlands are mostly devoid of chain hotels that we could use points redemptions on.

I’ve written about the importance of having a separate room, especially for my one year old. We can do without but then lose access to the bathroom. Only two of our stops have chains we can even redeem at: London and Edinburgh. I decided to book a room with a confirmed Diamond Suite Upgrade in London at the Hyatt Regency The Churchill. I figured we’d really need that second room to recover from jetlag.

Our first and last hotel room on this trip - not complaining — Our first and last hotel room on this trip – not complaining

We booked everything else through airbnb, Trip Advisor, or directly from websites. For the rest of our trip we will not be staying in chain hotels. Though in this case we’re only giving up staying at a Club Carlson or Hilton in Edinburgh – but I really wanted to avoid getting stuck with a small room. Maybe when H is older. If only this kid would sleep in bed with us!

Ground Transportation

Our one final cost was ground transportation. We bought round trip tickets on the Heathrow Express and then took a taxi to our hotel. We’re planning on doing the same in reverse but will eat the sunk cost and take a cab if we are running low on time for our departure (still recovering from jet lag).

We rented a car for a week in the Scottish Highlands. No tricks or gimmicks just looked for the cheapest price I could find and called it a day. Too much running in the background to worry further.

We’re planning on taking a train from Inverness to Edinburgh, though that is subject to change as well. Everything depends on the kids!

Final Thoughts

When we traveled with one kid, I’d say she only affected about 60-70% of our decision making. Maybe even less (40%?) once we had gotten used to traveling with her. With two under four, about 95% of our decision making has revolved around them. That’s just life for us now. So we’re flying coach, not worrying about saving every last penny, and thus far, having a great time. Will update with thoughts as we go along!

1) Rerouting onto a different carrier (US Airways)

2) Free changes onto alternate flights for same carrier (All airlines)

3) Automatic $75 travel bank credit (Jetblue)

4) Compensation for night of hotel, car rental, and a gift card (Delta)

Getting travel delay compensation for weather delays

1) Focus on getting home first (and stay calm)

2) Fill out an online form clearly explaining the situation and stating your frustrations (without blaming the airline)

3) Be prepared to expect the outcome, even without compensation

Final Thoughts

Why Korean Air is worth considering

Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharges to Europe on partners

One Korean Air award ticket fuel surcharge example to Asia on partners

One Korean Air stopover example

Final Thoughts

Debarking the Disney Wonder

Delay 1: IRROPS

Delay 2: Mechanical

Making alternate plans

Disney Springs, Take 2

One final flight change

Final Thoughts

Delta One

Sleeping with kids on the plane

Remember to take all belongings with you

Status pays off

Sleeping with kids with jetlag in a hotel

She’s got a fever…and the only prescription…is more playgrounds

The aftermath

Final Thoughts

Other Posts in this Series

Flights for Four

Lodging

Ground Transportation

Final Thoughts