My 6:00 a.m. departure from SFO to NYC was replaced with a 7:30am departure. That doesn’t leave me much time to make my connecting flight in NYC to Jo’burg. I tried changing it to the red eye the night before, but you don’t have many options when you are flying on Frequent Flier Miles!
I’m bringing lots of used clothing to handout on my trip…clothing that co-workers and friends have donated. I have 3 check-in bags full of them and I didn’t want to leave any behind because they are needed desperately. On the United Website it said excess bags were $100.00 each…so I figured I’d swallow that cost because I didn’t have my act together to ask for monetary donations to cover that cost…come to find out that the international price is $180 per bag! Yikes! I could live off that for 2 weeks in Africa!
I get to the gate early expecting trouble and of course the thunderstorms in New York were causing delays…my flight was going to be delayed for at least one hour…I put on the puppy dog face for the supervisor at the United counter and she moved me to a United flight leaving soon to Wash DC and getting a connecting flight that would get me into Joburg almost two hours early…nice! She called up and had my bags transferred over to the new flight.
I avoided the storm by flying into DC and not NY and arrived early…but international flights board much earlier, so by the time I grabbed a bite and made my way to the check-in counter they were ready to let me on the plane! Everyone one the plane had a row of seats to themselves…plenty of room to stretch out for the 15 hour flight to Joburg, South Africa!
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