Day 32 - Sunday 30th July
Travel to Auckland - Panic - flight to Los Angeles cancelled!
Weather: Cloudy and Drizzly
I woke up this morning at 5:30 am to find a message on my phone that said that my British Airways flight BA269 from Heathrow to Los Angeles had been cancelled. Panic Stations! I spent the next two hours trying to contact:
- British Airways, but they said that their phone line was overloaded and to go online to Manage My Booking to rebook my flights to Auckland
- Allianz Travel Insurance but they said they were coping with a large volume of calls and put me on hold. After twenty minutes I gave up!
- Sue Wrigley, but she just said to contact my Insurance
- Mary-Ann to let her know what had happened. She suggested that I go to Edinburgh Airport and talk to the British Airways staff there as they might be able to help me.
- Helen Laidlaw to see if I could stay with her for a couple of days if necessary
In the end I had breakfast at the hotel - which I wasn't planning to do. I had planned to go to Edinburgh airport at 6:40 am before breakfast. Now I need something to keep me going.
I then ordered a taxi and got to the airport at about 9:15, 10 minutes before my original flight BA 1457 was due to take off. The check-in staff member was a bit peeved off that I hadn't come in sooner. I pointed out that I had been very busy trying to organise myself, and that the message from British Airways had said not to go to the airport without an onward booking!
They gave me a boarding pass for the next flight to Heathrow BA 1433, although I wasn't keen to go there and find myself stranded.
I went up to Boarding Gate 10 at Edinburgh ready to board Sunday 30th July at 10:40 and joined the queue to get on. I explained to the man there what had happened and another staff member on the other side of the Gate heard what I said and asked me to come over to his computer and he would see if he could sort me out while the other young man loaded the other passengers.
This guy sat at his computer and in ten minutes had sorted out an alternative booking to get to Auckland that day, by booking me onto a flight to Hong Kong instead of Los Angeles and thence to Auckland. He also checked me in on those flights and printed off the boarding passes! I was so relieved and grateful! I shook his hand and got on the flight to Heathrow feeling much happier, but forgot to get his name.
When I got to Heathrow I messaged Mary-Ann to let her know and rand Helen Laidlaw also.
From then on it just became the tedium of waiting around in Heathrow for flight number BA 31 to Hong Kong!
I got to Auckland airport in plenty of time to catch the bus I had originally booked to Hamilton.
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