Stephen had warned me yesterday about a snag at the Reykjavik airport regarding the return United flight. Maxine told me that she had contacted United and everything was taken care of. However, when I checked in at the airport, the agent said there was a problem. Fortunate for me, the agent was the same one who handled Stephen the day before. She asked me if I had a relative flying out yesterday...she remembered the issue. As with Stephen, the computer system was not allowing the return flight. The agent explained that since we did not use the originally booked United flight to Iceland (we ended up on an Iceland Air flight), the computer was confused as to how I could fly out when I never flew in. Anyway, it took a phone call and explanation to get it sorted out. It did not take long as the agent "knew the drill". The agent told me she would check my bag through to HOU, but I would have to collect it and go through Customs and recheck in EWR.
The uneventful flight was supposed to arrive in Newark at 2:05 pm local time (a six hour flight). It actually arrived about 30 minutes early. The next leg of the trip from EWR to HOU did not leave until 4:05 pm, giving me 2.5 hours. Plenty of time, right?
Upon getting off the plane, I was greeted with an extremely long line to pass through Immigration. My guess is that it would have taken at least an hour to work through the line. Fortunately, with my Global Entry, I breezed through in a matter of minutes.
The next hurdle was to get my checked bag. It took an hour before I finally got my bag. With bag in hand, I got into another line to go through Customs. It took about 20 minutes to work my way to the front of the line. At the front, no one was undergoing any inspection of their luggage and I just handed the agent my Global receipt and got into another line to recheck the bag to HOU. It took about 15 minutes to recheck the bag and I was down to about 30 minutes before the next flight was to depart. I scurried to the gate, which included taking the Air Tram from Terminal B to Terminal C. I got to the gate as they were loading my group. Whew! If I had not had my Global Entry to bypass that first line at Immigration, I doubt I would have made the flight. Two hours was NOT enough time between flights!
I boarded the Boeing 767 and found my seat (18B). This plane has two seats on each side and four in the middle. They announced that the flight would be completely full and, if fact, they were asking for volunteers to take a later flight. Shortly, my seat mate showed up and asked me if I would like to fly first class. I said I would love to fly first class. He said that his mother was in a first class seat but decided she would rather sit with her family in coach. He asked if I would trade my coach seat for her first class. I was a little dubious, but he said he would (and did) clear it with the Crew. I therefore got to sit in seat 4D and had a great final leg of the trip. The service was great.
No comments:
Post a Comment