International Flight Scare: A Long Short Story
Our trip to Iceland started just as it should have, except it didn’t. We woke up in Houston to find there was a major ice storm in Boston and it had delayed our flight to New York. As our original flight time of 11am crept closer, our delay had expanded and pushed our expected arrival time from 2:30pm to 6pm. Giving us just two hours to get off the plane, re-check our bag, get through security and get to our gate. But the thing was, our plane still hadn’t left Boston. With an international flight at 8pm, this was the definition of international flight scare for me.
Shuffling Airports
We finally called JetBlue and they refunded the first leg of our flights (-$223.20) and we set off to secure another flight. There were ZERO flights out of Hobby (HOU) to New York when we needed them. We jumped in the car and headed up to IAH where there were multiple flights going out to New York, but unfortunately only to LaGuardia (LGA). On the way there, I transferred Ben United points to buy the flight we were eyeing.
We parked at the closest The Parking Spot and rode their free shuttle over to the airport. Reserving ahead of time usually saves you money, but as we were trying to reserve less than an hour before arriving, it wasn’t an option for us.
We arrived and tried to find a checkout counter, but United didn’t have anyone there to purchase tickets from. Then I was told by someone helping people check-in and check bags that we couldn’t use points to purchase a flight that was in an hour. So I tried it anyway and at 11:07am, I had purchased my ticket and checked my bag for a 12:11pm flight, just minutes before they wouldn’t accept the bag anymore!
Uber from LGA to JFK
Traffic, construction and a long Uber ride had my nerves wrecked. We had three and a half hours to get from LGA to JFK and make our flight. It took us an hour to go between the airports and then what seemed like forever to get through security. We made it with time to sit down and enjoy a nice cold drink and chips and queso before our flight. We thought our international flight scare was over…
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The Saga Continues
It hadn’t occurred to us that our return flights were all in order, until we were on our return flight from Iceland. Meaning, we were flying into Hobby (HOU) and had parked at IAH. Not a big deal right? We just Uber to my apartment and then I drive to get Ben’s car… Nope. Right before we hastily decided to drive up to IAH, Ben had ran back into my apartment for something and then we had left my apartment keys in his cupholder.
We then arrived at HOU and took another Uber to IAH. From there Ben, who had driven 90 percent of the time in Iceland the past four days, drove me back to my apartment.
The extra money these airport shuffles cost us was nothing in comparison to the fact that we could have missed our flight out of JFK to Iceland. There were only flights every other day at that time! I was finally able to relax and calm down once we made it on to our flight to Iceland, but this international flight scare is not one I hope to relive!
Hi friends! This is one post of my blog series for Iceland! Be sure to checkout the blogs I have posted for this unforgettable trip here. Let me (and other readers!) know in the comments below if you have any tips for an Iceland budget for four days!
