Travel Woes, in regards to MFCOAP (This may be Cleo's Superhero Name)
Right! So!
Andrew and I spent the day yesterday blithely ignoring the mfin'-cats-on-a-plane problem (Samuel L. Jackson should have made a movie about felines, since according to United they are infinitely more dangerous than snakes), and instead we went downtown to get new passports. It's amazing the amount of paperwork required to get a toddler his own passport. I had Andrew's birth certificate, social security card, final adoption order, tourist passport, passport application, a form stating that we had lost the other passport, and a signed & notarized form from Bill stating that it was all right to give the child a passport without his presence. Oh, and I had a copy of Bill's passport as well as my own driver's license. Two passport-sized photographs of Andrew, and of course Andrew himself.
(I was much easier. I just had my application, the lost passport form, my photos and my expired dip passport.)
Anyway, during the five hours of waiting, we went to the National Aquarium, which is only vaguely better than the fish section at Petco in that the aquarium has bigger fish, an albino alligator named Oleander, and lots of videos of sharks. They also charge $10, unlike Petco, which probably could sell popcorn and do just fine. I had my normal complaint about aquariums which is that the tanks were all placed too high for Andrew too look into without assistance, and Andrew is heavy. (Would it kill them to provide steps for the short folk?) Andrew also wandered into the gift shop, but luckily we made it out with my wallet intact. We saw a Dory-fish and a Nemo-fish and a Gil-fish. The Nemo-fish only had one white stripe though, so I'm not sure exactly how authentic a Nemo-fish was. (Disney has doomed all orange fish with white stripes to be referred to as "Nemo" for the rest of time, or at least the next few generations.)
The aquarium was only good for about an hour, but that's about how long Andrew's willing to look at fish anyway, so we went on to the Natural History Museum. We were also accosted by a three-year-old girl, who latched onto us and followed us (with her grandmothers in tow, of course) and who chatted up Andrew about dinosaurs. She did not seem concerned that Andrew wasn't chatting back.
We saw the Hall of Mammals, which always gets Andrew very excited, and the Giant Squid and the Right Whale, and the elephant in the entryway, and we walked through the African Cultural exhibit, which would have been awesome to explore further except Andrew wasn't interested. We did see the dinosaurs (though not our three-year-old friend), and the section on evolution, which is also a pretty neat section and I'm always a little surprised that there isn't some right-wing Christian group protesting outside. We didn't see the rocks, and the butterfly room was booked solid, but we did see the bug room and the mummy of a bull.
And by then it was 3pm and Andrew was exhausted. He fell asleep on the way back to the passport authority, where it was another hour and a half before our passports were ready and we could drop them off for visas before heading home.
Long story short, we have our passports and they're in the process of getting visas. Thanks much to those of you whose fingers (and toes, and etc) were crossed at various points in the day. I've had a night's sleep and the crisis regarding the MFCOAP has a resolution in sight.
Okay, so background. Andrew and I are flying commercial airlines on a government ticket, which means we can't make the reservations ourselves; Bill has to do it for us. When he got the original reservations, I called United and was able to confirm Cleo as a cabin cat for our flights, due to take place on March 23. No problems.
Well.
Bill got our new reservations three days ago, for a later date. I called up United to get Cleo confirmed on the flights again. But now I had trouble. See, United and Continental combined forces on March 4, and I was calling on March 12. Their phone systems were in complete disarray, and the wait times were long. It was nearly an hour before I reached a human, and that human told me that United no longer accepted animals in the cabin on transatlantic flights. She cited the merger as a reason and these were Continental's rules (wait, didn't United win the merger? Why are we adhering to the losing side?), she cited the "safety of the animal" as a reason (8 hours in cargo is safer than 8 hours in the cabin?), she said it had been decided a year ago and that letters were sent out informing the public (I didn't get one, did you?), she said it was a done deal, nothing she could do. She transferred me to a supervisor, who said the same thing, except he said it was because of the veterinary paperwork involved with animals (which is bullshit, my understanding is that the veterinary clearances were NEVER the airlines responsibility).
But worse. I asked him what would have happened if I'd shown up to the airport on March 23, with my cat in a soft-sided carrier, fully expecting to have her in the cabin with me.
He said I would have been told that the process had changed, that she would have to go in cargo, that I would have to contact another entity to arrange it, and that she would need to go in a hard-sided carrier. There would have been no attempt to call me and tell me of this change in policy.
What really pisses me off is that when I called three weeks ago, there was NO MENTION of this when I confirmed Cleo on the flight. NONE. If this had been a done deal a year ago - if this had been well known to be the rule after March 4, then the reservation agent should NEVER have let me confirm Cleo on that flight for March 23. EVER. That's what pisses me off the most. United knew, and did nothing, would have done nothing, and I don't know what would have happened to me or to Cleo if the March 23rd flight had gone as planned. As far as I'm concerned, they put her life in danger by not telling me the truth three weeks ago. Because what alternative would I have had at that point, but to put her in the cargo in a soft-sided carrier? (Well, gone ballistic on the ticket agent, which wouldn't have gone over well either, I suspect.)
It gets worse.
The next morning was Tuesday, yesterday, and Andrew and I were supposed to go downtown to deal with the passports. There's a specific number for dealing with pets on planes for United now, and so I called that. After another hour waiting, I got through to a human being, who was somewhat kind and sympathetic, and did some research, and then came back, very apologetic, to tell me the worse news.
Cleo would have to go in cargo, no question. No exceptions. But because we weren't flying United the entire way, but switching to one of their code-share partners, upon our arrival in Frankfurt,
we would have to go through Customs with her and recheck her aboard the next flight. Essentially, I'd have to enter Germany with a cat and a toddler, and all the paperwork therein, in order to continue our journey to our non-German destination.
And at this point, I honestly thought that my mother, because of the switch of timing, was going to be unable to accompany us to Final Destination, so I'd have to do this all on my own.
Cue complete meltdown. On the phone. I asked to be switched to a supervisor, but I was crying so hard, I accidentally hung up the phone, and never got there.
There are so many moving pieces to a PCS, you can't focus on any single bit for long, or you'd go crazy. Within half an hour after hanging up, I pulled myself together, got myself and Andrew dressed, piled us into the car, and headed out to get our passports. I couldn't fix the MFCOAP yesterday morning, not if my life depended on it. I could fix the passports. So I did.
A night of sleep does a world of good.
As it turns out, my mother was able to get on the flights with Andrew and I going to Unspoken Destination. Which means that theoretically, I could put Cleo as cargo on the flights, and then once we're in Frankfurt, I could leave her with Andrew within the secured area, and go alone to fetch Cleo from customs and recheck her in. We'd have about 3 hours to do this. I think it's possible, if I don't have Andrew to maneuver as well, and assuming Mom is willing to take Andrew on to our final destination if I can't make it through in time. (Because the last thing we need is for ALL of us to miss that flight.)
The other option is to take a Lufthansa flight straight out of DC (which is code-share United, but a Lufthansa plane). Lufthansa has confirmed that they'll allow Cleo on the plane in the cabin with me, and that as she's in the cabin, there would be no issues regarding Customs or leaving the secure area. But that means changing our flights yet again, along with all the charges therein. As we've already done this several times, and I've been jerking my parents back and forth, I'm letting them decide what to do.
So there is the Saga of the M-F'ing-Cat-on-a-Plane, and why United Air Lines is currently on my shit list. You better believe there's going to be a letter to their company headquarters when this is all over - and the only reason I'm waiting is because if we do keep the current tickets, I have no doubt that I'll have more to add to it before we're done. Regardless, not my decision. It's nice to have something about this PCS be not my decision. So far, most of my decisions haven't been all that successful.
Andrew and I spent the day yesterday blithely ignoring the mfin'-cats-on-a-plane problem (Samuel L. Jackson should have made a movie about felines, since according to United they are infinitely more dangerous than snakes), and instead we went downtown to get new passports. It's amazing the amount of paperwork required to get a toddler his own passport. I had Andrew's birth certificate, social security card, final adoption order, tourist passport, passport application, a form stating that we had lost the other passport, and a signed & notarized form from Bill stating that it was all right to give the child a passport without his presence. Oh, and I had a copy of Bill's passport as well as my own driver's license. Two passport-sized photographs of Andrew, and of course Andrew himself.
(I was much easier. I just had my application, the lost passport form, my photos and my expired dip passport.)
Anyway, during the five hours of waiting, we went to the National Aquarium, which is only vaguely better than the fish section at Petco in that the aquarium has bigger fish, an albino alligator named Oleander, and lots of videos of sharks. They also charge $10, unlike Petco, which probably could sell popcorn and do just fine. I had my normal complaint about aquariums which is that the tanks were all placed too high for Andrew too look into without assistance, and Andrew is heavy. (Would it kill them to provide steps for the short folk?) Andrew also wandered into the gift shop, but luckily we made it out with my wallet intact. We saw a Dory-fish and a Nemo-fish and a Gil-fish. The Nemo-fish only had one white stripe though, so I'm not sure exactly how authentic a Nemo-fish was. (Disney has doomed all orange fish with white stripes to be referred to as "Nemo" for the rest of time, or at least the next few generations.)
The aquarium was only good for about an hour, but that's about how long Andrew's willing to look at fish anyway, so we went on to the Natural History Museum. We were also accosted by a three-year-old girl, who latched onto us and followed us (with her grandmothers in tow, of course) and who chatted up Andrew about dinosaurs. She did not seem concerned that Andrew wasn't chatting back.
We saw the Hall of Mammals, which always gets Andrew very excited, and the Giant Squid and the Right Whale, and the elephant in the entryway, and we walked through the African Cultural exhibit, which would have been awesome to explore further except Andrew wasn't interested. We did see the dinosaurs (though not our three-year-old friend), and the section on evolution, which is also a pretty neat section and I'm always a little surprised that there isn't some right-wing Christian group protesting outside. We didn't see the rocks, and the butterfly room was booked solid, but we did see the bug room and the mummy of a bull.
And by then it was 3pm and Andrew was exhausted. He fell asleep on the way back to the passport authority, where it was another hour and a half before our passports were ready and we could drop them off for visas before heading home.
Long story short, we have our passports and they're in the process of getting visas. Thanks much to those of you whose fingers (and toes, and etc) were crossed at various points in the day. I've had a night's sleep and the crisis regarding the MFCOAP has a resolution in sight.
Okay, so background. Andrew and I are flying commercial airlines on a government ticket, which means we can't make the reservations ourselves; Bill has to do it for us. When he got the original reservations, I called United and was able to confirm Cleo as a cabin cat for our flights, due to take place on March 23. No problems.
Well.
Bill got our new reservations three days ago, for a later date. I called up United to get Cleo confirmed on the flights again. But now I had trouble. See, United and Continental combined forces on March 4, and I was calling on March 12. Their phone systems were in complete disarray, and the wait times were long. It was nearly an hour before I reached a human, and that human told me that United no longer accepted animals in the cabin on transatlantic flights. She cited the merger as a reason and these were Continental's rules (wait, didn't United win the merger? Why are we adhering to the losing side?), she cited the "safety of the animal" as a reason (8 hours in cargo is safer than 8 hours in the cabin?), she said it had been decided a year ago and that letters were sent out informing the public (I didn't get one, did you?), she said it was a done deal, nothing she could do. She transferred me to a supervisor, who said the same thing, except he said it was because of the veterinary paperwork involved with animals (which is bullshit, my understanding is that the veterinary clearances were NEVER the airlines responsibility).
But worse. I asked him what would have happened if I'd shown up to the airport on March 23, with my cat in a soft-sided carrier, fully expecting to have her in the cabin with me.
He said I would have been told that the process had changed, that she would have to go in cargo, that I would have to contact another entity to arrange it, and that she would need to go in a hard-sided carrier. There would have been no attempt to call me and tell me of this change in policy.
What really pisses me off is that when I called three weeks ago, there was NO MENTION of this when I confirmed Cleo on the flight. NONE. If this had been a done deal a year ago - if this had been well known to be the rule after March 4, then the reservation agent should NEVER have let me confirm Cleo on that flight for March 23. EVER. That's what pisses me off the most. United knew, and did nothing, would have done nothing, and I don't know what would have happened to me or to Cleo if the March 23rd flight had gone as planned. As far as I'm concerned, they put her life in danger by not telling me the truth three weeks ago. Because what alternative would I have had at that point, but to put her in the cargo in a soft-sided carrier? (Well, gone ballistic on the ticket agent, which wouldn't have gone over well either, I suspect.)
It gets worse.
The next morning was Tuesday, yesterday, and Andrew and I were supposed to go downtown to deal with the passports. There's a specific number for dealing with pets on planes for United now, and so I called that. After another hour waiting, I got through to a human being, who was somewhat kind and sympathetic, and did some research, and then came back, very apologetic, to tell me the worse news.
Cleo would have to go in cargo, no question. No exceptions. But because we weren't flying United the entire way, but switching to one of their code-share partners, upon our arrival in Frankfurt,
we would have to go through Customs with her and recheck her aboard the next flight. Essentially, I'd have to enter Germany with a cat and a toddler, and all the paperwork therein, in order to continue our journey to our non-German destination.
And at this point, I honestly thought that my mother, because of the switch of timing, was going to be unable to accompany us to Final Destination, so I'd have to do this all on my own.
Cue complete meltdown. On the phone. I asked to be switched to a supervisor, but I was crying so hard, I accidentally hung up the phone, and never got there.
There are so many moving pieces to a PCS, you can't focus on any single bit for long, or you'd go crazy. Within half an hour after hanging up, I pulled myself together, got myself and Andrew dressed, piled us into the car, and headed out to get our passports. I couldn't fix the MFCOAP yesterday morning, not if my life depended on it. I could fix the passports. So I did.
A night of sleep does a world of good.
As it turns out, my mother was able to get on the flights with Andrew and I going to Unspoken Destination. Which means that theoretically, I could put Cleo as cargo on the flights, and then once we're in Frankfurt, I could leave her with Andrew within the secured area, and go alone to fetch Cleo from customs and recheck her in. We'd have about 3 hours to do this. I think it's possible, if I don't have Andrew to maneuver as well, and assuming Mom is willing to take Andrew on to our final destination if I can't make it through in time. (Because the last thing we need is for ALL of us to miss that flight.)
The other option is to take a Lufthansa flight straight out of DC (which is code-share United, but a Lufthansa plane). Lufthansa has confirmed that they'll allow Cleo on the plane in the cabin with me, and that as she's in the cabin, there would be no issues regarding Customs or leaving the secure area. But that means changing our flights yet again, along with all the charges therein. As we've already done this several times, and I've been jerking my parents back and forth, I'm letting them decide what to do.
So there is the Saga of the M-F'ing-Cat-on-a-Plane, and why United Air Lines is currently on my shit list. You better believe there's going to be a letter to their company headquarters when this is all over - and the only reason I'm waiting is because if we do keep the current tickets, I have no doubt that I'll have more to add to it before we're done. Regardless, not my decision. It's nice to have something about this PCS be not my decision. So far, most of my decisions haven't been all that successful.