Our Air France Drama

zebra · November 14, 2006

Never, never again!!!!

Everything was going so good up until and when we left Venice. We checked in at Air France, Venice and they told us that our 2 carry ons were too big and that we had to check them through to Tampa with the checked baggage. We figured... oh well the medicines are in the bags but we'll be home by 9 pm no big deal.....RIGHT!!!! First we got onboard and they had seated us in business class - definitely not complaining about that, we had a decent meal on the way to Paris for our connection to Atlanta.

As soon as we arrived in Atlanta we went to the check in counter, to be told that they had overbooked the plane and they could only offer us a flight the next day!!!!! Oh boy..... Tony was not a happy camper. After much begging, pleading etc and finding that this does not work with the French, we resigned ourselves to our fate. No medication for Tony and we would have to stay overnight in the Holiday Inn at the airport. My jacket was in my "checked" carryon, I just had a lightweight sweater on and the temp was in the 40's. The hotel told us that being a Sunday all the stores are closed - all we could do was buy a toothbrush 7 toothpaste from the vending machine!!! The only good that came out of this deal was they paid for our lunch meal in the airport, our hotel stay with dinner and breakfast, and euro 800 each to reimburse us..... that was the only thing that made this experience palatable!!!!

For us......Never, never will we use Air France again - sorry!

We eventually got home at 6:30 pm yesterday evening happy to see our bags waiting for us (apparently they had arrived in Tampa on a previous flight).

Now time to recover :grin:

DaCruzNut · November 14, 2006

I'm glad it finally worked out for you. I hope the good times will outweigh this experience when you look back.

rogue · November 14, 2006

WOW! That's quite a story. I'm glad to hear that everything turned out alright. Welcome back!

GottaCruz · November 14, 2006

zebra, I'm so sorry to hear how Air France messed things up for you. You and Tony must have been so aggravated. At least the rest of your vacation was so fabulous that I'm sure it made up for this experience. I'm glad that it finally worked out in the end , that you actually did get your luggage and Tony was OK without his meds. Not even able to be a sweater of jacket on a Sunday. ? I guess Tony kept you warm. :grin: Glad to have you back here, zebra.

momwig · November 14, 2006

Jackie

At least everything worked out in the end -- and you can spend the "refund" doing something fun. Glad you are home safe and sound though a bit late.

Shari2 · November 14, 2006

Jackie...sorry that you had to go through all that, but glad you made it home safely. In time you will be remembering the good things about your trip. I had a major horror story with my "Infinity" Panama Canal cruise in January of 2003 when the pods failed on the ship and the whole ship was put off in Acapulco to get home from there, but I only think of the good things about the trip now. Time does help to heal.

KeithnRita · November 14, 2006

Do you mean to say we are supposed to fly on the same aircraft as our luggage? At least it wasn't Delta. The only thing they offer us is an invisible violin concerto!

JoeyandDavid · November 14, 2006

WOW!!! Really??? Bummer......

Love2Travel · November 14, 2006

Jackie

What a bummer. Glad you finally made it home and tony was ok without meds. They seem to be really cracking down on the carryon size.

The woman who checked us in dublin for our last leg home gave us all kinds of grief about our rolling backpack. she made us go thru hoops to rearrange items and place them in other bags Because she said it was overweight. Finally had to take the camera bag out and carry it separately as a purse in order for her to allow us to use the backpack as a carryon. Then we simply placed it back into the backpack after we left her sight and no problems after that. Such a waste of time and effort. We had told her that we had flown Aer lingus (same carrier) the evening before from Venice to dublin and that the backpack was not a problem then- she didn't care. i think she was bored.

Take care. have a safe trip to pick up the puppy. will be waiting to hear a report. :smiley: Say hi to tony for us.

Gail

Gregswife · November 15, 2006

Okay Jackie, you were right - it didn't scare me to read it!!!! I was afraid it ws going to be about a really bad experience in the air, and being the chicken I am about flying anyway, wasn't going to chance it before boarding that plane!!!!