Continental Travel

I'm so excited right now! I feel like I worked the mojo.

We're heading to Brazil in April, and our original tickets gave us a 7 hour layover in New York on the way, and a 10 and a half hour layover on the way back. I have been getting more and more anxious as our trip nears on what the heck to do with Gabi for such a long period of time in an airport. Our layovers have never been anywhere near that long before, and we have still struggled in the entertainment department.

Why did I pick those flights? Since we used miles this time, the pickings were slim. Even though I called to reserve our tickets the day our departure date became available for booking, back in AUGUST. And, after reading several online boards about how hard it is to actually use your miles, I felt lucky to even get what we did.

All of these miles programs hype up all the free travel you can get. They fail to mention that they make you pay in every other non-monetary way. Comfort, time, flexibility. Totally out the window. But since it was to be expected, I didn't fight it.

In an effort to always try to find the positive side of things, I was glad that at least we didn't have to book an itinerary that included layovers with NEXT DAY departures. I didn't even know that type of flight existed!

On a whim, I got on the Delta site this morning and pretended I was booking from scratch. Just to see if something had opened up. And I found some great alternatives! Delta's partner, Continental, had released a bunch of flights since I last looked. I called armed with flight numbers, and was able to get our tickets switched!

I would gladly have paid twice what the change fee was to get out of having to entertain a preschooler in an airport for 10 hours. And, really, La Guardia should be thanking me for not unleashing Gabi on THEM.

Now we only have a 4 hour layover in Houston on the way, and a layover on the way back of only 2 hours! SO much better. I could seriously dance around the office right now, but my office comrades don't need to think I'm weirder than they already do.