This post could easily be subtitled “United Breaks Wine” in honor of the video “United Breaks Guitars“:
So, I just flew home from the Wine Bloggers Conference and my wine bag looked like this:
Sad, right? Especially since it reeked of semi-dry Riesling thanks to this:
And a glass, given to me for my support of the Wine Bloggers Conference Scholarship Fund, was ruined as well.
But it wasn’t just the inside:
Yup, that’s a gash in the bottom of my bag. I was not happy to discover this.
Not only was my luggage and some contents destroyed, I also experienced a 3.5 hour flight delay to get home. Don’t get me started on that. I just wanted to get home!
My advice on this Travel Tuesday? When dealing with the airlines about things like this, be persistent. Use your voice on Twitter or Facebook to get their attention. In my case, I was tweeting up a storm to United Airlines about this. Yes, they responded, but the link they sent me didn’t work when I went to submit. When I advised them of this and requested the email, they sent me the link again. I pointed out that I had tried that and it didn’t work. I advised that I wanted the email to their customer care. They were kind enough to message it to me. Persistence, and the expression of frustration without really losing my temper (at least on SM…I apologize to whoever gets the voice mail I left after I completed a survey) is what worked.
I do have recaps of the conference coming. Unfortunately, the day after my arrival home, I had to let my sweet, silly, curious furbaby cross the rainbow bridge. All the work I planned on doing suddenly hit the backburner.
Disclaimer: As a participant of the Wine Bloggers Conference, I was given a discounted rate for being a citizen blogger with the understanding that I will produce at least 3 blog posts about the conference.
My bag got an inspection, I’m guessing because it was labelled fragile. And I doubt it’s a coincidence that the sole moved item is what broke…wasn’t United, though.
My bags got inspected on both ends of my travels. I was a little irritated…but at least nothing broke on the way *to* the conference!