I mentioned that we had a little adventure getting from Kiev to Bucharest...that might be an understatement. It was an absolute miracle that we arrived in Bucharest when we initially planned.
I've been trying to figure out how to give a short version of the story, but also give enough detail for everything to make sense - so here goes...
Our flight was scheduled to leave Kiev at 8:40, fly to Warsaw, change planes, then fly on to Bucharest. We got to the airport with plenty of time, checked our bags, got our boarding passes, past through security and passport control with about an hour to spare. Then about 25 minutes before the plane is scheduled to depart, the attendant that checked in our bags, comes to our gate to tell us that our boarding passes have been revoked because they don't have a payment for our flight. First of all - I didn't even know it was
possible to get completely checked in, then have your boarding passes revoked, so I guess I learned something that day. There was a bit of a language barrier, but we tried explaining to her that our credit card had been charged, we know we paid for the flight. After some discussion, Ryan goes with her to the desk (meanwhile, the flight is scheduled to take off in 15 minutes). She insists that they haven't received payment so they can't let us on the flight. Our options are to quickly pay for the tickets (again), or to wait until the afternoon flight and probably end up having to pay for those anyway. So we payed $700 to get us both to Warsaw, not even all the way to Bucharest, hoping that we can sort this mess out when we get home. I've been waiting at the gate, watching the clock tick away, thinking we're stuck in Kiev for a while. Ryan finally comes back with the agent, they held the plane for us, we were able to board, and were off to Warsaw ($700 lighter, but at least we're on our way).
Upon arriving in Warsaw, we have to go through passport control again and claim our bags, since we technically didn't have tickets all the way to Bucharest. Once we get through all that, we have about 55 minutes until our next plane departs. So we head up to the airline desk to try to get our tickets to Bucharest. They again check the system and it shows that we have confirmed seats but they have not been paid. Somewhere out there is our $500 we paid for the tickets, but no one seems to know where. Again, for the sake of time and our desire to just get on the flight, we ask how much it will be just to pay for the tickets. She responds "One thousand....six hundred....each". WHAT? If we want on this flight, we need to pay $3200? Time is ticking away, we know have about 45 minutes until departure...
We start weighing our options - personally I was ready to just fly home. I figure it had to be cheaper to change our flights home that buy those tickets to Bucharest.
Here's where I need to give a little background to the story... The church purchased our tickets for the trip through a travel agent. They were responsible for the flights from DFW to L'viv and, for us, from Bucharest back to DFW. We had asked the agent to check the prices of our additional flights, but we decided to get those ourselves. Apparently, they forgot to take the hold off of the flight from Kiev to Bucharest. When we made the reservation ourselves, the airline saw there was a double booking and canceled the reservation we made. We actually found all this out before leaving, talked to the travel agent, and she worked everything out. They supposedly transferred our payment for the tickets to the reservation made by the travel agent. All this was resolved before we left...or so we thought. Apparently there was a breakdown in this transfer, causing all this confusion.
Back to the ticket desk... We had the lady check our old reservation number and she saw that it had been canceled. At this point there are two people looking at it, talking back and forth in Polish. (We now have about 35 minutes 'til departure) We can't understand anything, but we finally hear "Aha...". Breakthrough! They realize what happened and our lady gets on the phone to someone. There's a long discussion and she finally tells us, "OK, we see what happened...we'll honor this ticket you purchased, but you won't get your $700 back that you paid in Kiev. Or...we can refund this ticket you purchased online and you can buy these new ticket to Bucharest..." We personally didn't want to part with over $3000 dollars for tickets we had already paid for, so we went with option A (hoping to still fight for the $700 when we get home). Now we're down to 20 minutes until departure.
She rushes us to the baggage check, exchanges a few words... Then the very important woman with the walkie-talkie says with a thick Polish accent "No, there's no time. You can't make this flight." Defeated again! Our friendly ticket agent takes us back to the desk, disappears for a minute, then runs out telling us to follow her. We run after her to the baggage check again, she tells us they'll let us on the flight, but we won't get a meal. No problem with us! They check our bags, issue the boarding passes and tell us "You must hurry!"
We make a mad dash for security, running under the retractable line-organizing-thingys, weaving in & out of people, asking if we can jump ahead in the security line. (Somewhere in all that mayhem, we lost one of our neck pillows...sorry, Mom, I'll replace it.) We made it through security...5 minutes 'til departure.
Yes, we were those people you see on TV, or maybe in real life, that are not just running, but sprinting to the gate. And just as you would expect in this situation, it's the furthest gate from security, literally. We finally make it to the gate, the let us through, we go down the stairs where they have been holding the entire bus load of people waiting for us. We squeeze in, and off we go to the airplane.
As we're boarding, we notice that the ground crew is waiting for baggage, ours, of course. We finally get settled, the bags get loaded and we're ready for take-off. It's about 10 minutes past the scheduled departure time, and we know it's because they waited for us. Then the pilot comes on and says something to the effect of "I'll give you the bad news first...we've been held up a little, so know we've moved back in the queue for take-off, so it'll be another 30 minutes or so..." Ryan & I were waiting to be mentioned by name and the reason for the delay, but it didn't get to that point.
Nonetheless, we did finally take off and arrived in Bucharest about 15 minutes late. We even ended up getting a sandwich because they had a few extra:).
If you've made it to the end of that story, hopefully I did it justice. Looking back we can laugh about it now, but it ranks as one of (if not
the ) most stressful mornings of our lives. Thankfully, God was looking out for us and helped us get to our destination. We've already called the credit card company, and they don't think there will be a problem getting our $700 back either - that's a major praise! We still have to go through official dispute claims, but we're praying that all works out.
Anyway, we made it to Bucharest, had a wonderful time, and now we're heading back home tomorrow!
