Just yesterday afternoon I got a call from an HR person in my company. They asked if I would be able to go to my alma mater and do some interviews for new hires and the upcoming intern season next summer. This all sounded great. I would get a chance to go back to Colorado, it’s probably not still in the 90’s there, I could see the old campus, and maybe even catch up with an old friend while in town. Then I found out the details and their answers made me spit out my tea – I literally had to clean my monitor… Suddenly, the trip seemed way more hassle and way less positive, no matter how I could spin it. I realize glorifying work trips is easy to do (not really, they mostly all tend to suck) especially when they involve getting back to CO even for a few days. I wrestled with what impact this would have on my career and what kind of exposure I would miss out on by not going. Mrs. SSC’s suggestions even had me second guessing the supposed benefits of going. Through all of this debate, I came to a few career conclusions that were a little shocking even to me.
Soon we’ll be enjoying a week away from everything and go on vacation, and I realized that my brain is already there. Since vacationing is on my mind this week, I thought I would discuss vacations – SSC style. Taking vacations used to be no big deal, we would pick a place to visit, get everything lined up and then go. Yeah, easy!! Add 2 kids in the mix and everything gets a lot harder to manage, and WAY more expensive. Plus, get kids out of their routine and schedule, and OMG things can get crazy pretty quickly. So how do we deal with this and what do we do to keep the costs down so we can vacation more, let me tell you.
Maggie from Northern Expenditure put out a post about a “Filling your Bucket” List a little while back, and I’ve compiled some things that have “Filled my Bucket” so far. The thought is that instead of obsessing about ticking off things on a Bucket List, you’ve probably already done some pretty cool things in your life, so take a moment to reflect on all those things that have already “Filled your Bucket”. Below are some things I’ve done that have been really fun and Filled my Bucket. Enjoy the pics, I tried to put in more than usual!
Mr. SSC: Hike most of the Appalachian Trail – While trying to figure out what I wanted to do in college or if I even wanted to remain in college, I decided hiking would be the best way to figure that out. So, I researched, planned, and then hiked from Maine down to Lower VA which was about 1700 miles. The hike worked and I figured out that I wanted to study Environmental Science which ultimately led me to my career in Geology.
Grandad and a much, much younger Mr. SSC. He got me started hiking though.
Mr. SSC: I got to go hiking in a jungle in Belize. We hiked in for a few miles and then we got on tubes and floated back down a creek, and we went through a bunch of limestone caves. It was pretty awesome floating in darkness through a cave, and then you see the light and come back out in a jungle!
Back into the light!
Mr. SSC: Sky dive! I was writing an article for a magazine in Denver – a sort of advertorial but it was a paying free-lance writing gig and I covered reviews for mountain biking trails, white water rafting, etc… Sky diving was one topic I was supposed to cover, and when interviewing one of the schools, he asked, “How can you write about it if you’ve never done it?” I told him I didn’t know, so he asked if I could be there at 7am the next day. I went and got my first jump in by stepping out onto the wing strut of a small Cessna! It was awesome!
Mr. SSC: I’ve gotten to throw beads from the Royal Sonesta balcony on Bourbon Street during Mardis Gras. If you live in or near New Orleans, Mardis Gras is a weeks’ long event culminating into revelry on Bourbon St. when Mardis Gras finally gets here. Most of the balconies on Bourbon St. are booked years in advance, and are not necessarily open to the public. You need passes and they even have security at the doors checking invites. BUT, I was able to get passes one year and it was a pretty awesome vantage point! No parades come down Bourbon St., but the people watching was some of the best I’ve ever seen.
The view from above – early on Mardis Gras
Mr. SSC: Visit the “Goonies” house in Astoria, OR! Yep, the first real vacation Mrs. SSC and I took together we decided we’d visit the Portland, OR area. She asked, “What do you want to do around there?” I said, “OH!! We’re only a few hrs from the house where they filmed Goonies!! We could go see that!” And so we did, and I never got much more input on vacation itineraries after that, lol. I’ve seen that movie over 300 times easily and so it was really cool getting to see “the house”, even though I didn’t get to do the Truffle Shuffle on the stump.
Once a Goonie, always a Goonie…
Mr. SSC: Ride on a Mardis Gras Float – While we lived in LA I got a chance to join a Krewe and ride on a float. I did this for 3 years, and it was pretty awesome, but word of warning, it’s also expensive! You have to pay to join the Krewe, which covers float maintenance and all the costs associated with putting one of these things on. Plus, you buy everything you throw, so in essence, you are literally throwing money away. The first year was the worst, but following years, I stocked up on a lot of it through yard sales, where local kids would repackage beads and animals and trinkets caught, for $1/bag or less.
Mr. SSC: Climb 23 Colorado 14’ers, which are peaks at or over 14,000′ high. To be honest most of these were glorified hikes. Well, long hikes with some tough sections but still, I loved it! There were a few where we took some radical routes (like below) and probably should have had ropes, but it all ended well thank goodness!
Our route to the peak on the far rightThe view from the Top!
Mrs. SSC: I’ve been to all of the contiguous 48 states so far in my life. I want to eventually visit them all, and so far, I’ve gotten to all of them except for Hawaii and Alaska.
Mr. SSC: Being a father. This might be cheesy, but there was a time when I was younger I didn’t want kids or see me ever having kids. As tiring, trying, challenging, and frustrating as they can be at times, there isn’t anything I’d do differently or trade to not spend time with them.
Mr. SSC: Go to France! I’ve always had a fascination with France, even studying French for 5 years from middle school to high school. I didn’t get to go on that class trip, but I did get to go on my grad school field trip to Le Mont St. Michel. I got to see some rare silicilastic reefs (most are carbonate), the Eiffel Tower, and even visit Normandy Beach, along with the memorials and cemeteries associated with that invasion. That was the saddest, and most inspiring part of that whole trip.
Clockwise from top left: Normandy Beach, U.S. Cemetery, Eiffel tower, Le Mont St. Michel day and night, Siliciclastic reef – size 11.5 flip flop for scale.
Those are some of the things I’ve gotten to do that have filled my bucket. Thanks again to Maggie for putting that out there, this was fun getting to relive a lot of these memories!
We’re continuing the “Our Next Life Challenge” put out there by one of our favorite bloggers, our next life. The following is my take on it, and even a picture of me!
Mr. SSC
As you may have been following, we recently went through a drawn-out lay-off situation with Mrs. SSC. It was a blessing in disguise really, because while she didn’t get laid off, it really forced us to examine what would happen if she were let go. The short answer, is that our quality of life would most likely improve and we would end up a little better because of it. Schedules would get less hectic, we could focus more on family time, have more freedom, and less stress to get to better enjoy our downtime.
In short, that’s what we are looking for with “our next life”, is a more relaxed, less hurried pace of life that will allow us more time to spend with the kids and ourselves.
We’ve come to the realization that we aren’t seeking the typical Financial Independence Early Retirement (FIRE) situation, but rather a Fully Funded Lifestyle Change (FFLC). We feel it’s a distinction for us because Mrs. SSC really wants to teach, and while I would be happy not to work, if I came across a small Oil & Gas company, I’d definitely hit them up for some consulting and part time work. So, while we’re aiming for the FI part, we don’t really see it as early retirement, because we plan to be fairly busy with other projects, we just won’t have to depend on any income they may/may not provide. We see it as having the opportunity to pursue what we are passionate about – regardless of the paycheck, and to always have the freedom to put our family first.
Location:
Currently, we live in the great metropolis of Houston. While we love our neighborhood and immediate area, we would not want to retire here because we need four seasons, mountains to hike, and a smaller town that has a community feel to it. We’re currently looking at the Roanoke, VA area because it has a lot of amenities and a lot of small communities around it, while being nestled into the Appalachian Mountains. We haven’t ruled out North Carolina, or Eastern Tennessee, however the greater Roanoke area is close to some good colleges and universities that could fit Mrs. SSC’s teaching goal quite well. But, that could all change if she gets an offer to teach somewhere else that we hadn’t thought of yet.
Timing:
We’re looking at no earlier than Mid-year 2017. Unless we win the lottery, but I doubt the occasional $1-$2 ticket is going to make that happen, and yes, we will occasionally buy a lottery ticket. GASP!! Since we’re not counting on winning that, our financial models have us looking at 2017 for a few reasons. Mainly, I get fully vested with my company “retirement” plan then. It’s their version of a pension, so I’m not going to leave that on the table. I also have a golden handcuff bonus that hits mid-summer 2017, so I’m not leaving that either. Most likely it will be 2018, but if Mrs. SSC gets a good teaching job before then, and we can live off of that income, let our investments grow more, then we may pull the trigger on our Lifestyle Change in 2017.
What will we do:
We have no worries that our time will get filled up with activities. Beyond getting to have more home cooked from scratch style meals, just having free time to hang out with the kids will be awesome.
Mr. SSC: I like to play the banjo and guitar, and will spend a lot more time playing music. I also want to finally spend more time learning the dobro. Gardening is another way I plan to spend my time. Exercise. Something else I have to force into my schedule now to keep off the “office lbs” but can do for fun when I have free time. Blogging. Yep, I’ll spend some more time keeping posts coming out and updating you guys with how we’re doing. Volunteer/Part time work. I don’t know which of these will happen, but between the kids sports/activities, our local community or possibly church, I plan on doing some work with a few of these to keep socially active. Fishing, how could I have forgotten fishing? I like kayaking and fishing and plan to spend a lot of the time on the water doing one or both. Woodworking. I want to build a wood strip canoe, and maybe a wood strip kayak as well, along with other projects as they come along.
Mrs. SSC: Teaching. She will most likely have a teaching gig of some sort to keep her occupied. Photography is another hobby of hers that she doesn’t get to spend as much time with as she would like. Painting is something she enjoys but hasn’t had the time to enjoy recently. Reading. She longs for the days she can be “that girl” sitting somewhere for a few hours with a book/kindle in hand without a care in the world.
Travel:
We plan to travel during the summers or the kid’s school breaks. We want to take at least a month and road trip each summer across the US or maybe even Canada. We’ll just knock around camping and seeing the country. We also want to see a baseball game at every major park, and we can start knocking some more of those off of our list again. International travel is something we want to do, spending a few weeks or so in another country with the kids. I think it would be great cultural experience for everyone and a fun way to spend part of the summers. We’d like to live abroad at some point, but it will have to wait until Mrs. SSC’s parents are gone and the kids are out of the house. Camping and hiking whenever we have free time. With the Appalachians at our door, we are positioned well to be in the woods a lot.
I’m sure we will probably end up with a schedule where we will mix up time for kids, music, gardening, blogging, napping, exercise, and more once we get our rhythm established and get the pace of our lives turned down from 11 to a more respectable 3-4 level.
That’s what we see as “our next life”, at least as it is looking this month. It changes, but the overall goal is the same – more freedom, less stress, and enjoying life.
May, May, May…. When we were going through this month and getting the numbers together for an update, I was thinking it was going to be a blown month for budgeting, savings, the whole sha-bang, but actually it didn’t turn out too bad. Spoiler alert – next month will be rough as I need new tires, we had some home repairs done, and are on the verge of adopting a greyhound, but as slow as they’re going, it could get kicked into July… Overall though, over the 1st 5 months of the year, we’re on track at ~$50k for our yearly spend FIRE estimator number. It’s been bouncing around $50-$52k these past months, but it looks like Mrs. SSC nailed it by estimating $56k/year. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
May highlights for the SSC family: We were on vacation for a week. That was excellent, and for the first time since we had kids, I can say I came back from this vacation NOT feeling like I needed a vacation! Awesome!! But, the vacation did show up in other places, mainly more gas spend, more toll spend, groceries stayed on track, as we just cooked in our condo, and enjoyed being somewhere different. Daycare was down because we got to not pay for the week of vacation, Woohoo! A cool perk of our daycare is that after a year of being enrolled, you get a free week, essentially, for when you go on vacation. It’s better than paying for the week when they’re not there, and always better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I’ll take it!
Jan-15
Feb-15
Mar-15
Apr-15
May-15
mortgage
-1911.99
-1911.99
-1911.99
-1911.99
-1911.99
house utilities
-260.85
-328.43
-253.84
-249.01
-234.14
phone, tv, internet
-237.81
-256.95
-239.07
-239.39
-246.79
daycare
-1805.5
-1790
-2237.05
-1790
-1542.5
car note and ins
-323.45
-323.45
-323.45
-1061.42
-323.45
health
0
0
-7.9
0
0
groceries
-504.59
-630.82
-784
-690
-608.09
misc shopping
-54
-291.73
-144.88
-598.27
-323.21
gas-toll
-225.79
-516.1
-455
-233
-402.82
gifts/entertainment
-80
0
0
-20
-45
pets
-192.72
-341.8
0
-51.5
-216.2
maids
-257.64
-257.64
-257.64
-346.26
-128.82
cash
-40
-40
0
0
0
gym
-87.12
-87.12
-87.12
-87.12
-87.12
travel
0
-1361.8
0
0
-866.83
Total
-5981
-8138
-6702
-7278
-6937
Beyond the vacation spending and it affecting the travel related items, everything else seemed to be fairly stable. Pet cost was up due to a yearly exam for Quinn. Maids were less, as we cancelled for their scheduled day (Memorial Day), so we got to relax all day and save some coin! It all seemed to balance out looking at the monthly spend comparison to the previous 4 months though, so way to go SSC family!
Looking at these numbers and our first quarter spend, 2 things jump out that I’m impressed by, and they lead to a third thing that makes me happy. First, I’m impressed we are on track with our savings goal for the year. I thought Mrs. SSC was loopy when she suggested it, I believe it was $150k, but we’re on track to get there, and are at 52% savings rate currently. That’s amazing to me! Second, is that we’re pretty spot on with our yearly spend estimate for our FIRE number. That led to back calculating how much we would need to keep this spend up until we can access our 401k’s and getting our ER number, and subsequent date. Just a reminder, that if you’re adding up our monthly totals and thinking those add up to closer to $84k/year, not $50k – $52k, you’re right. It does. BUT, we won’t have the mortgage, or daycare which are a HUGE portion of our cost. Just look at that pie chart. Yikes! Like I said before, way to go Mrs. SSC! We got our $56k number through a quick look. Having tracked things in detail over the last 7-8 months, it is reassuring that we are pretty dang close, which implies our ER number and date are still valid. Whew!!
I can’t wait to be done with daycare and a mortgage!
The thing that makes me happy. That is this: I don’t feel like I’m having to watch every penny, and that our lifestyle is still really comfortable. I fought about the number being so low in the beginning, because I didn’t want to feel strapped, or broke, or like we have to be money nazi’s, and it isn’t like that at all. So that makes me really happy, because it makes me feel like this is a pretty sustainable budget and lifestyle for our family.
That’s our May update, hopefully yours is similar with your savings up, spending stable, and investments growing!
Recently, I came across an article about “Fly-in, Fly-out” fishing trips in Canada. These are mainly to go after pike, walleye, and grayling, and all the pictures show people holding big, toothy, 40” long fish. A trip like that seems like it would be a blast, so I began to investigate the options. I invited a couple of friends along thinking it could be a good “guy trip”, you know, travel, fishing, some camping or relaxing in a lodge each night, and general shenanigans that end up with some great stories. The guys and I have done other charter fishing trips in the past, so I figured they’d be on board. However, the price can get a little ridiculous, Heck, it can be a LOT ridiculous, so I sold it to them as, “Hey, I think we should take this trip to Canada and get some monster pike! Fly-in, fly-out style in a bush plane! Doesn’t that sound awesome?!” Little do they know that my main motivator for doing this trip sooner rather than later is that in a few years, I’ll be retired and money will be a little tighter. So, how do I tell them that?
I suggested to my friends that we plan for 2016. I need to save up for it, because this trip will require some hustling, both financially and getting Mrs. SSC’s mother to visit to help with the kids. I found fishing outfits that had 5 day fishing trips from $800/person up to some ridiculously expensive all-inclusive trips that are way more than I could afford. The big catch here is figuring out what I get for my money. The all-inclusive package is all your meals are cooked for you, all amenities of home, fishing tackle and lures are provided, and a guide every day in your boat. The guide alone accounts for ~$900 of the cost. The $800 trip is more my style though. We get our own outpost cabin that we get flown to, and then the boat is sitting there waiting for us. We have to provide our own tackle, lures, fish finding, cooking, and groceries. While it is more my style, do I want to trek from the Gulf of Mexico to Upper Saskatchewan with enough fishing gear, clothes, and food for a week all the while just hoping the airlines actually keep it all with me? Short answer, No sirree Bob! It would be fun, but not the first time out.
Hopefully I’ll catch fish bigger than this!!!
Plus, it’s still a lot of money, and I’d feel better saving up and spending it now, rather than in a few more years when I will be retired. I’m still not sure how to impress upon them why I want to go on this trip now rather than “in a few years.” I suppose my main urgency in trying to schedule a long-lead-time trip like this is knowing that I may not have the extra cash sitting around in 5 years. However, in my friend’s cases they will have more time and money in a few years… I mean, these guys aren’t planning on retiring for another 20-25 years, so what’s another 3-5 more years? They’ll have earned another week of vacation, and more money from promotions and raises, so they don’t have the same drivers as me. I almost feel deceptive, like I am trying to ‘trick’ them into taking this trip before 2018.
Then, my buddy Ted proposed another trip idea*. His uncle takes groups of guys fishing in the Wind River wilderness, 1 day in, 3-5 days fishing, 1 day out. We’d take horses instead of hiking to be more efficient, and increase the cool factor, and since it’s his uncle the cost is, umm, well, practically free. I guessed at $200-$500/person and Ted replied, “Well, we essentially have to get there and pay for food.” And his uncle doesn’t even fish! That sounded like a slam dunk, but then I’m back in the “I want to do the Canada trip before retiring, which could be as soon as 2018. The Wind River trip would push my dream Canadian fishing adventure back to at least 2017.” Gah!!!
Maybe I’ll tell them we expect money to be tight in a few years, but that sounds even odder, as Mrs SSC works with both of these guys. That alone would raise a red flag that might take some explaining. Maybe I’ll have to “Goonie it up” with a speech like, “Come on guys, this is our time. It’s our time to go fishing now. We may not get this chance again.” While I feel it’s a bit deceptive to not come out with it and tell them, “Look man, we’re planning on quitting the oil industry and moving to Virginia in a few years, and things may be a little tighter with funds. If I don’t do this now, it might be a lot more years before I get the chance to do this again.” In reality, this probably wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m not comfortable enough with co-workers and even ex-co-workers knowing about and starting to gossip about my 5 year plan. Ultimately, if things don’t go as expected, I’d like to keep working where I am and not have my boss think I have one foot out the door. I’m not sure how I’m going to approach it, but I’ll be sure to let you know how it plays out.
* – Names have been changed to protect the innocent
Have you run into this in any situation with co-workers?
Have you told anyone about your FIRE date, and plans to abandon work?
Anyone have any better ideas for some good Pike and Walleye fishing trips?
SUCK-ville! Don’t worry, we were stopped. For a while…
These last 2 weeks have been awesome! First, Harris county was on Spring Break, and then the outlying counties have been on Spring Break! Hopefully next week some other set of schools is out on Spring Break also. Why do I care about Spring Break since neither me nor my kids are even in school? I’ll tell you, because “Traffic has been great!” (a phrase rarely uttered anywhere near Houston freeways) I’ve been getting to work in 30 minutes, traffic is flowing well, and even when it is storming outside (which normally causes HUGE delays everywhere) traffic is still moving fine.
I remember last summer when I started my new job. (Initiate dream sequence music and sparkly fade out) It was mid-June, the birds were singing and the commute was nice. Traffic flowed well, there were no major headaches to deal with twice a day. Better yet, it was almost the exact same as my last commute. Then one day, everything changed and it went from “nice” to “SUCK-ville” overnight! Clogged highways no matter which one I took. Worse, the surface streets were just as clogged and slow too! I started looking at different commute routes but it didn’t make a difference overall. Somehow my commute had increased a consistent 10-20 minutes each way. I just couldn’t figure out what changed and then someone mentioned school. Oh… school… Riiiight… Man, that makes such a big difference. I guess people take vacation time off centered around Spring Breaks, Christmas Breaks, Summer Breaks, and other school closures.
You wouldn’t think that a few schools out would make that much difference, but based on how empty my office building and parking garage has been the last few weeks, it seems everyone with kids takes off this time to do something with family. It could be that there isn‘t a vacation, but rather a forced stay at home to babysit the kid. Most people I talk to though turn that into a vacation of some sort instead of just sitting around the house. I never ran into this too much growing up because my mom was home for most of our school age. For us, it was just another week to not have to go to school, which is still awesome in and of itself!
Note the string of cars on the bridge. FYI, they’re stopped too.
Does this do anything for me financially? No, not really? Does it help me get to FIRE quicker? Even more so, nope. However, if traffic was like this every day, I wouldn’t be in such a rush to pull the trigger as soon as financially possible. I’d be a little more content putting it off for another 6 months, or maybe even a year and build up that comfort factor and savings. Then think, “Well, if I give it a few more months I can stick it out until bonuses get here, and it’d be crazy to give up that much money only a few months away.” This situation still may happen though even with the blech commute. We might have Mrs. SSC going to part-time at her job, and since I don’t think my company offers that, I’ll probably stay full time until things get really serious. Although, I don’t have anything to lose asking for part-time, so I will definitely ask when the time gets here.
From everything I’ve read though, once people pull the trigger and retire their biggest regret is not doing it sooner. Granted, these are mostly older people, but even some of the FIRE blogs I read echo that same sentiment. I’d love to make it sooner, but there are certain thresholds that need to be crossed financially before that can happen. Until then, I enjoy working where I do, with the people I work with and am happy plugging away at our goal until we get there. In the short term though, I’m counting down the days until school is out, and I get this traffic reprieve for a few months!
Hearing about the travel blights caused by winter storm Pandora, reminded me of my own recent weather related travel woes. So for those of you stuck in the airport, here’s something to read while you’re standing in endless lines… A few weeks ago, I got to go visit my brother and his family outside of Nashville, TN and I got caught in winter ice storm, Octavia, that shut down a lot of flights. It turned into an interesting time to say the least.
Not canceled yet…. so optimistic!
I got up that fateful morning and everything was iced over, but it still looked doable. I started checking my flight status online and nothing cancelled yet. We were about halfway to the airport when Southwest cancelled ALL their flights for the day, but I was on United. Ever optimistic we plowed on, literally, because there was about 8-10” of snow and there were no plows anywhere. I got to the airport around 9 am, just as they cancelled my flight. Not that I wasn’t expecting this, but my philosophy is, I’m not going to get home by hanging out at my brother’s house. It’s time to put on a smile, deal with lines, and try my darndest to get home as soon as possible.
I got to my gate and found the shortest line to an agent and started waiting. She was flustered already so I put on my best smile, asked her how she was doing, joked some about cranky people, and did my best to be “Mr. Nice guy you want to get to his destination.” I’d already rebooked my flight for later that day, but I wanted to get my name on standby, if possible, for an earlier flight. She checked and amazingly the 8:40 am flight hadn’t left yet, and I could get standby for that flight. This was excellent, I thought! I then realized I had eaten very little prior to leaving, due to wanting to get to the airport and on standby ASAP. Silly me. I left a refrigerator full of “free” food to come to the airport for a long day. Lesson learned. So I sought out a place to get a bite and a beer. I ate and relaxed a bit before heading back to the fray to wait, wait, and wait some more… I noticed activity near our gate, and low and behold, there were planes coming to our gate, and better yet, Sunshine! A break in the weather, and a few planes were getting de-iced, and there was even one lucky plane heading out to the runway to escape! They made calls for our plane to board, and then called my name and I had a real seat! Haha!! I got on the plane at ~2pm and everyone getting on had a grin like the cat that ate the canary! We were escaping! We just needed to get de-iced and we were on our way. Woo hoo!!
40 minutes later, we were still sitting with nothing happening when the captain made an announcement, “Um folks, there’s been a problem with the thermometer on the de-icing equipment and they’re not sure how hot that fluid is coming out. Since that’s pretty critical to us staying in the air, they’re going to switch out trucks and then de-ice us. It should only take 20-30 minutes before they start de-icing us, then we’re on our way.”
40 more minutes later, we were still sitting at the de-icing spot, and they finally started de-icing our plane. It was about 30 minutes after that when we heard another announcement, “Uh, folks, this is your captain speaking. Uhhhh, as you can see they’re de-icing us, but they still have to apply the final solution and we can be on our way. Unless they take longer than another 30 minutes, then we’ll have to go back to the gate and top off our fuel so we can make it to Houston. In the meantime, our weather window has closed, so Uhhhhh…. Uhhh…. We’re waiting on word from Headquarters for a weather update and then we’ll be on our way….?” He literally finished with an uptick in his voice at the end like he was asking a question.
Free at last – but still in Nashville…
The de-icing finished up, and we got tugged back to the gate to top off fuel since we missed our weather window anyway. Then we hear an announcement, “Folks, this is your captain again. Ummm, we’re going to have the flight attendants bring some refreshments around since we’ve been out here a while. We just need to have this snow dissipate and we’ll be (you guessed it) on our way….” It has been ~3 hrs and then we got pushed away from the gate again and taxied out to get the final de-icing solution sprayed on. That happened, and we went and got in line out by the runway. 40 minutes later, our captain cancelled our flight officially, and we made our way close to the gate to debark onto the tarmac.
I’d gotten to reschedule my flight while all this was happening but I had no options for staying the night somewhere. I suggested the airport was doable, but Mrs. SSC found me a room for the night instead. I got off the plane, already booked for Wed. at 6 pm, so I headed to my hotel.
At check in I decided to extend it one day more since I wouldn’t fly out until Wednesday. Bad move there. I kept calling United and after a few hours, a single seat opened up for Tuesday afternoon at 3pm. I went downstairs to cancel my Tuesday night room and this is where it gets fun… I was told they could cancel but there would be a fee due to it being less than 24 hrs… Seriously?! With the ice storm and travel disruptions, they couldn’t waive the fee? It was almost as much as the room, too. The topper though, I was told to “take it up with corporate, but we can’t do anything here.” Gah!!!
I tried to stay positive and just went to bed. The next day, I tried again at the front desk, but to no avail. An even crankier lady was working and she got defensive from the get go. It actual put a smile on my face her tenacity was so impressive. Side note – I don’t think that helped my case much. Same song and dance, “Take it up with corporate.” Then I asked about checking out. In a cranky Southern voice “Well, you can check out if you want, but you’re getting charged for the room!” Mr. SSC: “Yes ma’am, we’ve established that, but can’t I get something saying I checked out or tried to check out to show corporate?” Front desk: “Well, you can, but if your other flight gets cancelled again and you come back here, you’ll have to get another room, because you let this one go because you checked out! You already paid for the room! Why would you want to check out?!” Mr. SSC: (inward monologue – “So I don’t have to deal with this for one more day?” lol) “That’s a great point. You have a nice day, stay warm!”
I got to the airport, and found the shortest line and again I got on standby – just in case. All flights were “full” until Wednesday night, but I wanted to remain optimistic, because there’s nothing else to do… After a couple of “Your flight has been delayed.” I heard “Your flight is cancelled –kidding, we’re just delaying it some more.” I literally heard a gate agent say that. She got the look of death from the passengers and her co-workers after making that joke. She must’ve been new is all I can think because you just don’t mess with people like that.
Ultimately, I was able to fly home Tue night and I got in around 9 pm. Even better, I did take it up with corporate, and I just got an email stating that they would waive my fee for the 17th, and apologies around, someone must not have gotten the notice that the cancellation fee and policy was waived during the storm. Win!
Have you ever run into some situation like that? Did you keep it together or did you lose your top? Better yet, have you run into a situation where you also “lost your money”?
Let me know, so I don’t feel like the only one that’s dealt with this sort of thing.
