It's not the travel, it's the transportation

Well, we're sort of on vacation... if the travel part counts. But lemme tell ya, it's not much fun yet.

It's 10:15pm on Saturday night and we're sitting at Gate 8 in Terminal One of LAX. We had a 5 hour lay-over in LAX which got extended to a 6.5 hour layover. Only 90 extra minutes but it does mean that we will miss our original connecting flight from Charlotte to Montego Bay. At check-in, the attendant put us on what he said was the next available flight from Charlotte, 3.5 hours later, which sucks because now instead of arriving in to Jamaica at 8:30 in the morning, we won't be getting in until 1:30pm - right about when we would be hoping to be sitting on the beach, Pina Colada in-hand.

However, now we find out that there was actually an earlier connecting flight (2 hours earlier) from Charlotte and that the check-in guy just bungled it. So, Hubby is busy trying to "work" the woman at the front counter. She says she can't put us back on the earlier connecting flight because our luggage is already checked and would still arrive on the later flight. Trying to go down and change the tag wa sa possibility but the check-in chick seemed to think the likelihood of that going well was low. Hubby is therefore determined to use our misfortune for a free upgrade. I'll give him points for trying but I have only ever been upgraded for complaining once in 15 years of flying (at London Heathrow after some check-in chick got shirty with me and put me on a passenger 'watch list' - I don't think she got laid the night before or something.) So, sexed-up check-in agents aside, it's not looking good.

We spent the last 4 hours wasting time by renting a car for $20 from Thrifty and driving to Manhattan Beach for a glimpse at the sparkling Pacific Ocean we miss so much, then some dinner on the Manhattan Beach Blvd. strip. All-in-all it was much better than twiddling our fingers in the US Airways lounge for the $80 day pass.

News update... Hubby got us upgraded to First Class. Still not extra time but at least for a red-eye it will be a nicer, more comfy seat. I eat my hat on the "no point in complaining 'coz they'll never give you the upgrade". Good job Hubby!

Saving laptop battery now... turrah...