When booking our flights to Bali (see We’re Going To Bali For 10 Nights For (Almost) Free – Here’s How), I intentionally picked flights with layovers of 5 hours or more.
While that wasn’t ideal as it’d make for a longer overall journey time, I figured it’d be best to play safe in case any flights were delayed. We were flying out of Norfolk VA at the beginning of August, so there was the potential for delays due to hurricanes.
In the end, I’m glad we built in that time, although it wasn’t hurricanes that meant we almost arrived in Bali a day late. From delays to cancelled flights to a flight from a different city to cancelled tickets to lost luggage, it wasn’t the most relaxing start to our 15th anniversary trip!
Cancelled Flights
We arrived at Norfolk airport in plenty of time to catch our flight up to LaGuardia airport in New York, saying goodbye to Truffles as we left.
Not long after we arrived, we saw that our flight to LaGuardia was delayed by half an hour. Then an hour. Then two hours. We were flying on American Airlines and they’ve had all kinds of issues recently with mechanics deliberately causing delays by finding “problems” as an alternative to striking.
Our following flight was leaving JFK, so our original 5 hour layover would’ve left plenty of time getting there from LaGuardia, especially because we’d be arriving after rush hour. With the delays getting longer and longer though, we were worried we’d not have enough time to connect, so we went to the ticket desk to see if we could get changed to a flight into JFK.
They gave us two options. The first put us standby on a flight directly to JFK. If that flight didn’t have space, they gave us tickets for a flight from Norfolk to Charlotte, then Charlotte to JFK. While that would be a tight connection, it meant we wouldn’t have to transit from LaGuardia to JFK.
That put our minds at ease, but not for long. American Airlines soon made announcements advising of delays. The original excuse was mechanical issues (presumably due to the mechanic “strike”), then it was that the cabin crew for the flight were still at their hotel. A few minutes later that excuse changed – the cabin crew were actually en route on a flight, but they’d be working a different flight rather than the JFK one.
This wasn’t boding well. Sure enough, shortly after that all American Airlines flights to New York that evening – including our original one to LaGuardia – were cancelled. Disaster!
We immediately started looking at our different options. There wasn’t going to be time to drive up to New York as that was 7+ hours away. We looked into flights from Washington D.C. to New York as D.C. was only a 3 hour drive away, but there weren’t any flights leaving late enough for us to get there in time. Richmond was one of the closest alternative airports, but they didn’t have suitable New York flights either.
I remembered reading that American Airlines and Delta had an interline agreement, meaning in some circumstances you could get rebooked on the other airline in the event of irregular operations. Delta had a flight from Norfolk to New York that evening which, although also delayed, should get us there on time.
I gave American Airlines a call to see if they could rebook us on that flight, but the guy I spoke to said he wasn’t seeing that flight as being available. This was frustrating as Google Flights was showing it as an option, but checking the Delta website showed it was indeed sold out.
I also dropped Greg and Nick from Frequent Miler (a site I write for part-time) an email to see if they had any suggestions. They’re much more familiar with this sort of thing, so I hoped they’d be able to help me come up with some kind of solution.
While emailing back and forth with them, Shae and I were using her phone to check flight options while I was simultaneously on the phone to American Airlines. The guy at AA was being as helpful as possible, but there was seemingly no solution. After more than half an hour on the phone with him, the only solution seemed to be to get rebooked on the same flights the following day.
That wasn’t ideal as it meant we’d lose a day in Bali. It could also cause issues with our hotel reservation, plus we’d made a non-refundable booking to get from Bali airport to the hotel.
A Better Solution
We were just about to accept his suggestion that we rebook the following day when Greg emailed over a suggestion. Cathay Pacific – who we’d have been flying with from New York to Hong Kong – had a flight from Dulles airport in Washington D.C. directly to Hong Kong that he’d found on Flight Connections. It was about 7:30pm at that point and that flight was due to leave at 1:20am, so it’d give us just enough time to drive up to D.C. from Norfolk.
This was the only option that had a chance of getting us to Bali on time, so we took it and had the American Airlines phone agent arrange our tickets. It seems like he didn’t do that correctly, but more on that shortly.
We booked a one-way car rental immediately and Shae went to get the keys while I went and got our checked bag back from the ticketing counter. Thankfully this didn’t take too long, so we were on the road before 8pm.
Driving Delays
It was due to take us about 3 hours to get to Dulles, so we’d arrive about 11pm. That meant things would be a little tight as we’d have to get a shuttle from the car rental return to the airport, then check our bag, get through security and head to our gate. With just over 2 hours to do that though, we felt confident it could be done.
That was until some roadworks were set up along our route after we’d set off. When leaving Norfolk, our arrival time at Dulles was due to be 11pm. Those roadworks were going to have us getting to the car rental return after midnight, probably not leaving us enough time to get to the airport and checked in.
When there are such significant delays, Google Maps is usually good about recalculating an alternate option, but it continued having us take that route. Shae was napping at the time, so I ended up waking her up and asked her to see if she could find a better route. Almost as soon as I’d woken her, Google finally found us a better option which would get us to the airport before 11:15pm. For some reason it had us rejoining the highway before the roadworks had ended; that meant we still got stuck in traffic, but we made it to the car rental return at about 11:20pm.
Catching Our Flight To Hong Kong
We just missed a shuttle to the airport, but another one left a couple of minutes later. When checking in at the airport, Cathay Pacific had a 7kg limit on carry-on baggage. Shae and I always carry several days worth of clothes in our carry-on nowadays as one time Delta lost all four of our suitcases for a week.
Both our carry-ons were over 7kgs though, so we ended up dumping loads of stuff from our carry-on into our checked luggage. This would prove to be unfortunate as you’ll come to see later on.
Still, we were checked in and, despite the TSA Pre-Check line being closed due to it being so late at night, we got through security quickly. We made it to our gate 20 minutes before boarding, relieved that we’d made it in time.
I have Platinum status with American Airlines thanks to my Hyatt Globalist status. One of its benefits is priority boarding, so we got to get settled in early. The flight wasn’t close to being full though, so there was no need to worry about space in the overhead bins.
Relaxing In Hong Kong
My American Airlines Platinum status means I also have Oneworld Sapphire status. Oneworld is an alliance of several airlines including Cathay Pacific, British Airways and more which gives some reciprocal benefits. One of those is access to Business Class lounges which was great seeing as we were flying economy, so we’d only have had access to Priority Pass lounges otherwise.
Hong Kong is Cathay Pacific’s home base, so they have several lounges. There was one close to where our departure gate was due to be (or so I thought), so we spent several hours relaxing in there. We’ll have a review of it in the coming days, but it was lovely – good food and drink options (including a noodle bar), spacious, comfortable seating, showers and more.
Denied Boarding – Almost
Our gate wasn’t as close to the lounge as I thought, so we left with plenty of time to walk over there. We once again had Priority boarding which might have saved us.
When we had our tickets scanned, the airport staff member seemed a little confused and asked us to stand to the side. Another staff member came over and explained there was an issue with our ticket because we’d not taken our New York to Hong Kong flight. This seemed a little strange as we’d checked in at Dulles where they’d given us tickets for both that flight and this connecting flight from Hong Kong to Bali.
She explained that our ticket had been cancelled but that she’d get us on this flight. It did mean that our bags wouldn’t make it on this flight, but we weren’t too worried – our biggest concern was us getting to Bali on time.
Minutes passed by while we waited for new tickets. Then more minutes passed. And even more minutes passed. Eventually, every other passenger was on board the plane while we were still waiting in the terminal. We were starting to get worried that they’d close the door and deny us boarding, but at seemingly the very last minute we got new tickets. I’m glad we had priority boarding, as they might not have sorted out our new tickets in time if we hadn’t been near the front of the line originally.
In hindsight, it seems like the American Airlines agent might’ve made a mistake when rebooking our flights. The day after we arrived in Bali, I got an email from Cathay Pacific reminding us about our upcoming flight from Hong Kong to Bali. It therefore seems like he’d rebooked us on that flight a day late which, if correct, means we were incredibly lucky to have gotten on that original flight. We hadn’t checked the date on our original boarding passes and those ones were taken when they reissued our new ones, so I’ve no way of knowing for certain that’s what happened, but it seems like that’s the case.
Still, we made it to Bali and settled in at our hotel.
Delayed Baggage
Although we were in Bali, our suitcase wasn’t. Our suitcase that contained pretty much all our clothes. We assumed it would arrive the following day, but it didn’t. That was especially unfortunate as we’d both managed to spill food on our only clean T-shirts!
We were on the verge on taking a look in nearby shops for clothes, but the following day our suitcase finally arrived.
Takeaways
A few things we’ve learned from this experience:
- American Airlines can be a nightmare – While all airlines have issues, other reports I’ve seen suggest American Airlines is the worst of the big three US airlines right now.
- Always pack spare clothing in your carry-on – This is something we already knew and had done, until we had to repack due to Cathay’s weight restrictions. Still, I wish we’d not had to be in such a hurry and could’ve been more careful about what we moved to our checked luggage.
- Always check your boarding passes – If I had, I might’ve noticed that American Airlines (might have) booked us on the following day’s flight.
- Be nice – The Cathay Pacific staff member in Hong Kong that was dealing with us could’ve simply said we didn’t have a valid boarding pass, especially seeing as it seems like it was dated for the following day. We stayed calm though and were nice through all our interactions so I think that helped – if we’d been rude and obnoxious, I don’t know if she’d have gone to such lengths to get us new tickets.
Bali Trip Report
You can check out all our posts from our 15th anniversary trip to Bali below:
- We’re Going To Bali For 10 Nights For (Almost) Free – Here’s How
- Flight Antics On The Way To Bali – Here’s What Happened
- Flight Review: Cathay Pacific Economy – Washington Dulles (IAD) To Hong Kong (HKG)
- Review: Cathay Pacific The Pier Business Class Lounge, Hong Kong Airport
- 12 Fun Things To Do In Bali (& 1 To Avoid)
- Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Bali
- Hiring A Driver In Bali – Is It Worth It?
- Having Elephant Mud Fun At The Bali Zoo
- Flight Review: Garuda Indonesia Economy – Denpasar (DPS) To Tokyo Narita (NRT)
- Flight Review: Delta Economy – Tokyo Narita (NRT) To Atlanta (ATL)
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