Apparently My Wife is a Terrorist

Yes, it's hard to come clean with the awful truth, but after 18 years of marriage and two kids, my wife apparently has a dark and evil side. Maybe while I was traveling to singing engagements she was holding clandestine meetings with her evildoer cohorts, or perhaps her job is just a front for an international bad guy operation. Surely something must be terribly wrong.

I can only assume this by virtue of the way she's being treated by the airlines.

It all started in July when I tried to check us in for our family trip to Washington D.C. on American Airlines. I wasn't allowed to check in over the internet the day before, and wasn't even able to check in at the automated kiosks at the airport. Instead, we had to do it the old-fashioned way and talk to real live person, who then scrutinized our identification like a jeweler examining a possible fake diamond. I just assumed the problem was me (maybe they read my blog), but now it looks like Mrs. HolyCoast is the object of their scrutiny.

Following the D.C. trip, I made trips to Colorado and Pennsylvania without incident, but last week my wife had to travel to Sacramento to be honored for her work in renewing her employer's model practice designation. She was unable to check in over the internet, or at the kiosk at the airport, and again had to talk to one of the harried airline reps to get on the plane. Being that she was flying Southwest on that trip, it put her in the back of the cattle call line to get on the plane. She had the same problem coming home.

Today I tried to check us in (on American) for tomorrow's flights to Oklahoma, and to my surprise, my reservation for four people was suddenly a reservation for three, and my wife was missing from the information. Just last September I received an email from American confirmation an itinerary change, but all four names were still on the reservation. Needless to say, with holiday flights booked to capacity, this caused no small amount of panic.

I called American, and after wading through their automated phone system, finally got a live body. I explained the situation and she promptly located my wife's reservation under a new number. She was either unable or unwilling to tell me why there had been a change, or why I wasn't notified. I attempted to check us in over the internet, and was once again unable to check her in (though I could check the rest of us in).

This means that tomorrow morning at O'dark hundred when we arrive at the airport, she'll have to stand in line to talk to the reps, while I check the rest of our bags through the automated system.

Can you imagine what would have happened if I hadn't found out about this change today, and instead found out while trying to check in at the airport kiosk where it would have told me my family of four had only three seats on the plane? It would have gotten ugly real fast.

I'm going to be having a little chat with American Airlines. There are some questions that need answering:

1. Why was my wife's reservation separated from the other three of us?
2. More importantly, why was I not notified of this change?
3. What are you going to do to fix this so that future travelers don't have to go through the aggravation I went through today?
4. Do you enjoy angering frequent flyer members who have 342,176 miles on American?

In the meantime and after much thought, the only conclusion I can come up with is....my wife must be a terrorist. From now on I'll have to watch her very closely. Who knows what evil deeds she may be up to....