Change Your Hold Music!

As I've briefly mentioned, I'm going to London for Christmas. I booked my flight weeks ago. When I got to my office this morning, I found the following subject in my email URGENT: PLEASE CALL Flight change for AMANDA [STRETCH]. The body included:

Air Canada has:
* Changed the departure time for 1 of your flights.
* Changed the arrival time for 1 of your flights.

I logged into Expedia.com to check my itinerary to see what was different. My outgoing flights were the same. I'm still going to be stuck in the Halifax airport for 7 hours. Oh well. It was my flight home where I noticed a problem.

Depart London 3:oo PM
Arrive Ottawa 5:40 PM

Depart Ottawa 3:3o PM
Arrive DC 5:10 PM

While I'm all for leaving one country, stopping in another, and arriving in my final country a mere two hours later, I can't time travel and make that connection.

So, I called Expedia, and the woman checked on the flight. I reassured her that I wouldn't have made that itinerary on my own, so she called Air Canada for me to see what she could do. I was put on hold. Pachelbel Canon in D, which I quite enjoy, was the hold music. The song ended, and started again. And again. The travel agent came back to tell me of the new plan:

Depart London 1:30 PM
Arrive Montreal 4:05 PM
Depart Montreal 6:55 PM
Arrive DC 8:49 PM

That makes a lot of sense. She still had to do something, so I was put back on hold. And listened to Canon in D another 3 or 4 times. Once more, she returned to tell me something, and then I was back on hold. All in all, I listened to that song 9 times and was on the phone for 41 minutes.

The good news is that the problem was taken care of. Expedia immediately took the blame and rearranged my flight for me, without charging me any additional fees. Plus, I now have a $50 coupon to use in the next year. Despite this possible catastrophe of being stuck in Canada forever, I still heartily recommend Expedia.

Unfortunately, it might be a while before I can listen to Canon in D and not think of being on hold.

With thanks to Captain Deviance, with whom I was chronicling my phone adventures, I now share this: