First off thanks to XTE for very generously offering to pick us up at the airport when we return from Seattle. That saves us so much bother. Thank you Thank you.
So as I mentioned earlier, Continental changed our flight to 11:50 am on Sunday. I decided to call them this morning to ask them to change it the other way to 11:50 am on Saturday. I almost chickened out and had Dave do it. I was afraid they were going to try to charge me for the change when it wasn't my idea and maybe they needed to hear a voice that says "Don't mess with me" which is a voice I don't have (well not for these kinds of thing anyway). But I decided I had to learn to be a grownup sometime and deal with confrontation.
After I found a telephone number for Continental (not an easy task in itself) I dialed and spoke to Vicky who could not have been more helpful. She said absolutely there would be no charge it wasn't our idea to switch the flight. Boom it was done.
A curious thing I learned. She told me that there was an option to leave at 9:00 pm or thereabouts on Saturday evening arriving at 30th Street Station. I don't recall seeing a landing strip at 30th Street Station so I had to ask, "How do you manage that?". It so happens that Continental has a partnership/rideshare program with Amtrak. The flight goes to Newark and then you get a train from there to 30th Street in Philadelphia. I passed on that option this time but that's good to know for the future.
So the flight is at a better time for us now. We will have to either get a hotel room now in Seattle rent the car from Seattle to accomodate this change. Both options will cost more money. And, guess what? I found more money! No, not under a rock or the matress. Here is what happened.
I am an Amtrak Guest Rewards member and I've been getting lots of email about how they have lowered fares for the summer. You may recall I booked our train tickets about 2 months ago. I really didn't think they would go down because of the sleeper accomodations but I decided to check anyway.
WELL!!!! Our booked tickets went from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to Chicago to Seattle. We had really wanted Philadelphia to Washington to Chicago to Seatte, but there was a significant difference between the two and that did not seem worth it. However, now the trip we actually wanted was now less than what we booked. So I called Amtrak and made the change and now I have money to wiggle with for the extra hotel room or car rental fees.
Maybe I should play the lottery?
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