We just survived an overnight flight delay with our infant! It was the last day of a very successful mini-vacation to Puerto Rico with our two-month-old baby. Everything was going to plan until the moment we reached the Southwest counter at San Juan’s airport. We handed over our travel documents and, after a quick check on her computer, the agent looked up and said “you are aware that, due to a flight delay, you will need to spend the night in Orlando.” No, we were not aware, and we were not happy. It was just after noon on Monday, April 1st and we were scheduled to be back home and unpacked in Nashville before dark that evening. I had a full day planned at the office on Tuesday.
A glitch in the scheduling software used by Southwest resulted in over a thousand flight delays that day. Sarah had received an email at about 10 AM that morning notifying her of the schedule change, but we had been so busy packing up the baby that we had missed the email. Hence our surprise when we got to the check-in counter.
Trip interruptions happen. If you travel enough then something is bound to go wrong at some point. This was not our first rodeo, but it was our first time traveling with our infant. Now we needed to survive an overnight flight delay with a baby. Luckily, we were prepared to make the best out of a bad situation. In this post, I’ll go step by step to describe what we did right and where we went wrong when everything went tits up.
Smart Move #1: Paying for the Flight Fees with a Premium Travel Card
The first smart move that we made was well before the trip even started. Sarah and I were traveling on Southwest award tickets. While award tickets are nearly free, there are always some taxes and fees involved. In the case of our domestic flights, this breaks down to $5.60 each way. When I paid for the fees on my ticket, I did so with my Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) card. As a premium travel credit card, it comes with a $450 annual fee but has a whole slew of benefits. One of those benefits is trip delay insurance that kicks in if the card is used to pay for even a portion of the flight. I’ll get into the details of how this saved us later on.
Smart Move #2: Speaking with a Manager at the Check-in Counter
When the Southwest employee informed us of the delay, we could either choose to accept it, or we could push back. One of the things that I respect about my wife is her willingness to push back. When a second customer service agent came over to tell us that we “had to understand,” Sarah made it very clear that she, in fact, did not have to understand. We were directed to a manager.
Ideally, we wanted to get home that evening so that I could be at work in the morning. If we had been flying a legacy carrier like United or Delta, then it might have been possible for the manager to rebook us on a flight operated by another airline. Unfortunately, Southwest does not have inter-airline agreements, so the only flights that they could rebook us on were those operated by Southwest. I pulled out my phone and looked for alternate Southwest flights with open seats, but the options I saw on my phone were not showing up in the manager’s system.
In the end there was apparently nothing he could do. With so many delays, all the same-day flights were full. The fastest way to get home involved spending the night in Orlando. To make matters worse, since we were currently in San Juan, the manager said that he could not provide a hotel voucher for Orlando.
Every cloud has a silver lining, though, and this one came in the form of flight vouchers. We were awarded $200 in Southwest credit each. Sarah, who paid for her initial flight with Rapid Reward Points got $200 in credit. So did I, even though I was flying for free thanks to Sarah’s Companion Pass. And so did baby E, even though she was flying for free as a lap infant. Even the manager was surprised that the computer spat out vouchers for the baby. In total we netted $600 in credits for future flights and $30 in lunch vouchers for airport restaurants. None of the other passengers who I spoke with had received vouchers. They hadn’t raised enough of a stink.
Smart Move #3: Having Lounge Access through Priority Pass
Because our initial flight was delayed by several hours, we had a lot of time on our hands with our baby in the airport. Under normal circumstances that could really suck. Thankfully, we have lounge access through my CSR card. Like many high-end travel cards, it carries the perk of Priority Pass membership. Priority Pass has a network of airport lounges around the world that members can access for free. There is not a Priority Pass lounge in Nashville, but there are two in San Juan.
Once we cleared security we made a beeline to the Avianca Global Lounge and grabbed a couch in a quiet corner. While some lounges only offer nuts, cheese cubes, sodas and domestic beers, this one is thankfully a cut above. For the next few hours we enjoyed surprisingly tasty food from the hot bar. We also made use of the complimentary build-your-own cocktail bar. I LOVE it when a lounge forgoes a bartender and lets you pour your own drinks. Not only can I avoid the hassle of tipping a bartender, but I can also shamelessly make a drink just the way I like it. On this occasion that meant filling a glass with ice and maraschino cherries and then topping it off with Don Q rum.
We decided to forgo the meal vouchers that Southwest had given us and just spend all of our time in the lounge. To be fair, the restaurants in the main terminal looked pretty grim. Basically fast food and a Margaritaville that scored one and a half stars on Yelp.
While in the lounge, I phoned the office to let them know that I wouldn’t get in until Tuesday afternoon and then whipped out my computer to find a hotel in Orlando.
Smart Move #4: Booking a Great Hotel and then Getting the Costs Refunded
Because I had paid for my flight fees with the CSR card, I was pretty sure that I would be covered by its trip interruption insurance. In essence, because a flight delay was forcing us to overnight in Orlando, we would be eligible for a refund of up to $500 per ticket in “reasonable” expenses. I had not used this perk before but I read over the fine print while killing time in the lounge, and it seemed ironclad.
There were a lot of hotel options near the Orlando airport for under $150 a night, but I wanted the evening to go as smoothly as possible, so we booked a $250 room in the Hyatt Regency that is located inside of the actual airport. It ended up being the right call.
While I waited at baggage claim in Orlando for our baby gear, I got into a conversation with a frazzled looking parent whose trip home had also been derailed by the delay. She had booked her family into a cheap hotel a couple miles from the airport. Her night’s journey was not yet over, and she would no doubt be eating those extra costs. Meanwhile, Sarah and the baby had already checked in to our hotel. The entrance to the Hyatt was just outside of security, less than two minutes from baggage claim. Although we waited to request a crib until check-in, the staff outdid themselves and had the room set up with the crib by the time Sarah reached it. The room was huge with a balcony overlooking part of the airport.
Because we were pretty sure we could get the expenses refunded, Sarah and I splurged on room service and freshened up while we waited on dinner to be delivered. We also placed a breakfast order which arrived a few minutes after we woke up the next morning.
Once we got home I submitted all of my receipts and supporting documentation to the insurance company. A few days later I received an email informing me that my claim had been processed and $391 would be deposited into my bank account. It was SO easy.
My Rookie Mistake: Failing to Get on Standby Early
There was only one place that I messed up. Given that we were staying in the actual airport, I should have gone to the Southwest counter as soon as I woke up and requested to be put on standby for a direct Orlando to Nashville flight that was fully booked and scheduled to depart at 9:20 AM. Instead, we waited until shortly before the flight took off and by that point there were already 7 people in front of us on the standby list. Every single one of them got on the flight. Not us. We had to take our ticketed itinerary that included a stop in Baltimore and hence an extra three hours of plane time.
I spoke to the gate agent and she told me that they only allow same-day standby, so it would not have been possible to join the list until that morning. Because so many flights had been delayed, there were a lot of people in our boat. If we had just gotten our names on the list an hour or two earlier we would have had a seat, and I could have been at work before lunch.
Final Thoughts
I have been dabbling with travel hacking for several years now, and I feel like the tricks I’ve learned really helped us avoid a potentially nightmarish situation when we needed to survive an overnight flight delay with our baby.
Just imagine, we could have spent a grueling five hours sitting around the chaotic terminal in San Juan with an infant. Then, when we arrived in Orlando the whole exhausted family would have waited at the baggage claim before waiting again for a shuttle or taxi to a rundown airport motel. Because we would have stayed outside of the airport, we would have needed to wake up at least half an hour earlier to make the trip back to the terminal the next morning. In the end we could have been tired, frustrated, and out a decent bit of money.
Not so for these savvy travelers. We talked our way into $600 in travel credits, waited out the delay at an open bar and spent a pleasant, restful night in a great hotel complete with room service. To top it off, we had all of our expenses refunded within a week of our return. I’ll call that a win.
Way to fin and thanks for sharing your mistake as well. We can all learn from that.