Finally Got My Return Flight Rescheduled

A short followup to my travel woes that I wrote about the other day....

It took almost three days, but I was finally
able to get through to United Airlines today, to reschedule my trip back
home to Japan. I'd originally been scheduled to
visit a
dear friend with a two-day stopover in
Milwaukee, but that had to be canceled when United decided it would rather
use the plane that was supposed to service Cleveland to instead service its
hub in Chicago. (Probably a smart business move that benefits the most
people, but the short end of the stick is the short end of the stick, and
that's what I got in this case.) The best they
could come up with is a flight to San Francisco
on Friday, and then from there to Japan on Saturday.

I asked what I'm supposed to do in San Francisco between the 11pm
arrival and the 11am departure; the lady said sheepishly that I could just stay at the airport. Sigh. I went and booked my own hotel. My flight was not
canceled due to weather, but because United felt like using the plane
elsewhere, so they should have covered the hotel, I'd think.

At least I'm “stuck” in a comfortable place
at my folks' place here in frozen Ohio, helping out around the house
between trying to call the airlines and taking pictures of frozen
birds. So many thousands stuck at airports
had it so very much worse. I'm only out two hotel
nights, and I missed meeting friends I'd not seen
in a decade, but I can
remedy that with another trip when it gets warmer.

Continued here...