Share your worst non-rev trip with your fellow passriders. Were you stuck in an airport somewhere Did you sleep there? Was it hours, days? Why did you not take another airline to another city? Were you scared? Or did you just not know you can do this?
Please tell us all.
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This was a non-rev trip to see family in Seattle area during Christmas time, I know…how crazy! I was trying to get back to Houston about 4-5 years ago on December 21, flights were very, very full I did not get on the red-eye or the 6AM flight I ran to the ticket counter and purchased a ZED-Pass on Horizon Air to YYC and got first class from YYC-IAH a lot of non-revs in the gate area saw me on the computer and inquired what I was finding, the sad part not one of them and there were about 20 had a passport! A requirement when flying into Canada. Morale of story ALWAYS CARRY your PASSPORT when non-revving! Another airline will usually get you out of tough spot…
Tom,
Thank you for sharing your story. Those backup passes are always good things to have as you never know when you will need them.
passrider.com
“Coming home from Rome,”..My oldest son had to leave a day early for work and school.He’s 22 now. Since Delta allows your kids to travel up to 23 while in school.We thought it was al right for him to non-rev from Rome ..WRONG!!
When he got to New York (JFK)the ticket counter employee told my son he was to old to pass ride..So he rented a car
(for $400.00) and drove to BWI where he bought a one way ticket on American Airlines for $300.00 non stop…While this was going on we were leaving Rome on a train going to Venice. When we looked outside the train someone took my wife’s wallet with all the money and credit cards. WE were stuck. So I had enough for 1 ticket back to Rome. I purchased the ticket and we all went,2nd son , wife (crying) and myself, back to Rome with only 1 ticket.
Well wouldn’t you know that after a week of never seeing a train conductor I thought it would be ok.Boy was I wrong.The train conductor
wanted to see our tickets,he didn’t speak and English. He insisted we went to the police and be arrested. Lucky for us the police spoke English and understood what was going on.He apologized for the stolen wallet and let us go. WE went back to the hotel and got our luggage,it was time to leave Italy.]
We checked the flights and they were open and several seats were available on the computer we had (with no charger so it was getting deader by the minute).When we got to the airport “Surprise” the flights were full..!! Imagine that…So we spent the night in the airport.Then we made an early flight threw Detroit then on to DFW.
Well guess what? The ticket agent didn’t book us thru to Dallas so we were pulled in Detroit and spent another night. The next day their was 3 seats so when we went to get on the flight but my wife’s luggage was missing…Stolden right out from her nose..The flight was getting ready to leave so we put my son on it and we went to find the police to see what we could do.
My wife was crying again..The police had called the bomb dogs and we were to wait until some made a decision??? Anyway we got the luggage and then boarded the afternoon flight for DFW. Great retirement trip,the first and last..!
NWA capt and wife, first nonrev experience on the “New Delta”. Got on the dfw-atl leg ok. The atl-athens flt showed 20 open in bus and 15 open in coach (767) on the “Delta net”” at midnight the night before. Surprised when we were #1 on the ron-rev list and didn’t get on, i approached the agent to find out what happenned. Big mistake.
I have never experienced how Delta gate agents in Atlanta treat thier fellow employees trying to non-rev, but I was made to feel like a jerk for daring to bother this woman. Every other flight to anywhere in europe was over booked so we decided to go home.
10 hours later we got on the last flight to MSP and got a hotel for the night. Last time I will EVER try to go through ATL.
Wow, I am getting depressed just thinking about these posts. Makes me want to buy a full fare ticket.
Hi Passrider…
How about developing an Apple iPhone app for Passrider? I would love to have the ability to use my iPhone to check on flights!
What do you all think?
Philip
Philip,
What would you like to see in such an app? What would you like the app to do for you? Incidentally, you can access passrider at mobile.passrider.com on you iPhone. Let me know what you think.
Don’t Isaac, hopefully you will learn from these experiences. Non-revving is quite fun. Just plan accordingly. You can check out the non-rev guide at http://passrider.com/mugnrsa for assistance.
I was head to Belize, on American. That was my first mistake.
I did my home work. And check the flights every day for a week before leaving. The night before they told me the flight from SAN to DFW was over sold and it would be better for me to get to PHX then to DFW. OK not a problem. I get to PHX and they tell me I need a ticket to go from PHX to DFW, my ticket from SAN to DFW was not any good. Fine. With a lots of headaches.. I did.. The flight attendants on AA wouldn’t even look at.. and look at thow they are pissed off at the world.
Coming back AA. I ask for a first class seat. the person at the gate said sure we have room. Then when she look at who I flew with, she said, we dont do that for that airlines. .SORRY ..
on the flight.. there was a drunk.. that spilled his drinks (3) and they moved him to the overwing exit row. Good going AA.
To the lady sitting next to the guy rang the call button and it took them 23 min to get to her.. A nother little girl wanted a nother coke. and it took 15 min to get to her. .
IF my last choice to get to some place is AA. I will not go. !!!
Agree with the earlier posts about Delta. Just non-revved back from Johannasberg on Delta. Although flights may look open, they load their planes with cargo and leave stand-bys behind, for days and days AND DAYS, and will not help you find any way out. Same thing happened in Cairo. There is nothing worse than thinking you will never make it out of Africa…if you choose to go Delta, plan to spend a week or so just trying to get out!
My story is not as dramatic as some others, but I once stayed in MSP overnight. I didn’t make it on the last flight to MEM Friday night so was stuck. Since I knew where the quiet area was, I figured I could get some sleep and not spend the time going to a hotel and save some money. After waking up every half hour to the “Local time is…” announcement (could sleep through “threat level is now orange” for some reason…), and not making it on any flights all day the next day, I was finally able to grab a flight to LIT and hubby picked me up from there. Won’t travel on a weekend during spring break month again. And, I definitely splurge on the hotel now when I’m stuck, and treat myself to some pizza while I’m at it.
I was in SFO with two friends, one who worked for Delta with me and another who worked for Midwest. We were visiting my best friend (who worked for ATA at the time) and had gone to a Dodgers-Giants game that afternoon. We were at Ghirardelli Square that night and were supposed take a red-eye SFO-ATL. The friend who also works for DL said, “You think we should call Travel Line and make sure everything’s ok?” I scoffed and said, “What, see if the flight cancelled?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Nah, it’ll be ok.” We kept eating.
Later we went to the restroom and I was the first one “done.” I called Travel Line and heard, “Delta flight XXX has been cancelled.” When I told my friends they thought I was kidding. Long story short, my best friend made a 45 minute drive to SFO in under 30 minutes and we got on SFO-CVG. But once we got to CVG, we couldn’t find anything open to ATL. Finally after a ton of searching we found CVG-LEX-ATL. Two different flight numbers but the same plane and same crew. The captain, probably knowing it was a non-rev special, said, “We’d like to add our welcome on board Delta flight XXX with service to Lexington, continuing to Atlanta.” All of us non-revs laughed out loud at that one.
Agents, please note, we are all non-revs at some point in time. It could be your parent that is treated disrespectifully just because they are non-revs. Of course there are great agents out there and there are those who won’t even make eye contact with you because of your non-rev status. There are times when even a question is not permissable. Remember we have earned the privilage to non-rev…has been a difficult career for alot of us. I have a sister who is an agent, so I do understand about the abuses that you endure. I also know that even though my sister endures the same abuses, she goes out of her way to take care of non-revs.
Like i was comming from hochimin city, like where the war was, and the airport smelled and i forget the airline but they bumped me twice but finally got on but sat next to this gross woman who took up oneandahalf seats but finally got to HK which was cool but then bumped again after KLM cancelled but paid the gate agent SF200 to get me onboard to ZUR and MSP. I really don’t like to travel but I cant find a job since i quit being an FA but they didn’t take my name off any list so i still go sometimes. why is that ’cause like i would pay if they asked me but they dont how come?
My parents and I had spent a fantastic 9 days in Europe to celebrate my 40th birthday. Started in Geneva, ended in Paris because Continental flies bigger planes from there and operates more flights(my airline doesn’t fly to Europe, so we were on ZED tickets). My friend dropped us off and went on his way back to Switzerland, we walked inside CDG — and I knew immediately something was very, very wrong. A blizzard along the US East Coast had grounded EVERYTHING! The CO agents were not at all helpful, wouldn’t even check us in. After much begging and pleading that I at least needed to be able to show my boss (who was new to the airline industry) that I’d tried to get on, they gave me a standby boarding pass, but they wouldn’t check our bags so we couldn’t go through security. We talked to CO employees who were also stranded, and they were checking other cities all over Europe – nothing. Only seat available was a $4500 first-class seat on Air France. Ha! Ha! – No. This went on for 4 days! We finally got out of what my Dad calls the DeGaulle Bastille on Day 5. The weather had turned nasty, so going back into Paris was not an option (plus the train is expensive), so we just got a room near the hotel, went to bed at 8pm, got up and to the airport by 6am, waited through 3 flights, back to the hotel, lather, rinse, repeat. The agents got nicer over the ordeal, and the hotel clerks were super nice and gave us the same rate every day, even though it should have gone up on the weekdays. Every morning as we left they’d say “Good luck, hope we don’t see you again, but if you need to come back, we’ll have a room for you.”
When I got back, my boss wanted to suspend my flight benefits (I am a salaried, non-shift employee in the headquarters) because our policy says they can if you don’t return to work because you didn’t get on due to flight loads. I argued that it wasn’t due to flight loads, it was due to NO loads, I had taken every precaution – even building in an extra day and 6 flights for cushion, and even revenue passengers only got out a day earlier than we did. By the time the blizzard hit (and it was wicked hard to get US weather reports on Paris stations), all the flights had already departed Europe for the day, so we couldn’t have gotten out ahead of it. Backup passes on other airlines would have been useless. I argued that if you can punish an employee for this kind of situation, there’s no way we’d EVER fly non-rev again because you just have no control over some things. Fortunately my boss’s boss (an airline veteran) agreed, and I’ve kept flying. That was 3 years ago. And that boss is no longer here.
But here’s a happy story: a year later, we were returning to Paris on Northwest out of Detroit. I thought there were plenty of seats, but since we, as employees of other airlines, don’t get exact information, I didn’t know until the day before we left that instead of having a couple dozen seats open, the flight was oversold by about 10 and there were 20 non-revs listed! We tried anyway. Got to the gate 3 hours before the flight, dressed nicely, and waited patiently (I paced a bit out of nervousness). The agents chatted with us the whole 3 hours, and while they told us it looked bad, they still offered some hope (it helped, I think, that my parents are such a cute little happy couple). When the flight boarded, turned out only the 3 of us had shown up out of all the non-revs. One agent told us we had seats and they’d released them (it was 30 minutes before departure), but they’d had 3 revenue pax miss the Frankfurt flight, and if they showed up, they might reprotect them on this Paris flight. Fifteen minutes before push, here come 3 people in ratty jeans and t-shirts who immediately start complaining about the Frankfurt flight – “The flight was at 5pm, we got to the gate at 5pm, and the plane was already gone! Why didn’t you hold it? Blah! Blah! Blah!” The agents nicely explained the international rules of departure, all the while with almost visible thought bubbles over their heads “We don’t want to take these people!” The agent nearest us suddenly turned to me, covertly handing me 3 boarding passes, and said “Be discreet, have a nice flight!” We got to the door and the supervisor stopped us, but the agent said something to him and he waved us on. We got through the door and I looked at our boarding passes: BUSINESS CLASS, all 3 of us! They SURE didn’t want to put those people up front! It was a great flight and the beginning of what turned out to be the trip of a lifetime! Thanks, Northwest! I’m sad you’re now Delta, who doesn’t offer us any interline deals.
Sorry about those of you that have had bad experiences with Delta. I’ve been to 58 countries (nearly all through my Delta pass benefits) and have only been bumped from one international flight and had to purchase a ZED fare. That was on the old BOM-JFK route on the 777ER. Didn’t get on the flight for two nights, so purchased a ZED on Alitalia to Milan. Went from Milan to ATL on Delta. Not a big deal. Agree with those posts about the Atlanta attitude, just gotta have fun with it
.
I was trying to non-rev from PHX to MSP on Northwest Airlines for a job interview with Mesaba Airlines back in 2007. I was traveling Dec. 18th for an interview early the next morning and listed for a 1400 flight. Well, being Christmas time, I got bumped off that flight, and the next one, and the next one. I finally got into MSP around 11 MSP time, and still had to check into the hotel, and iron my uniform.
Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep that night, and the interview the next morning did not go very well, largely because I was running on three hours sleep, two cups of coffee, and a muffin!
My worst non-rev experience happen several years ago before the CASS system was impose. I live in Laredo, TX (LRD) and was commuting to Cincinnati (CVG) to work the following day with Comair. Continental Express to Houston (IAH) was full. Second choice, American Eagle to DFW was also full. Third choice, a 165 mile drive to San Antonio (SAT) to take the last Delta flight to CVG was also full. Fourth choice, ASA to Atlanta (then Comair to CVG) was cancelled due to Hurricane Ivan in the area. I called scheduling to advice them that I was not able to commute for the following day. I was told that the first two legs was cancelled. The first two legs were to Atlanta and back. Thank you Hurricane Ivan. I then took Southwest to Houston Hobby (HOU) and slept at a friends house a mile north of the airport. I woke up at 4:30 am. Took a cab to HOU at 5:30 am to take Comair at 6:30 am direct to CVG. Thanks again to Hurricane Ivan, it was now approaching CVG and the CRJ200 was weight-limited. Since I had the jump-seat, I had to get off the flight. I then took Houston Metro city bus from HOU to IAH. It took two hours and $2.00 to get there. I took a Delta flight direct to CVG with a few seats available. I finally arrive just before the heavy rain. After my Planes, trains and Automobiles experience, my trip for that day was cancelled. Again, thanks to Hurricane Ivan.
On 11/1/2010 I called my pass office and purchased a non-rev from JFK to BWI with the dpt date of 11/17/2010. After not recieving the ticket by 11/14/2010. I called and asked why because my credit card was charged for the ticket the same day I called. I was told the ticket was mailed the same day. I asked if the ticket could be voided and to please send another ticket. They said no, they can not void non-rev tickets. They said I have to wait until that ticket returns to them or wait 90 days until it expires. Meanwhile, there goes my Thanksgiving Holiday…away from family and alone. I called six fellow airline retirees and asked if they have ever experienced anything like this, sadly they said ‘yes!’ They said non-rev roundtrip tickets cost us $91.00 ($50rt + $11.15taxes $25.00agent fee). They stated they now book their flights 2 or 3 months in advance and fly full fare! In that case, that same flight would have only costed me @226.00. I would have spent the holidays with my family! I am 68 years old, my income is less than $20,000 annual. I don’t want to spend the rest of my holidays depressed and alone because some jerk failed to mail my ticket!!!!! My mail does not get lost! I have lived at the same address for 40 years!