Bill4728
Moderator
So by the title you may have guessed we missed our flight from Seattle to Oahu. My family and I missed it because Alaska said it was too close to flight time to check the one bag we had to check.
1. Always check the traffic before you get into the car. And listen to radio traffic reports not just a cell phone traffic app.
( our 30 minute trip to the airport took 1 hour and 45 minutes because of a fatal accident on the freeway. BUT if I had checked before hand I could have taken a different route and made the trip in 50 minutes. Also the radio went on and on about the problem but we depended on the cell phone traffic app and didn't listen till too late)
2. If you are shuttling to the airport from parking, know when the shuttles run and if you just miss one drop off the family and bags at the airport then get shuttle. ( we waited 17 minutes for shuttle and would have had plenty of time if I had dropped the family and bags off then parked)
3 Always check the biggest bag first. OR JUST DO CARRY-ONS [We almost never check a bag but with 6 people traveling together we had one bag we had to check and several we could check or take as carry-on. Alaska allowed us to check two bags they cut us off with the biggest bag still waiting to be checked! ]
4. Always check for gate changes
( we had 5 people rush to gate with carry-on OK bags and they would have made the flight but a gate change to a different terminal killed that chance)
5. Arrive early
( we generally arrive 2 hours early but with 6 people we should have arrived even earlier because a missed flight with two people is bad a missed flight with 6 people can be a real problem because re-booking 6 people is way more difficult than re-booking 2 people)
So we flew out of Portland the next day and rented a van to get to Portland BUT still had a great vacation in Oahu, (for 8 days instead of our planned 9 days.)
A big shout-out to the Westin Surf-rider for allowing us to cancel our first night very late and giving us our points back when they didn't have to. 130K pts was nice to get back ( two ocean front rooms.)
1. Always check the traffic before you get into the car. And listen to radio traffic reports not just a cell phone traffic app.
( our 30 minute trip to the airport took 1 hour and 45 minutes because of a fatal accident on the freeway. BUT if I had checked before hand I could have taken a different route and made the trip in 50 minutes. Also the radio went on and on about the problem but we depended on the cell phone traffic app and didn't listen till too late)
2. If you are shuttling to the airport from parking, know when the shuttles run and if you just miss one drop off the family and bags at the airport then get shuttle. ( we waited 17 minutes for shuttle and would have had plenty of time if I had dropped the family and bags off then parked)
3 Always check the biggest bag first. OR JUST DO CARRY-ONS [We almost never check a bag but with 6 people traveling together we had one bag we had to check and several we could check or take as carry-on. Alaska allowed us to check two bags they cut us off with the biggest bag still waiting to be checked! ]
4. Always check for gate changes
( we had 5 people rush to gate with carry-on OK bags and they would have made the flight but a gate change to a different terminal killed that chance)
5. Arrive early
( we generally arrive 2 hours early but with 6 people we should have arrived even earlier because a missed flight with two people is bad a missed flight with 6 people can be a real problem because re-booking 6 people is way more difficult than re-booking 2 people)
So we flew out of Portland the next day and rented a van to get to Portland BUT still had a great vacation in Oahu, (for 8 days instead of our planned 9 days.)
A big shout-out to the Westin Surf-rider for allowing us to cancel our first night very late and giving us our points back when they didn't have to. 130K pts was nice to get back ( two ocean front rooms.)