1 post tagged “travel”

Northwest Airlines issued us our tickets in Detroit and we got to Amsterdam okay. When we went to board on the KLM flight to Doha (Qatar), they said that our boarding passes were not valid. The KLM gate agent said that they showed us in their system and they showed us on the flight, but Northwest did not issue us the proper ticket to board the KLM flight. She ended up telling us that it was OUR (me and Morad's) fault for not being responsible to have the correct tickets/documentation. We said to the gate agent "Northwest...your partner...gave us the wrong boarding pass/ticket and that is not our problem." We were both upset.

So, we missed our flight because they would not let us on and then we had to stand in line for an hour to reschedule. We needed to catch the next flight to Doha, which was not until Wednesday (2 days later) and that was unacceptable, so a KLM ticket agent made arrangements for us to get on a KLM flight to Kuwait and then we would have an 8 hour lay over in Kuwait and then we would get on a Qatar Airways flight at 6:00 AM.

In Kuwait, we taxied up to the gate and Morad saw a Qatar Airways airplane parked at another gate. So, we literally ran off the plane and ran over to the Qatar Airways flight which was headed to Doha in 10 minutes.  Apparently this plane was delayed for 2 hours and so if the plane wasn't delayed then we would have had to wait 8 hours at the airport.  We were so lucky.

We asked the gate agent if we could get on this flight.  She asked us if we had any checked luggage.  We told her "yes."  She said that for security reasons, they could not let us on the flight without our checked luggage.  We explained that if we couldn't make this flight, then we would have a 8 hour layover and after 22 hours of travel, we were exhaused.  She went and talked to her supervisor, and she came back and told us that if we boarded the plane tonight, Qatar Airways would not be responible for our luggage.  Morad and I discussed this for about a minute and then decided to board the plane before it took off without us.  Essentially, we risked giving up our luggage to get to Doha to sleep in a bed.

Once we got to Doha, we filed a lost luggage report (we ended up getting our luggage the next day).  Then, we got in a taxi to go to Morad's parents house.  We planned on surprising his parents because they thought that we were in Kuwait until the next morning.  Morad's mom called our cell phone when were were around the block from his complex.  Morad told her "yes...we made it to Kuwait." 

So, when we walked in the front door, we yelled "Suprise!" and they were happily astonished to see us.