So, here I am, in a hotel outside of EWR. Booked a few hours ago when I was sitting on a plane in Denver, waiting for the ramp to do their thing after they got pulled due to lightning.
Just yesterday, I was concerned about getting here. We really had to get to EWR for a flight to OSL tomorrow night, and we'd really like to fly with my father- and brother-in-law (who bought tickets). I've been tracking this flight literally for months, writing down the loads every morning when I get to work. I figured I'd have us go DEN-OMA-EWR, since that had seats, but had a bad feeling about that last night. 1 hour between flights, change in plane, and not too many options to get to EWR. There were a couple nonstops DEN-EWR, but those hub-to-hubs are always screwy. The one other safe option was DEN-PIT tonight, then PIT-EWR tomorrow. All quite open.
After I decided against OMA, I figured we'd try for DEN-EWR nonstops, since they left first anyway. Took a shuttle from my office that arrived at the airport at about 15:10 for a 15:54 flight, all the while wondering if we should just take LH's 747 to FRA instead. Ran through security (with required screening, of course ;) ) and showed up at the gate at the tail end of boarding. Wouldn't you know it, a few seats opened up. And a few nonrevs didn't show. Then we got our name called. We had been waiting maybe 5 minutes. When the gate agent announced our names, I jokingly said just loud enough for her to hear "holy crap!" - got on plane, which ended up leaving with 2 open seats. Was delayed an hour, but I was fine with that - meant they had free TV for the flight, so I was able to catch the Simpsons marathon for a bit.
And of course, after all that, our flight to OSL went from 15 seats this morning down to (according to my mom) -11 seats at one point tonight. Then -5. Then 0. Now it shows 0 on our website, but 2 on the reservations system directly. We're using vacation passes and sitting at #2 and #3 on the list. And the person above us is coming from SFO, that flight not looking so great. Soooo... hopefully, but not a sure thing. If we make this flight, we'll be sitting pretty until we go home from IST 5SEP, and even that has more backup plans up my sleeve than I care to admit to.
If anyone cares to see how it goes for us, check the status on united.com of UA38 on 27AUG. There's a standby list and an upgrade list. For whatever reason, if we get a seat in J we disappear completely from the standby list (but still on upgrade). BUE/A and BUE/B. If that won't work, off to LHR on BA, I think!
If you made it this far, you're a very patient reader :)
