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Nonrev Ramblings
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
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Originally Posted by spongebue
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