Planes, Trains and Automobiles

When I made our travel arrangements to come down here, I had booked our stay to return home last Tuesday. As you all know by now, Pixie's surgery got pushed back which forced me to need to change our return flight. Dreamsicle and I had traveled down here on United. I purchased the travel insurance (something that I never do) because when I read the types of situations the travel insurance covered it specifically stated that it would protect you from having to pay an extra fee should your plans change due to an unexpected serious illness of a family member. Feeling like I was armed with a serious illness of a family member (malignant melanoma certainly wouldn't fall into the category of an appendectomy for goodness sakes) I called United to change our return flight. They first told me that I would be hit with a $150.00 per person change fee. I was actually okay with that-then the agent proceeded to tell me that I would be responsible for the difference in the price of the flight. Guess how much the difference in the flight was...just guess..$1300.00! Yep they tried to tell me that it would cost an additional $1500.00 to get Dreamsicle and I home if we wanted to change our flight. I spoke with the most unhelpful supervisor I have ever dealt with in my life after the agent told me that. Both stuck to their written script-you have to pay that money up front then request a refund from United. Travel insurance, pavel insurance-it did not matter. At this point I was seriously hyperventilating. Keep in mind that I paid out the nose to get here since I purchased our tickets on the same day that we traveled. I could not get myself to give the go ahead for them to charge me an additional $1500.00 Since I had rented a car I called McGyver to see if he would be down with me taking a leisurely drive back to the Mitten State with Dreamsicle because it would be considerably cheaper. He wasn't having any of that and told me to pay what I had to pay to make sure we were here for Pixie's surgery. I got on line and just for kicks and giggles got on the United website, typed in the date I wanted to travel home and low and behold-I could purchase two one way tickets for $422.00 each. Ummmmm, yeah. Considerably less than the $1500.00 they wanted to charge me for the change fee, no? I decided right then and there that I would not be giving United Airlines any more of my money and purchased two one way tickets home from Northwest for a slightly lower price than the $422.00. I can tell you this, I will never fly United again if I have any other alternative.