i loathe america airlines...

as i sit in the dallas/fort worth airport when i should already be in memphis.

let me start from the beginning...we planned a family trip to memphis, my brother in law's hometown. my sister and brother in law got a flight on united for a pretty good deal, probably around $300. the same flight wasn't available when my parents, brother, his girlfriend, steve and I were trying to book a flight so we got a different one on american at a comparable price. they were leaving an hour before us and connecting through chicago whereas we were going through dallas /fort worth.

memphis is such a small market that there are no direct flights from sfo. we took a risky flight because we only had 45 minutes once we landed in dallas to get to our connecting flight to memphis. as our flight was an hour delayed leaving sfo, that made it virtually impossible to catch our connecting flight. however, there was really bad weather in dallas so there was a great chance that our connecting flight will be delayed. once we landed in dallas, we frantically searched the flight boards to see what time and gate our connecting flight was. well, weren't we surprised when we were informed that our flight had been canceled due to weather! that is when i started boiling. we left the security checkpoint to the ticket counter and was informed there are no flights from any airline leaving for memphis tonight and the earliest one is tomorrow at 1pm (we got into dallas at 5pm). what pissed me off even more was that they said since this is weather related, they are not responsible and will only provide a $49 reimbursement voucher for our hotel stay. well, that is just bull***t because my sister took an earlier flight and they were able to fly into memphis only an hour before our scheduled flight.

the closest hotel near the airport was the ramada south. it wasn't my first choice but since it was closest to the airport, cheapest at $49 and they provided a shuttle pick up, we settled. we were already going to lose money on the canceled hotel in memphis and a day of rental car so we really didn't want to meet too much more to be somewhere we weren't expecting to be.
the ticket agent said the shuttle will be downstairs shortly. well, 20 minutes later, we called the hotel and they said the shuttle was on the way. another 20 minutes later, they claimed there were 3 shuttles on the way. about ten calls later, the hotel stopped answering our calls or hung up on us. we finally got fed up and went back upstairs to the counter and got a "distressed" rate to a nicer hotel, the gaylord texan. it was a nicer hotel but further away and with no shuttle. but we sucked up the $35 cost of the taxi just so we can get away from the airport.

boy, was that the best thing that happened to us! the hotel was awesome as it's a resort and convention center and they had some great restaurants! we had dinner at this sports bar and the ribs and barbeque were awesome. it really did make us forget about the miserable 3 hours before that. when we got to our hotel room, we actually searched the ramada and they had the worse reviews on tripadvisor. it was such a blessing in disguise that the shuttle was so late!

so here i am with my family - back at the airport waiting for our flight to memphis. you know what i'm doing when i get back home, writing the angriest letter to american airlines! btw, this was the 1st time i've ever flown on american and unless i get some free vouchers, this will be the last time!