My Lucky Day

Everybody loves an upgrade, at least I think they do (OK, I can’t speak for others Jerrie, I love an upgrade). It hasn’t gotten me a lot in life but I’ve politely asked many times. A few times I’ve gotten a nicer room or a better rental car. Once I got an Escalade, which positively scared me to death, it was like driving an 18 wheeler.
I’ve spend the last three days in San Diego, California soaking in the sunshine and the lessons from Outreach Magazine on reaching out to others. What a trip. The conference was held in the aging but exquisite Town & Country Resort and Convention Center. The grounds are as beautiful as anywhere I can remember staying. Roses are everywhere. I had lunch Friday sitting outside in 75 degree perfectly sunny weather and I ate I recorded a podcast …
The one down side was that the trip over was long and uncomfortable. I don’t fly that much but when I do I always try to book as cheap as possible, love flying Southwest for that reason but most always check Travelocity and Priceline for better deals. This time I got one. About $250.00 round trip on Northwest - but when I say round, I mean round. Nashville to Detroit, Detroit to Saint Paul, Saint Paul to San Diego. I’d be leaving Nashville at 10am and arriving in California at nearly 10pm Nashville time. I used to regularly ask at the desk for an upgrade to first class, but after multiple trips to Russia, India, Africa and about 25 other countries never netted an upgrade and somewhere along the way I just stopped asking.
When I got to the airport to fly home and checked in at the computer terminal it asked if I would be willing to give up my seat to someone in exchange for a voucher. When I tried to say yes, the attendant overseeing it said, “Don’t do that…” So I proceeded. When my boarding pass printed he said “It’s your lucky day, you got aisle seats.” I didn’t tell him that, first my dad has taught me that there’s no just thing as luck and second, I really could care less if I had an aisle seat or not. I just said: “Hey, thanks!”
As I sat waiting a young fellow came and sat beside me. He was on the phone and I could tell he missed his children pretty bad. He was flying standby and didn’t think he’d get on so he was pretty sad. I remember missing flights when my boys were small and how homesick I’d be. He said if he was flying standby and that if he missed the flight it would be tomorrow before he got home.
I went to the front desk and asked if they needed people to wait for a longer flight. The polite lady at the desk said, “no, but we might and we’ll let you know if we do.” Nice. I watched the man wait. He was nervous. They announced boarding and still he waited. There was a sign on the counter that said “Upgrade to first class beginning at $49.00.” OK, if I upgrade it won’t cost that much I’ll have plenty of room, AND it’ll free my seat up for the young dad. So I asked the lady at the counter, she quickly printed me off a First Class seat ticket and handed it to me….NO CHARGE! Wow! As the young dad passed by me, I gave him a “thumbs up” - “congratulations, you got on”, I grinned. As he passed by, he grunted: “You got my first class seat.” Oops.
But the story doesn’t really end there. I when I got to Saint Paul I had roughly 20 minutes to burn but still had the $49.00 for a potential upgrade, well, might as well try. At the counter the attendant said to my request: “I can’t do that at the counter, you’ll have to call Northwest ticketing.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that they just did it in San Diego so I just said thanks. It can’t hurt to try so I called the 800 number, the lady politely said “no, that has to be done there, we can’t change it here.” OK, no big deal. When they called our flight to board I waited till everyone was on. When I gave the attendant my pass he asked, “DId you get the upgrade?” “No, they said it had to be done here.” He responded, “well, I can’t do it here.” I said “no problem, I was just trying.” He held my ticket under the infrared reader and instead of a “ding” I got a “buzz”. He frowned, went to his terminal punched in several numbers and came back with a new seat pass - 1D - first class. As he handed it to me he said: “Must be your lucky day.”
Or maybe it’s something better.