The Costs (and Potential Costs) of Flying to NYC During a Blizzard
On Sunday night, I got an email from United Airlines to let me know that my Tuesday evening flight to Newark had pre-emptively been canceled due to Blizzardy Storm Juno.
(This’d be the flight that I had planned to take for The Billfold LIVE.)
At that time, they weren’t offering any other flight options; however, this morning they did offer to rebook me on another Tuesday flight: UA302, scheduled to arrive at LaGuardia at 11:26 p.m.
They also rebooked me on this flight for free, which I appreciate.
However, if I were a betting person (which I am not because THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS), I would bet that this flight gets canceled this evening.
This also means I will very likely miss The Billfold LIVE, which is crushing my heart. But I won’t feel those feelings until I’m absolutely sure that I’m going to miss the show.
Instead, let’s look at how much money I’m likely to lose.
As you may remember from this post, I have two cross-country trips to make this week: Seattle to NYC for The Billfold LIVE and NYC to Fort Lauderdale for the JoCo Cruise.
What I expected to do this morning was:
1) Learn that United couldn’t guarantee I’d get into NYC before The Billfold LIVE
2) Rebook a ticket from SEA to FLL
3) Cancel my reservation at NYC’s Pod Hotel
By the time you read this post, it will be too late to cancel my reservation at the Pod Hotel and still get a full refund. It will not, however, be too late for United to cancel my flight. I still think that will happen, since United has already canceled 83% of its Tuesday flights into LaGuardia. I’m a bit baffled that they booked me on the Tuesday LGA flight to begin with, since it’s not like there’s going to be a clear, blizzard-free path into LGA that there wouldn’t be into EWR.
But I did the responsible thing, because I made a commitment to The Billfold LIVE, and said I’d take that flight.
Which is going to get canceled.
Which means I lose money on the hotel reservation.
If I were a betting person, I would bet that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
I’m not particularly put out about losing $100 or so on the hotel (“it’s just a hundred bucks!”), except for the part where I can see this coming and have to sit here and wait for it to happen. Or, as I tweeted yesterday:
but just one grumble: buuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttttttssssssssssssssssssss
(Also, to answer the “why don’t you just fly in on Wednesday?” question: a cross-country Seattle-NYC trip won’t get me there in time. There is the option to do one of those “fly halfway across the country on Tuesday night, then red-eye it into NYC on Wednesday morning” things, which — let’s be serious, if I can’t safely get into NYC at midnight Tuesday it won’t be safe at 6 a.m. Wednesday, which would mean I’d be stranded in Houston or Denver or somewhere. So… nope.)
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