Set it off

Okay. So "blogging" really isn't my thing. But a few things have happened recently that have persuaded me to do this. Scratch that. Attempt this. I make no promises.

Anyway, I have frequented a site for nearly 8 years now that many, many of my friends also contributed to. Over the past 3 years years or so, however, I have been slowly losing interest in it as my good friends have been leaving one by one and what is left is mostly nonsense. I really don't hang around there much, if at all, anymore. The dilemma is that I now have nowhere to post my random babbling so that everyone and their brother can see. So became this.

So I start off day one with a rant. I don't rant much, but let me tell you, I'm pissed.

Klif (my husband for those of you who may be reading this who may not know...why are you reading this, anyways?) and I leave for a two week vacation in early September. Being that we have never really had a nice vacation together, and that our honeymoon was cut short by my previously held sorry excuse for a job, we are going all out.

We are flying to California to attend my cousin's wedding and then meeting up with Klif's brother, wife, and kids. The next day we are all flying out to Ireland for two weeks. We have little to nothing planned while we are there - exactly how we want it.

Now for the rant.

Today I purchased our tickets to get us from Indianapolis to Identity Crisis airport, as well as the return flight. We bought the Northwest Airlines tickets through Orbitz.com, and the prices we equivalent to that of many other carriers. I happened to pick this flight because the schedule worked well and it there was not a "Less than 75% on time" warning on the listing. I received my itinerary e-mail, and was greeted with the following note:

"Please note: At least one airline in this trip charges an additional fee for checked baggage. This fee is not included in your total trip cost. See details"

I've heard about this. I've read about it. I was not happy about it then. But now, it has affected me directly and I am furious! I check the prices and it is $15 to check our FIRST bag. Each way! We are going on a two week vacation! Not to mention that second bags are an additional $25. This is a minimum $60 additional cost to our trip. $160 if we both take two bags. If you know me well, you know that I plan things down to the dollar, and we have been stashing very small amounts of cash into savings over the last several months (as we are able) just so that we would have some cash to take with us.

But the thing that gets me is that Orbitz did very little to let me know that this fee would be incurred. I went back through the booking process and had to search to see if they even warned me! They did, but it was a single line on the page that showed all of the itinerary details.

I could have booked a flight for the same price with another carrier that had an almost identical schedule, and not had to pay these fees. That would have been $60 (minimum) of our hard earned money that would not have been wasted on nothing.

Moral of the story - If you thought you were getting a souvenir from Ireland, you can direct your complaint letters to Northwest Airlines.