Are you still there?
How hard could it be? I tried to book my ticket to Utah for the E100 yesterday. I have a US Airways Visa and we use it for all our purchases in order to get mucho mileage. I have been to California twice, Costa Rica, and Moab on my free miles. I have never had a problem using them except when I went to Costa Rica in 2004. I had to use 50,000 miles and travel 1st class to get the dates I needed. When I signed up for the frequent flier program it only took 25,000 miles to get a ticket. Yesterday when I tried to get my ticket I found out that all the seats available for 25,000 miles were taken, not just on my dates of travel, but all the way till February. Every airport within 4 hours had the same situation. I tried to talk to a human on the phone to see if US Airway’s policy had changed, but by the time I started asking for honest answers she stopped talking.
TD- “I just want to know if this is new policy”
USA-”No sir, it is not.”
TD- “It doesn’t seem like I can get anywhere for 25,000 miles. Is this the way it’s gonna be for now on?”
USA- silence
TD- “Are you still there?” “Hello?”
USA- ” Yes”
TD- “I am not mad. I just want an answer”
USA- silence
TD- “Are you still there? Hello? I can hear you breathing. Are you done talking? Can I speak to someone else?”
Maybe she didn’t like the fact that my wife and The Boy were laughing in the background.
It basically ended after I gave up asking if she was still there. She couldn’t hang up on me, but she wouldn’t talk either. It was really weird. I was not irate and I said several times I was not mad. I just wanted some straight answers. I’ve always believed that when you are geting screwed by the man there is very little reason to fight it if the man is holding all the cards. Just bend over and take it.
“I’d like to say Andy fought the good fight…“
I called back a few times and got different people and the same basic run-around. I wasn’t getting anywhere unless I coughed up 50,000 miles that I don’t have. I am short by 9,000 miles. Jerks. Looks like I am paying for a ticket. On another note it seems like there are no longer direct flights from CLT to SLC so I get to enjoy the finer side of travel. Nothing like killing multiple hours in an airport drinking overpriced beer and watching people walk by. Unnnghh. I’ve said it before, the easiest part of endurance racing is everything that happens after they say “Go!”. All the BS it takes to get to the start line is a pain in the ass.
The Shawshank quote is an excerpt from a bigger piece of dialogue from M Freeman :
I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight, and the Sisters let him be. I wish I could tell you that – but prison is no fairy-tale world. He never said who did it, but we all knew. Things went on like that for awhile – prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Andy would show up with fresh bruises. The Sisters kept at him – sometimes he was able to fight ‘em off, sometimes not. And that’s how it went for Andy – that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him.
