After a 4am wake up call for the first of our three-flight journey to Madrid, we arrived at the airport to check our packs and learned a very valuable lesson….
Since we usually never check luggage when we travel, we didn’t know there is a 45-minute cutoff for checked luggage to be put on a plane prior to a flight. We were notified of this new-to-us rule when we arrived at the United counter to check our expertly packed large duffel carrying our packs and poles at 5:23am for our 6:05am flight. They literally just stopped accepting bags – we were three flipping minutes late!
WHAT? You’ve got to be kidding!
We were told we wouldn’t be able to check our bag. As panic rose, I begged, “Isn’t there anything you can do?” to get our bag checked to Spain. She said no, and advised our options were to either fly without the bag (by storing it in our car (WTF?), find a way to carry it on, or rebook for a later flight. We quickly ripped open the duffel, threw it away, grabbed our packs and got our boarding pass. The good news is TSA allowed our hiking poles through (yippee) and we gate checked our packs and boarded the first flight of three today.
Lesson learned, to Rex’s disappointment, we will always arrive at the airport at least one hour early for a flight in the future. No more of this last-minute crap. Sorry honey!
We are in route with packs in tow, so it is turning out to be a great day. Look out Madrid, here we come!
Thanks for the info, good to know. Safe travels.
Fun!!! Enjoy