And The Plan Was.....??? Conclusion (Finally!)

So when we left off, hubby and I were on our way to the mall in Wailea to spend the $500 each that his Visa had approved since our luggage had not arrived in Maui when we did. Two different United Airlines reps had assured us it would be arriving that evening around 6:00 pm and it would be shuttled to us immediately. If you want to read the entire saga, you will find it and all the links Here.

I'm not really a shopper but having the chance to spend $500 on some new clothing was fun. I picked out a few light-weight tops, a nice big sun hat and a pair of nice jeans from Banana Republic (we don't have this store in our town so I was anxious to see what all the fuss was about, after all, Oprah uses them in nearly all her makeover shows!).  I ended up spending less than half of the allowance and was quite happy with that. My nature wouldn't allow me to take full advantage and our suitcases would be arriving in a couple of hours anyway.

So we finished up our shopping and headed over to my step-daughter's condo to meet the new granddaughter and see everyone we hadn't seen since last summer (we are spread all across the country and this was a sort of family reunion to all meet in Hawaii). Had a wonderful but too short visit. I wolfed down my dinner and had hubby drive me right back to our condo so I would be there when the luggage showed up shortly after 6:00 pm.

Well by 8:00 pm I started to get worried not to mention pissed off that I had rushed away from our family gathering to wait for luggage that did NOT arrive when I was told it would. I got on the phone with United Airlines once again and was told, "Whoops! The shuttle left the Maui airport at 5:30 pm, your bags didn't arrive until 6:00, sorry, they will be on the next shuttle that leaves the Maui airport at 10:00 pm". I wasn't overly impressed but this was a reasonable explanation, or so I thought.

I was having a difficult time staying awake, I mean 6 time zones meant that my body considered 10:00 pm as 4:00 am.  By the time 11:00 pm Hawaii time rolled around I was furious. I again called United Airlines and was told "Whoops! There is no 10:00 pm shuttle and all they could get was the answering machine when trying to contact the person in charge of bags at the Maui airport." Call me an exhausted bitch if you want but I was so angry, I hung up on the rep. I thought this was the better option considering the other would be letting loose and I knew this rep was not at fault, sort of.

What made me so furious was that if I had known my bags would not be arriving on Sunday night, I would have stayed with the family instead of rushing off and bought some extra underwear and maybe a nightshirt or something. So again, I went to bed in the same damn shirt I had been wearing all day.

The next morning, the gloves came off. I called United Airlines, demanded that the bags be delivered and then ran to the mall to use up the last of the $500 budget whether I needed the items or not! There is just something about spending someone else's money that makes one feel better when they are having a bad day. With the money spent on several more clothing items (do I need to tell you I bought around 10 pair or underwear, this time 3 for $24 at a different mall?), I rushed back to the condo just in time to sign for our bags which had finally arrived at 12:30 pm. As if waiting an extra 24 hours wasn't long enough to wait for our suitcases, the Maui airport had unnecessarily added an additional 18 1/2 hours to that wait.

Just a quick note, today when I opened the mailbox, tucked inside were two checks one for each of us in the amount of $200 from United Airlines for our trouble. I'll let you know if Visa pays up with the $500 they promised each of us!

THE END - for now!