DON’T YOU HATE IT WHEN SOMEONE AHEAD OF YOU monopolizes one of the three check-in counters with a stupid problem? Well, today that would have been us. We found the perfect flight to Jordan, Gulf Air leaving Abu Dhabi at 7:45 AM and arriving just before noon with a connection in Bahrain, giving us plenty of time to drive to Petra before dark. So we booked it through kayak via priceline and reserved a rental car in Amman and a room in Wadi Musa. Everything was set — or so we thought.
Yesterday we received an email that the morning flight had been cancelled and a confirmation on the three pee em flight instead, inconvenient but acceptable. So we changed the pick-up time on the rental and notified the hotel that we would arrive around midnight.
When we arrived at the airport — SURPRISE! —they had no record of our reservation. Fortunately the flight was not full but it took the agent, her colleague and their supervisor nearly an hour to straighten things out. The good news is that priceline hasn’t actually charged us for the tickets and neither has Gulf Air. We will have to wait to see how things end up.
Well, they got us on the flight all right but forgot about our luggage and we landed in Amman with just the clothes on our backs. In Connie’s case that was just shorts, Tevas and a T-shirt — just right for Abu Dhabi but hardly enough for the 10℃ temps in Jordan. After we filed the lost baggage forms and being told our bags were still in Bahrain and, insha Allah, would arrive around noon, we drove to Madaba to the Moabland Hotel where we had stayed nine years before, forfeiting our reservation in Wadi Musa. It was much nearer than Wadi Musa and we had to get our luggage. After all, it was everything we owned.
