Our eldest daughter finally made it to Toronto yesterday, and hopefully will be finding her way to Pittsburgh today… but, in her parlance, “What a gong show!”

J started out for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Christmas Day… routing from Edmonton to Vancouver to Seattle to Harrisburg. Her flight into Vancouver was cancelled. So, she was re-scheduled and re-routed to fly Edmonton to Toronto to Cleveland to Harrisburg yesterday, which she did, but only part way. She managed to get as far as Toronto before ice fogs cancelled her flight into Cleveland.

While standing in line for three and a half hours to get her flights juggled, yet again, she passed out, falling and smacking her head with some force on the simulated marble floors of Toronto International. EMTs were called…

She passed out because she had nothing to eat or drink for over three and a half hours… she was afraid to leave her place in line, and of course there are rules about abandoning luggage et.al. in an airport, or in asking for others to look after it while you seek out refreshment.

Aside from the goose egg sized bump on her head, she appears to be okay.

When she did come to… and she was already out of line, she made an emergency phone call to her roommate in Edmonton, who then called me asking if I could make a booking for J at the Travelodge near the airport just in case she didn’t get a flight out that night. I was, unfortunately, sitting in the middle of the Edmonton airport fearing the worse for my own flight to Vancouver. Oh, and J doesn’t have a cell phone… she cancelled it to save money. J was phoning Edmonton from a payphone using spare change; there was no way to phone her back. And did I tell you that she also recently cancelled all her credit cards? The girl is just dreadful with money management…

Okay, so I called the national reservation line for Travelodge and was told that they would be more than happy to reserve a room for her, but needed my credit card number to hold the room, given that it was already after 4 pm local time… I asked the obvious question; what happens if she gets a flight out and doesn’t use the room? “Oh, well, we’ll just have to charge the ‘no show’ to your credit card, sir!”

I decided not to make the reservation… instead I phoned the Travelodge directly and spoke with a lovely woman who was really quite helpful, up to a point. First of all she assured me that there were plenty of rooms available, and that if J did show up, they would be able to give her one without an ‘official’ reservation. Secondly, she would be sure to give J a message to call me immediately. So far so good, eh? Now it gets just plain stupid. She also told me that she could not accept my credit card as payment for the room, should J show up on their doorstep, unless I could fax her my signature, and an image of both sides of the card.

Travelodge will take your ‘third party’ credit card for a reservation, and ‘hit’ it if your party doesn’t show, but their company policy is not to take a third party credit card for payment on a room actually occupied.

J did show up at the Travelodge while we were in the air on our way to Vancouver. The Travelodge had a real problem with her wanting to pay cash… and only gave her a room when she assured them that she would get in touch with me, and I would be providing a credit card number, as soon as I landed. The hotel manager, Brendan, was gracious enough to break the rules to allow me to do the ‘third party’ thing for her room…

Damn, but this is turning into a very expensive December!

Its our understanding that J will be on a flight to Pittsburgh later this afternoon… her friend in Harrisburg will be driving the 3 hours to pick her up there. I just wonder how long its going to take for her to get back to Edmonton…