Lowering My Expectations

I believe I have reached a point where I now expect that if a company can mess things up, they will.

When we returned from Florida a few weeks ago, I was denied a boarding pass on our flight, because I was traveling with my mother-in-law whose name is the same as mine.  My husband had dutifully entered our different middle initials when he booked the flight, but either the middle initials got dropped or somehow changed so that we had the same middle initial.  In any event, US Air would not give me a boarding pass even though we were both present at the counter with our passports that clearly showed different birth dates and different middle initials.  They claimed there was no way for them to fix the problem.  Please note:  there is apparently no room for common sense here.

Because my mother-in-law is 92 and was traveling in a wheelchair, I needed to be on the same flight with her.  She required my assistance in the bathroom.  We finally bought me a new one-way ticket under my first and middle names, since we were out of time to solve the problem and still make the flight.

Weeks have passed and the situation is still not resolved.  The flights were booked through Orbitz.  They insist that my husband correctly entered our initials and that this information was passed on electronically, so that US Air should have had the correct information.  They say if the names and initials had been identical, a ticket would not even have been issued.  US Air refuses to accept responsibility.  They insist that the middle initials were the same.  We had flown down to Florida on Delta.  Apparently Delta "subcontracted" us to US Air for the return flight.  Delta had indicated that they had to take the space out from between our first names and initials in order to override the problem and issue the boarding passes on the way down.  US Air insisted that they couldn't do that.

So...we are now trying to get someone to give us a refund.  You can guess how that is going.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw my dentist.  We agreed that I needed a crown on one of my teeth and that I should proceed with trying to get prior approval from the insurance company.  I told him this was going to result in a problem.  A couple of years ago, the insurance company got mixed up and thought that I had a crown on tooth #19 when it was, in fact, my husband who had the crown on that tooth.  The dentist put a lot of effort into straightening the mess out.  Now that I do need a crown on #19, I figured it would be another hassle.  Sure enough, today I got a denial on payment for the crown, because I already had one according to their records.  This actually didn't upset me.  I fully expected it.

So, I guess I have reached a point where I expect companies to be inept.  From here on out, I will be pleasantly surprised by competency...and that is a sad commentary on our society.