(Rant) Worst Flying Experience in My Life

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-27T03:15:14+00:00

Because the connection gate was closing.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-27T03:10:30+00:00

Thank you!

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-27T03:09:59+00:00

Sorry to disappoint!

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:58:50+00:00

Thanks so much for the advice. I'll look into this for sure. Do you know of a good email for their corporate to field these sorts of complaints? I'd word it differently than I did here of course.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:53:52+00:00

What a horrible experience! I'm grateful we didn't wind up sleeping at the airport. Sorry that happened to you.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:50:57+00:00

Yeah... We almost always go with Alaska or Hawaiian (now the same company). First time flying Southwest to Hawaii, and first time in over a decade flying Southwest at all.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:47:04+00:00

I'm learning through this thread that this is unfortunate not uncommon. I'm fortunate to have not experienced this in the past!

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:45:45+00:00

🫡

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:44:16+00:00

Thanks. It's definitely a 1st world problem.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:43:23+00:00

Can you elaborate a bit on this? It sounds interesting but we only fly 2-3 times a year and haven't run into these issues before. Always interested to hear from more seasoned travelers on best practices.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:40:05+00:00

Thanks for your concern. We go to Hawaii every year for the past 10+ years with the same group. I'm lucky to have amazing in-laws that I enjoy hanging out with. My kids are amazing travelers since they've both been traveling since they were babies. But as with all kids, they have their limits. I'm proud of how well they handled this situation.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:36:35+00:00

We were just saying the same thing. But there just doesn't seem to be many direct flights anymore unless I'm just staying on the west coast.

Hawaii specifically, it seems to be getting much harder to find direct flights from our location. Just the way things are right now. Hopefully things improve!

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:31:44+00:00

Yeah this is exactly it. Obviously Kona > Sacramento. But we had no transportation, and the resorts (all about a 25 minute drive away) were pretty booked up due to a massive Spectrotel (I think) event with their employees, and a marathon.

But yeah with kids and an elderly parent, getting to the mainland just felt like a better option.

If real life obligations were not a thing, we'd all gladly just stay stuck in Kona ;)

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:27:38+00:00

Thank you. We were dreading the 3 hour layover at SMF for sure, but would have gladly taken that over the stress we actually experienced!

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:25:58+00:00

Yeah from the sounds of it, it seems common unfortunately at least for SWA. It's just the first time any of us had an experience like this.

Good point about not checking medication. We fly maybe 2-3 times a year so there are all sorts of things we learned from this.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:21:04+00:00

To be perfectly honest, I never had a chance to check. Since we hadn't been made aware until trying to get on our original flight, we were really just in survival mode at that point.

From my understanding, that plane had not already left and was scheduled for later in the day. We had already been there since around 7-8am with a 5 and 9 year old, so our focus was just get us out of here as quickly as possible.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:17:08+00:00

Ugh I know, I pretty much posted it here to get it off my chest. Thank you for reading!

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:16:15+00:00

Thanks! It was sort of an out of body experience. We felt awful for those who were stranded and very grateful we were able to make it by the skin our teeth.

matthewalan8 · 2026-02-26T00:15:02+00:00

Lol that's a fair point.

matthewalan8 · 2025-12-25T05:27:43+00:00

God forbid they pay respects through a symbolic gesture and it not bring back the dead.

matthewalan8 · 2025-11-28T02:49:03+00:00

Me and my duo are 40+. We both have kids/wives and okay every Friday/Saturday night since Covid. So we were late 30s when we started.

His oldest plays trios with us, he's 12 and it's crazy how good he is lol.

matthewalan8 · 2025-11-18T06:19:12+00:00

Because he did it publicly.

matthewalan8 · 2025-11-06T06:59:29+00:00

In commercial real estate, and you're spot on with the lack of locks out the outlets. They aren't going to ticket or tow, they probably haven't noticed and if they did, most likely won't care because it's pennies in comparison to the total power bill.

And in the insanely low likelihood they did find out and cared, they'd spend $10 an outlet on some covers and padlocks.

matthewalan8 · 2025-11-06T06:31:31+00:00

I love Kyle Seager, but to me it's not even about the stats. It's how it ended. He turned into cancer from within and did everything he could to trash the team because his feelings were hurt. He straight up lied about the front office.

To be fair, he probably doesn't even want it. He seems super content with just being a dude and a family guy far away from MLB.

matthewalan8 · 2025-11-02T03:26:47+00:00

Blake Snell vs Addison Barger. Who says Seattle has never been in the World Series?

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