Fuck The System! part 1

FUCK THE SYSTEM

I booked a flight.
A flight to Buenos Aires, with a wee bit of a detour.
My aunt and her hubby were going to hibernate in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico from November to May (as you do). So, my auntie said, why don’t you come and stay for a bit if you’re going to be around our neck of the woods anyway (or, in this case, on their turquoise turf). “What a good idea!” I thought.

So I booked one flight from Wellington to Los Angeles (LA), another from LA to Puerta Vallarta (PVR) and a final flight from PVR to Buenos Aires (BA). This final flight goes to Mexico City first, then connects to a direct flight to Buenos Aires.

Sadly due to circumstances my aunt has had to change her plans and will not be able to be in PVR after all, so I will visit them in Santa Cruz instead. Santa Cruz is situated just below San Francisco, and to be fair, San Fran is a place I have always wanted to visit someday anyway.

So… All that needs to be done is book an extra return flight between LA – San Francisco, change the flight LA - PVR to a flight from LA to Mexico City, and cancel the first bit from PVR to Mexico City, right?

Ideally we would live in an ideal world. Unfortunately we are not so fortunate. We live in a world run by The System. Each tiny little aspect of organising that seems to even remotely involve some sort of process has a System in place. In this case: the flight. The first leg cannot be cancelled, because then I am automatically registered as a “no show” in The System. And The System, The System is just not set up for such drastic alterations to a trip.

Stubborn as I am, I thought: surely there will be a way to let this omniscient, flawless System know four months in advance that a person will hop onto the plane in the stopover location, rather than first be on a connecting flight to that location? Except this isn’t the script in the Terminator. This System doesn’t yet have a brain. There is no way to delete the first trip, not by letting a person of flesh and blood know who can then manually alter the data, or put a reminder in place to “un”cancel the second part of the trip, or notify the airline staff via email that this is going to happen to this flight.

I argued in English with the booking site via Skype, I argued in Spanish with the airline via chat, both argued back in Gibberish giving me the same vacuous reply. “The System does not allow to only cancel a segment of the trip, if we do that, it automatically cancels the rest of the trip”. "It’s The System’s fault, The System won’t allow it, sorry. Oh, and have a nice day!"

So. I have succumbed, and decided I’ll just have to add a weekend in Puerta Vallarta to the itinerary. Am sure my System can handle that, as well as find me a Cool CouchSurf Couch to Crash on.