Rush to the Middle: Back to the USA!

So we have arrived back in our home country and we are all still jet lagged and overwhelmed and not sleeping and trying to fit into our new lives and feeling a bit out of step!

Our trip home was a mixture of the ridiculous and the sublime. On the sublime side, our last long haul trip in business class (in perhaps ever!) was fabulous, of course. We began with a leisurely breakfast in the business lounge and then we headed to the game room to while away some time before our flight. After that, we used the last of our riyals in the airport toy store and bought the boys some little presents for the flight, something that is so unheard of, they almost couldn't make up their minds when give this unexpected opportunity. Then we headed off to the flight itself, where the boys took advantage of every amenity the plane had to offer and charmed the flight attendants so they didn't mind helping them with whatever they needed. J at salmon three times in 16 and a half hours, E took multiple naps in the lie-flat seat, and both boys drank as many mocktails as they could. The husband and I watched some movies and relaxed which, after our harrowingly busy last few weeks in Doha, felt like a mini-vacation in the skies. We crossed the North Pole and got to see the sunset turn into the sunrise and the plane seemingly change direction in the blink of an eye, which was more impressive than I thought it would be. So we all arrived at LAX rested and refreshed and in good spirits.

In the first class lounge for breakfast, enjoying pineapple, eggs, and cheese!

Look what some lovely business class fairies left for us!
It pays to have friends in high places!

About to take off--notice the husband is already changed
into the complimentary pajamas!

Which was lucky, since the ridiculousness was about to start! See, we were allotted 9 pieces of checked luggage for our flight, but, of course, since we were moving home, we had more than that, so the husband had purchased 7 extra pieces with his many, many frequent flier miles we had with Qatar Airways. We had been told that the miles would work to get all our luggage to LA, but then we would need to pay additional fees with our domestic airline to get the 7 extra pieces on to Salt Lake. And we were happy to do that, but the folks in Doha couldn't figure out how to make the charge, so they said we could work it all out with the people in LA when we arrived after we cleared customs. So first, we waited for our bags...and waited...and waited...and waited. Our 7 extra bags (actually, 4 boxes and 3 rubbermaid bin) were the LAST pieces off the very large plane, so the wait was long. Fortunately, the switch to recheck those bags was simple, so our airline representative quickly shepherded us off to ticketing so we could work out the payment. We first went to Qatar Airways ticketing, where they wanted to charge us more than $1700 to have brought all our bags to the US. But no, we paid for over half those bags with miles, we have the receipts to prove it! So there was much calling and computer checking and wringing of hands until we were told we should instead go to the American Airlines counter and work out the payment. Fine. So off, we went, waltzing around LAX with our many carry on bags in tow. And then we repeated our story for now the 4th time (once in Doha, once with the QA person who met us at the plane, and then again with the QA ticket person). Unfortunately, the American Airlines person couldn't do anything for us either, since our bags had already been checked through to SLC and put back into the baggage system, so she sent us on our way and said she didn't think we needed to pay anything additional. We knew this was wrong but we had been trying to pay this fee for hours now and weren't going to argue.

After security, we headed to the American Airlines lounge (a perk of the husband's status and our business class tickets) for a little more sublime (they had manapua, Hawaii friends! It was so onolicious!) and a rest before our next flight, which was a shuttle ride away. Once we arrived there, we heard our name called and an American Airlines rep came to tell us we needed to resolve the payment issue and could one of us please come with her. Of course we could! The husband went off to pay...and was gone a very long time. Eventually, I looked all over and tracked him down, only to see him yelling into a phone. After even more time, he returned, very upset, since now the One World Alliance rep was asking for more than $2000 for having flown the bags to LA and once again he had to explain that those bags were already paid for, at which point he got a little, umm, heated! In the end, the lovely American Airlines woman who was there with us talked it all through with everyone involved, and came up a few minutes later to say we owed a grand total of $250, exactly what we had anticipated. She was also profusely apologetic about everything on behalf of all the airlines involved, but I told her she shouldn't apologize; she was the only one who was able to make anything happen and actually take the correct amount for the correct bags from us! Gold star for her!

As for the flight from LAX to SLC, I couldn't tell you much about it, beyond the fact that we had a trainee flight attendant with a passive aggressive trainer who was so annoying I tuned her out during pre-flight check and went promptly to sleep, only to wake up when we had landed in SLC. Apparently, the husband and E did exactly the same thing, while J played on the iPad for the entire flight. We then found our relatives and all our bags and ferried them to the curb, loaded the various vehicles that were there for us, and settled in for the last leg, the car trip home. By the time we arrived, we had been traveling for more than 29 hours.