The Quest for #50
Hello again ,
It has been a few months since I’ve been on the road but here I am sitting in Frankfurt airport waiting for my next flight to Belfast to meet Andi Tanzer .
Most of you already know I’m getting old this year and I turn 50 in October and one of the goals I had set for myself was to play hockey in 50 countries before I actually turn 50 . It took a lot of deciding because this had to be something special . I’ve never played in Russia before and that would have been amazing but getting there isn’t currently easy so that wasn’t going to work . Then I thought about playing in The Netherlands which is where this adventure began and I almost had it planned but the tournament team I was supposed to play on found another goalie :( thankfully I never booked that flight or I would have been kinda screwed because they didn’t even let me know until I was about to book everything ! Plus the dates were messy .
I was talking to my travelling hockey buddies to get something going and then I found out Tanzer is about to hit his 50th country also so we planned to go to England so he plays his 49th then head to Belfast so we get to 50 together and that would have been amazing but then the dates didn’t work out and we flipped the trip . So now we are going to Belfast then to Birmingham which means we get two countries to celebrate milestones in …. As if we weren’t gonna celebrate anyways right 😜
We were pretty lazy with booking everything but we sorted out flights and hotels and ice times . Now fast forward to today or last night or whatever day it is now ? Yeah …. Here is the unfortunate part of my trip so far . I booked my flight to Europe through Lufthansa which I should know better but finding connections to Belfast was painful so I took the most familiar route to Frankfurt which is a great airport .
When you travel with sports equipment you should always call the airline so I did ….. the first call was Lufthansa , the person who I spoke to said he got my sports equipment booked but couldn’t charge me for baggage ? He then said I should talk to Air Canada about it as I have a return flight with them so I called them and got my bags on the flight home sorted no problem but they said I must talk to Lufthansa to sort the first one so I called back … I got another person and they told me they see my bag booked , I again asked what the cost is and they said no charge ? Now I know Lufthansa are fickle with baggage so what’s going on ???? I then called Aer Lingus and paid for my bags and now I’m ready to fly right ? I went online and paid for a bag eventually for Lufthansa which was $75 CDN because something didn’t smell right .
Wrong wrong wrong , so bloody wrong ! When I arrived at Pearson airport I went to drop bags and the confusion began as I explained that I had called in and that’s why my bag is listed on my profile already . I also said I was told there was no charge but I still paid for a bag . Now this is the pain for goalies , my bag is heavy and large but what am I supposed to do ? Leave gear behind ??? Why don’t airlines recognise that there are goalies on the planet travelling too , cut us some slack ffs ! Well Lufthansa is not about customer service or keeping customers happy , they just love to gouge everyone and squeeze every penny out of their pockets . The woman at the counter needed me to go to another desk to discuss the situation and I did my best to put on a smile and be extra friendly but these actions mean nothing at all to Lufthansa employees . They just don’t give a damn ….. so at the end of the discussion I had to pay $300 to get my bags on the plane . I was flabbergasted to say the least and the last thing I said to the Lufthansa employee was … “ I feel as though I’ve just been robbed “ which I personally still feel as though I was .
The flight here wasn’t anything special , food sucked , woman in front of me decided immediately she needed to put her seat fully reclined even though she is in exit row with a spare seat beside her and here I am sandwiched between everyone totally cramped but hey at least my bags are on the plane . They better be on the plane .
I guess the next thing I have to do is file a complaint with Lufthansa as I know they record the conversations or at least they say they do but if anything it must be on file that I called twice to ask and book and pay for my bags . If I would have known it would be $300 one way then I would have tried to switch flights but when you’re standing at the counter ready to fly you are left with zero options except to pay and that for me is a form of entrapment. Hopefully Lufthansa agrees and makes things right but I highly doubt I will book with them again and if you’re planning to travel maybe you should consider the same .