It is a real pain, alright. An outrage really, if either of us was disposed to get outraged over events we can’t change. Nd that’s twice in the last year! Do you remember us waiting during dinner in Padua to find out if we had a flight home or not? I still can’t believe that our return flight was cancelled without us being notified of it,

Huh. That’s an interesting idea, finding a couple of disposable suitcases at a thrift store. That might be worth a look. Luggage fees won’t be an issue here though, because surprisingly enough both Alaska and British Airways allegedly treat a boxed bicycle as a normal piece of luggage.

Scott you have a great knack for keeping it interesting. Another bike packing option is to use a large "airline legal" soft sided suitcase that are often available cheaply in second hand stores. The benefit is they can be part of your baggage allotment whereas as Andrea points out - a boxed bike can often have an additional bag charge. However, tossing them at the destination may be more difficult than a box. Congrats on the birthday ride - you are an inspiration.

Gorgeous sky!

We will be making new boxes in Bangkok next month, and have decided we need to make them slightly bigger. So the original 30x20x12” dimensions are going to expand a bit and hope the gate agents don’t measure them, because that puts them over the 72 lineal inches limit on regular checked luggage. I must say we’ve never had anybody measure them, only weigh them, but the suspense is real.

I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed the date, either. That's a real pain. But I'm glad you've found an acceptable solution. I hope there are no hitches making the ferry to Mallorca.

We seem to both suffer from the "No one gets my sense of humour thing. " We actually feel inspired by your lead on this birdwatching while cycling, and are seriously enjoying our new hobby/interest/obsession. It was lovely to get your funny shout out, and we took it as a bit of a cheeky poke. What a pain, by the way, about your flight hassles. Thanks for posting about it. We will carefully review our flights to Spain when we get home.

I didn’t take it this way, in spite of my poor attempt at humor - no one ever knows when I’m joking, it seems. I’m really enjoying following along with this new interest, and learning something. I’m pretty sure if I’m ever lucky enough to see a Yucatan jay, I’ll recognize it right off.

That's dog dirty of Britsh Airways to not agree to rebook you after you discovered the two day error. That's not a reasonable amount of time in anyone's book! There's legal, and then there's plain nuts!

It's a good thing this isn't your first rodeo, and you can think on your feet.

I think I remember this story. Congratulations on noticing in time! We should start having you review all of our schedule changes to make sure we’re not missing something.

Me too. I’m sure I was misled by seeing the arrival date listed as +1 day and didn’t notice the days themselves. That’s very misleading.

The one good thing in this mess is that I did notice eventually. Think what it would be to arrive in LA thinking we were leaving in a few hours only to discover this!

Thanks for the encouragement, Ben. Once this idea occurred to us it felt like the obvious solution. Should work out fine.

I am obsessive about checking any flight changes we inevitably receive, but I am quite sure I would have missed that. So thank you for posting as it is one more thing that we might encounter and now I will know to look. I am outraged on your behalf. I have never heard of flight changes involving multiple days. Cardboard boxes are a great solution for the shipping problem though!

In January, 2021 I booked a flight to Paris for September- we were still in the throes of COVID but the vaccine data was very promising and I figured that soon we'd all be vaccinated and traveling again. My booking connected through Philly but American changed my ticket to a connection thru New York. Only when I looked closely did I see that I flew from Raleigh into LaGuardia, and flew out of JFK to Paris!! I had a long convo with American representative explaining that ground transport between NYC airports with a bicycle was a no-go. She countered that there were few options due to the general reduction in international flights during COVID. She was very nice and eventually was able to book me through Dallas - it was a couple of days later than my original booking but my plans were still flexible at that point. And I earned more miles!

No gauntlet throwing here, Scott. We are shamelessly copying your excellent lead, and hoping to modestly accumulate a respectable bird count by year's end. Your early numbers already outpace us by easily double, so it is a good thing we are not in a competition.