Introduction
We were flying from Sydney to Queenstown and were running late to the airport. We were 2:30 hrs away from our flight departure, and the ride to the airport would take at least 30 minutes. We we took a taxi instead of paying the 2.2X UberX surge. Anyway, when we got to the airport, we still had 2 hours before our departure; however, since we were flying Virgin Australia internationally, we needed to be checked in 1:30 hrs beforehand. The line for economy was about 30 feet long and wrapped 4 rows deep. GULP!
It had been a long time since I flew international coach, so I underestimated how long those checkin lines were. Business and premium economy had no one in line. Looking back, I should have just tried to line up in one of those lines to see if I could play dumb and see if my Virgin America Gold status qualified me to use those lines (it wouldn’t btw._ I know some of you will be upset with me for saying that, but I saw people cutting the line in the other direction cuz they couldn’t figure out where the line started (really pissed me off.) It took about 25 minutes to get to the front of the line because mid-way through, Virgin Australia decided to move some economy staff to the business class lines. The good thing they did was they called out, “Passengers flying to Auckland who are in queue, please raise your hands and move to the front of the line.” So that was nice of them to help people who were late to the airport. We were 3 people from the front when they made that announcement for the Queenstown flight.
Print out your itineraries!
Anyway, back to my story, one of the worst and most frustrating things when waiting in line is seeing people at the counter take sooooo long. We saw one couple who had 3 bags who took way too long. Another lady also took way too long. Another couple passed their phone to the counter rep to talk to someone on the phone. I ccouldn’t hear why, but I think I have a good guess. When we checked in, which took all of 2 minutes, the rep asked us, “Do you have your itinerary to exit New Zealand?” Because we were on a one-way ticket to Queenstown, they didn’t know if I had a flight leaving New Zealand, so I showed her my printout of my flight out of Auckland. This also happened to me another time in the past when I was flying into Vietnam on a one-way, and they needed to know my outbound flight. Thus, you should always print out all FLIGHT itineraries instead of relying on your phone to save you any stress at the airport.
Have to do the same thing many times for Costa Rica.