Up Early to Georgia

Georgia Travelog #1
SJC Airport - Saturday, 5 Apr 2025, 5:15am

Since last night I've been humming 🎵 On a Midnight Train to Georgia 🎵. Today we're headed to Georgia, though not on a midnight train. It's a 6:30am flight. And we've been up since 4am.

We're headed out to Savannah, Georgia today. We'll visit my oldest sister and her family there for a few days, then drive up to the mountains in the northwest corner of the state for a few days of hiking. I was hoping to time the season right for warm-but-not-hot weather. ...Well, the first few days in Georgia will have highs around 80. Then it's cold and rainy. That's not really an ideal Spring Break trip.

Oh, I tried a new thing today: scheduled ride with Lyft. With us wanting to leave home at 4:45 for the airport I didn't want to deal with the risks of trying to hail a driver at that time. Uber and Lyft both have screwed me on that in previous trips. Last time I needed a ride at just 7:15am on a weekend I waited so long I gave up and asked my spouse to drive me. Unfortunately scheduled rides have been a crapshoot, too. When a colleague of mine tried one for an early flight, the scheduled driver canceled on him, and by the time he could get a new driver he arrived at the airport in time to have to run to our gate in time for boarding. Thus I was impressed when things worked smoothly with the ride I scheduled last night. A driver was assigned in time. He even arrived early and waited patiently for our pickup time. I'm not sure if Lyft has worked out the kinks since my colleague's bad experience or I just got a fortunate roll of the dice.

Rental Car Clusterfuck in Savannah

Georgia Travelog #2
Savannah, GA - Saturday, 5 Apr 2025, 7pm

We're at our hotel in Savannah, Georgia. That's the one thing that's gone right in the past few hours. Everything else....

Our flight out from California to Denver was fine. As we landed at DEN there were snow flurries with an air temperature of 26°. (Savannah was 81° at the time.) Our connecting flight was running late— though not too bad; only 40 minutes or so. The good news was that gave us extra time to eat lunch at the airport.

Our connecting flight landed late at SAV. Being 30-40 minutes late put pressure on our schedule for meeting my sister and her family for dinner. Then we got to the rental car desk next to baggage claim. O. M. G.

There were easily 30 people in line at Avis/Budget. I got to short-cut the line a bit by being an Avis Preferred member. But it was still a frustratingly long wait. Then, once I completed the contract, the agent told me to have a seat and wait for them to call my name.

"My car's not ready?"

"We'll call your name when it is."

"How long's the wait?"

"I don't know."

I went to the waiting area and saw at least 10 families already waiting for cars. I waited 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. 30 minutes. Not a single person's name was called for 30 minutes. If it takes at least 30 minutes per car and there are 10 people in front of me... I could be there all night waiting on a car! At that point I decided "Fuck it!" and used the app to cancel my reservation. I called the hotel and asked them to send their shuttle to meet us.

While waiting for the shuttle I checked the Avis app again. When it had offered me the option to cancel it didn't advise me what the cost, if any, would be. Well, 5 minutes later it showed me a bill. $475. For a car I never even saw. I called a phone agent (defo not gonna wait in that ridiculous line inside again!) who transferred me to Billing, who said that they could cancel my reservation with no charge. So right now I don't know what the outcome is going to be. Will they charge me $475 or nothing? If $475, will I be able to challenge it via my credit card company? If I challenge it, will I be block-listed by Avis/Budget and never able to rent from them again? IDFK. 🤬