It was a great trip but the logistics of it was wearing.
Changing covid restrictions:
-At first the Faroe Islands would let vaccinated travelers in but Denmark (the only country operating flights there at the time) wouldn't let foreigners transit Denmark to get there.
-There are no flights from DTW to CPH so we would have to transit somewhere and those rules were all over the place. For example Switzerland would let you transit from Denmark to the US but not from the US to Denmark. It got a little better for a short time but restrictions are coming back down given Delta.
-Differing COVID test requirements for various countries involved (As an aside it is about 42x easier to get a travel COVID test in Europe than the US)
-Apparently some airlines (*cough* SAS *cough*) use a popup to tell you their cabin baggage policy has changed due to COVID. If you happen to use a popup blocker you will never know about the change until you get to your gate.
-'Which Lounge is Open' roulette. Apps and websites may not reflect the reality of that day.
Inexperienced travelers and employees:
-For years I have booked award flights and then made multiple changes when better routings randomly appear up until our flight departs. This was the worst experience I've ever had doing that due to the lack of United employee knowledge. To cap that off I had a United agent cancel my flights home on me while trying to make a change. Since they were partner award flights that were no longer available our flight home turned into CPH-ZRH-IAD-EWR-DTW despite 6 hours on the phone and multiple agents and supervisors.
-The traveling population has definitely gotten dumber and its not limited to Americans. I feel for the frontline airline employees out there
Lots of other little things went wrong too: Issue picking up the rental car, the self service bag check-in broke half way through our check-in process so I got to wait for 35min while they sorted out our half checked-in luggage. Thankfully nothing catastrophic for the trip but geeze was this a PITA
Changing covid restrictions:
-At first the Faroe Islands would let vaccinated travelers in but Denmark (the only country operating flights there at the time) wouldn't let foreigners transit Denmark to get there.
-There are no flights from DTW to CPH so we would have to transit somewhere and those rules were all over the place. For example Switzerland would let you transit from Denmark to the US but not from the US to Denmark. It got a little better for a short time but restrictions are coming back down given Delta.
-Differing COVID test requirements for various countries involved (As an aside it is about 42x easier to get a travel COVID test in Europe than the US)
-Apparently some airlines (*cough* SAS *cough*) use a popup to tell you their cabin baggage policy has changed due to COVID. If you happen to use a popup blocker you will never know about the change until you get to your gate.
-'Which Lounge is Open' roulette. Apps and websites may not reflect the reality of that day.
Inexperienced travelers and employees:
-For years I have booked award flights and then made multiple changes when better routings randomly appear up until our flight departs. This was the worst experience I've ever had doing that due to the lack of United employee knowledge. To cap that off I had a United agent cancel my flights home on me while trying to make a change. Since they were partner award flights that were no longer available our flight home turned into CPH-ZRH-IAD-EWR-DTW despite 6 hours on the phone and multiple agents and supervisors.
-The traveling population has definitely gotten dumber and its not limited to Americans. I feel for the frontline airline employees out there
Lots of other little things went wrong too: Issue picking up the rental car, the self service bag check-in broke half way through our check-in process so I got to wait for 35min while they sorted out our half checked-in luggage. Thankfully nothing catastrophic for the trip but geeze was this a PITA
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