As I wrote a few weeks ago, Bonnie and I were in New Orleans when Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. We didn\u2019t feel it at all in the Crescent City, which was 300 miles west of where the eye of the storm hit the mainland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following Sunday we flew to Atlanta, so as to continue our \u201cplay-cation\u201d at Harrah\u2019s Cherokee in North Carolina. When we fly from Vegas, we fly into Asheville — which is about one hour away from Cherokee. Although there are direct flights from Las Vegas to Atlanta, it\u2019s a three-hour drive from Atlanta to Cherokee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From New Orleans, however, flights to Asheville require plane changes and many hours. The flight into Atlanta took about an hour and a half, so that\u2019s what we signed up for. Less flight time, and more drive time. We flew Spirit Airlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This turned out to be a fortunate play. Helene wreaked havoc on Asheville, to the surprise of essentially everybody. Had we planned to fly into Asheville, our flight would have been cancelled because the airport was closed for a few days while repairs were being made. Several weeks later, repairs are still being made to parts of Asheville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the flight, Bonnie somehow left her iPhone on the seat next to her when she left the plane. We didn\u2019t discover this until we were in Cherokee — three hours away. The \u201cFind My Phone\u201d app said her phone was in the Atlanta airport (ATL), Concourse D. This, of course, was good news. It was likely in Spirit Airlines lost and found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We called Spirit, hoping to make arrangements for them to ship the phone to our home. I was prepared to pay whatever the shipping charge would be. This has to be a fairly common occurrence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I couldn\u2019t get through on the phone. The message said my wait was expected to be in excess of 90 minutes. I set it to speaker phone and put it next to me while I played video poker. Two hours later they still said the wait was expected to be in excess of 90 minutes. I finally left my number. They said they would call me back when they could. Since we were still in the aftermath of the hurricane, with airports still closed and Hurricane Milton approaching, it was understandable that the airline\u2019s phone system was swamped. But they never returned my call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On their app, they had a place where you could file a lost and found report. I did this. I also filed a lost and found report online for the Atlanta airport just in case Bonnie, perhaps, left her phone in a bathroom or somewhere after she departed the plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our scheduled flight home left ATL on a Sunday at about 8 a.m. The lost and found office is open 8 a.m. \u2013 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. My \u201cplan\u201d was to talk to somebody and agree to pay them $200 to be at the office on Sunday morning about 6 a.m. That is much cheaper than buying a new phone and, for the right person, a $200 bonus was something worth changing their schedule for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But talking to somebody in lost and found proved impossible. Spirit has a chat feature in their app, but every person I chatted with, including at the supervisor level, followed the company line. Wait for the lost and found to respond to your request. They would not give me a direct number to the Spirit lost and found at ATL or the Spirit executive offices at ATL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lost and found sent me an email saying they hadn\u2019t located Bonnie\u2019s phone yet but were still looking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was considering renting a car. It\u2019s a long drive, and I didn\u2019t want to spend my vacation that way, but, again, it would be cheaper than buying a new phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Out of the blue, another possible solution arose. A gambling friend who happened to be in Cherokee at the same time mentioned that girlfriend was flying into ATL from Tampa Thursday night and then driving to Cherokee. I asked if she was the helpful sort who might be willing to check the Spirit lost and found while she was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cProbably,\u201d I was told, and he gave me her phone number. Through talking and texting, I gave \u201cMary\u201d a description of the phone, my lost and found claim number, and the code that would unlock the phone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked her if she had a phone charging cord that would work on an iPhone 13. She did, but it was at home. She now had a newer iPhone which requires a different charge cord. By the time I called she was already at the Tampa airport. \u201cOkay,\u201d I told Mary. \u201cGive it your best shot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few hours later, Mary sent me a text with a picture of Bonnie\u2019s phone on it. There was a distinctive mark on her case that I recognized. \u201cYes,\u201d I told her. \u201cThat\u2019s Bonnie\u2019s phone.\u201d Turned out she didn\u2019t need to show ID or have the claim number or see if she could open it. They just gave it to her. That strikes me as irresponsible, but Bonnie and I benefited from it this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDisasters\u201d don\u2019t always work out okay. And after listening to all the horror stories of people\u2019s houses being washed away in nearby Asheville, the possible loss of Bonnie\u2019s phone clearly wasn\u2019t a disaster at all. But it felt like one at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was not at all pleased with Spirit\u2019s system for dealing with customer complaints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I wrote a few weeks ago, Bonnie and I were in New Orleans when Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. We didn\u2019t feel it at all in the Crescent City, which was 300 miles west of where the eye of the storm hit the mainland. The following Sunday we flew to Atlanta, so as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[601,557],"tags":[561,585],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868095,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868094\/revisions\/868095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}