Saturday, June 1, 2013

Small Sigh of Relief

HI all:

I am breathing a small sigh of relief.  Today, my friend booked his flight to meet me in India to help with baby pick up.  With this long and stressful hospital stay, I feel like I need to celebrate every small accomplishment.  One such accomplishment is having the flight just how I imagined it.  I believe we will have a smooth flight go to, and coming from Delhi.  So as I mentioned yesterday, I depart Newark on August 4th for my direct flight to New Delhi (14.25hrs).  My good friend will meet me there on August 16th flying the same flight.  We both are on the same returning flight leaving Delhi on Aug 23rd for our direct flight to Newark.  What's even better is that we went ahead and reserved the seats that accompany the bassinets. Although they were an extra $179, those seats are guaranteed.  I can't actually request the bassinets until the twins are actually born; however, now that we reserved those specific seats and paid for them, those seats are guaranteed (I called and confirmed with United).  If we waited until the twins were born to requests those seats, those seats could be already taken and not reserved.  So, I feel like we will have (dare I say) smooth returning flight with the twins.  I just wanted to add this tidbit today.  I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend.  Talk to you soon. 

Fred

6 comments:

  1. We flew UA82/83 and it was a great flight for our twins. The flight attendants were very friendly. The bassinet rows are 16 (which we had and also paid extra as it was Econ Plus) and 31. One problem you might encounter is the plane -- from what we were told during check in, some planes have limited bassinets, so if you don't request for it in advance, you might not get one. We were told the plane we were catching home didn't have enough bassinets, but we got lucky that one was available and the middle seat betwen us (through the kind help of United's staff) was blocked for the other baby. So one got the bassinet and the other got the middle seat. If you go to your MP acct, under Special Request, you could do the request on the webpage as well. Good luck!

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    1. Thanks for the advice. I am going to do that today. I was so focused on the seats that I didn't even bother to make a note about the actual bassinets. You named my exact flight and seat numbers. UA 82 going and 83 returning. I'm in row 16 going and 31 returning lol. Did you find that flight to be easier?

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    2. Hi Fred, yes, the flight home (UA83) was really good despite it being 15 hrs. The United ground staff and flight attendants were great. We fed our twins 3 times as they were on a 3 to 4 hr schedule. They were well-behaved and never really disturbed anyone. Make sure they have a dummy (pacifier) during take off and landing as this will help them ease the change in air pressure. Cheers!

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  2. I always arrived a little early so I could request and get a bassinet. Usually the bassinets are taken quickly. There was one time when I arrived early but they had already given out all the bassinets so I was given a whole back row of empty seats, which happened to be available. That is another option if there are any. Flight attendants have always been helpful - something about a guy taking care of a baby I guess. All the best!

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  3. I wanted to give you a little advice. We flew United to and from Mumbai. As happens sometimes, you can't be sure of the date you will fly home and need to change your reservation. In our case, when we brought home our son, we ended up flying to India early and leaving before our return flight was scheduled. Make sure if you need to make any arrangements/ flight changes with United that you call the U.S. customer service numbers. My husband first spoke to customer service in Asia and they told us there were no available seats home until our reservation date--2 weeks after we were ready to hit the road. The next day we called the U.S. number and they had us on a flight scheduled to leave the very next day. They were so accommodating, even giving us an extra bag allowance for the baby. Good luck!

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