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A problematic flight
So far during my vacation I've been crossing the borders of six different countries, and I have been pretty suprised about how easy every bordercrossing have been. But then when I had a flight from Washington DC to San José in Costa Rica I had my first big problem.
First of all I had to take a taxi to the airport cause the metro wasn't running that early in the morning, and fortunately I wanted to make sure I was at check-in at least two hours before my departure.
At check-in with Spirit Airlines my first problem was that I had 10 kilo overweight in my biggest bag. Hmmmm. Well, there wasn't really anything to do about that, so I had to pay 50 dollars in an extra fee. But that wasn't the problem.
The lady behind the desk then asked me if I had a ticket out of Costa Rica again. I told her that I was taking a bus from Costa Rica to Panama, and I didn't have the ticket, and her respond was that I then couldn't get on the plane. At 5.30 in the morning that's a bad message to get, and though I was smiling at the situation it wasn't a happy smile.
She sent her supervisor over to talk to me, but miss Supervisor apparently had a far worse morning than I did, cause she was deadserious and pretty arrogant. She repeated several times that I wouldn't get on the plane without a better ticket out of Costa Rica, and even the fact that I had a ticket from Los Angeles back to Denmark a few months later, didn't help. They were apparently not convinced that I wouldn't stay in Costa Rica until I bought another ticket with their company; Spirit Airlines.
I accepted to buy a ticket and asked for the cheapest one available for the next two months out of Costa Rica. The check-in lady answered 'which date?'. I told her I just wanted the cheapest one, cause I wasn't going to use it anyway, and then she got mad with me again. She was a check-in, not a ticket office, so I had to call their booking phone if I wanted help. As I only had my danish phone and I knew it would be expensive I asked to use their phone. Again I was rejected (Spirit Air(dec)lines), and I finally went outside and called from my danish phone.
They helped me find a ticket from Costa Rica to Florida and it costed me 150 dollars, so I was satisfied. Since then I have found several cheaper tickets though by browsing Spirit Airlines' own website, but the good thing is that I've actually found a way to use the ticket. :-)
Anyway, I got through check-in, right to the gate for boarding and finally sat my feet in San José, Costa Rica. I guess it is happening sometimes that you need a ticket out of the country, and I'm gonna try to have that when I cross the next border. First I need to experience a few different beaches in Costa Rica. More of that later.
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