The DL 777-200LR: In Los Angeles, CA (LAX)

So after getting bumped, it was time to get off the natural high and find a way home. I had my passport, buy my colleague had lost his documents on a recent trip and has no documents for international travel. Thus connecting via another country was out of the question today.

We journeyed back to the Presidents Club so we can figure this out. It was now 11:35a and there was a flight at 12:05p. We quickly listed for it and got checked in very quickly. It was all to no avail as there were no open seats and once again we were bumped; good effort though.

The next one was at 2:45p and then again at 4:45p. After that it was a red eye at 12:10a or a 3:45p to Newark, NJ (EWR) which would mean a hotel night or a 8:55p which would arrive at 5:47a and then we could connect to Houston on the 7:30a. All this sounded tiring so we started to look for other options.

I checked via Seattle, WA (SEA); San Diego, CA (SAN); Ontario, CA (ONT); John Wayne, CA (SNA) and San Francisco, CA (SAN), but everything was either full, bad timing or not enough time to make it.

I then checked American Airlines (AA) to Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX (DFW) and they had room on a 1:25p to DFW, but to IAH was a bit full; overbooked actually. It was now 12:25p and we would still need to buy tickets and walk two terminals over. All that before 12:55p the latest.

We decided to give it a try anyways since there were no other options until the Continental flight at 2:45p. Besides they (AA) had a 2:00p 757 to DFW as well that we could try for and then take American Eagle from DFW to Houston-Hobby, TX (HOU).

We went downstairs and got our tickets and at 12:55p quickly headed for Terminal 4. Once there we looked for a lead agent and then headed to the First Class check-in area as everywhere else had customers who were checking in for flights later than ours that day.

The agent was very sweet and tried to check us in and it worked! One snag, which I knew would happen anyways is that we were tagged for secondary screening :-(. We raced upstairs and showed our credentials and went through the screening without any major incidents.

We then ran to the gate at the end of the concourse of course. The agent there then cleared us to two aisle seats with the middle open.