I usually get to the airport in Jacksonville about 15 minutes before boarding starts when I'm flying alone (no bags to check - I do two carry-on bags). If my wife is along, probably an hour before boarding because she will bring a bag to check & worries about being late..
2 years ago on one of my trips to Vegas I told my wife she could bring along the two grandkids if she wanted. At JAX, at that time, only Delta had curbside baggage and we were on United so we had to go inside to check the bags. There was some problem with the kiosks that morning & the line was not moving at all. It was just under 45 minutes till flight when we got someone to help us & they told me we were too late to check the bags. So I told him to put them on the next flight, which they refused - "we CAN'T do that. No, you WON'T do that, there's nothing that says we can't fly domestically without the bags. Well, you won't make the flight anyway. Yes we will, we have Pre-Check and we'll easily breeze right through..." They wouldn't do anything for us so we missed the flight. There were at least 15 people yelling at them at the check-in counter who missed their flight because of their check-in problem that morning. It took TWO hours for them to rebook us on another flight - we originally were supposed to get to Vegas at 10AM and now we were going to get there at 10PM. And on the flights they rebooked us on, the two girls were on Standby! Are you kidding me? Took even longer now to rebook us again where we all had seats... The new routing was through Washington Dulles and the flight stopped in Chicago. We went back home (original flight out was at 6AM and the new one wasn't until 2PM) and when we got home I noticed that the boarding passes for the girls said IAD-ORD and my wife's & mine said IAD-LAS. I went online & found that the IAD-LAS flight didn't just stop in Chicago, it changed planes there even though it was the same flight number. So I told them to get in the car & we're going back early...took them quite awhile again to fix the tickets for the girls...the IAD-ORD flight was really late and I was afraid we'd miss the continuation of it in Chicago since we had to change planes in Chicago and they wouldn't think twice about leaving on time for the continuation if we were late getting into ORD. Luckily, the plane for the continuation was just across from where we landed and we made it.
And this was just the start of the trip. I'll try to keep this part short, but on the return, we had two cars since I spent my time gambling & my wife went elsewhere with the girls. On the way back to the airport, from the HGVC Strip location at Sahara, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw their car getting creamed by an 18-wheeler, spinning like a top in front of the truck. I got off I-15 at Flamingo & went back. They had been pushed to the shoulder by then. I expected them to need to go the hospital but they were all OK. The ten-year-old was bawling in the backseat......but it was because she couldn't find her cellphone! Only one side of the car was smashed in (driver's side) We obviously missed our flight by the time we got to the airport. Return was on American and they couldn't rebook us until the following day so I called the front desk at HGVC and asked if we could return for another night since we still had several nights remaining on our reservation. They said sure so we took a taxi back to HGVC and stayed another night in our original rooms. The AA agent told me that because we missed our flight she'd have to refare our tickets & it was going to be expensive. She went in the back room & luckily took pity on us & didn't charge me anything..The flights back the next day went fine. But the girls refused to go in the car with grandma for at least 2 or 3 months after that. And they say that they will never go to Las Vegas ever again..
And, six months after that, Budget Rent-A-Car sent a letter saying we owed them $6000 more than what they settled on with our insurance company. Our insurance said that commercial truck insurance companies never pay anything so they paid on the claim. Turns out (I found out a year later) they the trucker's insurance did pay for it; the cops on the scene said it was 100% the trucker's fault (truck decided to change lanes and clipped the rear of the rental car & threw it in front of the truck). I sent Budget a letter telling them to go to hell & they could try suing us if they wanted but they'd lose in court -- by my figures, they were overpaid by our insurance company..
