Jimster
TUG Member
In the past, I have always been a critic of Iberia because of their small seats and their lack of video screen in seatbacks, but this time I want to give them credit. Although they still lack video screens in seatbacks, on all trips to and from Gran Canary I had no one sitting beside me. On the return flight, I had 4 seats in the middle so I could lie down and sleep. Boy, did that make the trip more enjoyable in coach!
But the real basis for my accolade concerns what happened to my daughter. The night before we were to return from Madrid, my daughter had her passport lost/stolen. Now, I am familiar with other people's horror stories about this. Often they have to stay longer, get new tickets, etc and generally it costs a lot of time and money. Well, we made the decision to go to the airport without the passport. We did fill out a police report in advance. We also called the American Embassy but they were ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY, AND COMPLETELY WORTHLESS. They said come in on MONDAY (our flight left SUNDAY). In any case,we went to the Iberia check in desk and talked to a young man there who then called a special represesentative down to meet with us. He was very nice and within 2 minutes had a copy of my daughters passport and picture on his hand held video phone. He then walked us through the several security stops to get on the plane. He also called ahead to Chicago to deal with immigration and passport control here. While we had to stop at passport control, it only took 2 or 3 minutes. To top it off, my wife was flying back the same day on an award ticket as well but with a different itinerary- she was routed through Boston 2 hours later and we were routed directly to Chicago. The check in clerk also managed to get that ticket changed so we could all fly home together. In case you are wondering why we had different itineraries it is because my wife decided to come at the last minute and we were all on award tickets-a savings of about $5K. We also stayed at the Westin Palace in Madrid and they were very helpful too. So despite a rather sleepless night- it all worked out fine thanks to Iberia- I even got a nice long nap on the way home.
But the real basis for my accolade concerns what happened to my daughter. The night before we were to return from Madrid, my daughter had her passport lost/stolen. Now, I am familiar with other people's horror stories about this. Often they have to stay longer, get new tickets, etc and generally it costs a lot of time and money. Well, we made the decision to go to the airport without the passport. We did fill out a police report in advance. We also called the American Embassy but they were ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY, AND COMPLETELY WORTHLESS. They said come in on MONDAY (our flight left SUNDAY). In any case,we went to the Iberia check in desk and talked to a young man there who then called a special represesentative down to meet with us. He was very nice and within 2 minutes had a copy of my daughters passport and picture on his hand held video phone. He then walked us through the several security stops to get on the plane. He also called ahead to Chicago to deal with immigration and passport control here. While we had to stop at passport control, it only took 2 or 3 minutes. To top it off, my wife was flying back the same day on an award ticket as well but with a different itinerary- she was routed through Boston 2 hours later and we were routed directly to Chicago. The check in clerk also managed to get that ticket changed so we could all fly home together. In case you are wondering why we had different itineraries it is because my wife decided to come at the last minute and we were all on award tickets-a savings of about $5K. We also stayed at the Westin Palace in Madrid and they were very helpful too. So despite a rather sleepless night- it all worked out fine thanks to Iberia- I even got a nice long nap on the way home.