Hi, my name is Bob (Bastard Operated Bot). I am a robot built to be a non-understanding asshole. If you give me input trying to tell me you have an electronic visa, i will discard the information and inform you that you are wrong and that you will have to buy a brand new round trip ticket because I will not let you fly with your 1 way ticket.

Fucking Bob.

Ok here’s the skinny on this… I had an “eVisa” granting me a 1 year visa into New Zealand. It allows me to come and go as I please during that time. The eVisa simply says that I need to show it to the customs person in New Zealand and that I will be granted entry to the country (well assuming they don’t find all the Mexican Smack I have in the hidden compartment of my luggage).

So I showed up to the airport with my passport, but it did not have a “stamped visa” in it saying I can go to New Zealand. Well of course I don’t silly Bob, I won’t get the stamp until I arrive in New Zealand!!! Well that just did not jive with Bob and I did not have a piece of paper that would satisfy him so he gave me 3 choices:

1) Leave now and find a way to get a Visa (since he did not believe in the existence of the Electronic Visa, even when I pulled it up on my phone).
2) Buy a return ticket home (since he said that NOBODY will fly me to New Zealand unless I have a stamped visa in advance). 3) Take my first connecting flight to Los Angelas and fight with the people there like I was with him.

I choose option 3. However choosing that Bob had to make sure that he fucked me over in an uncomfortable way (like in the back of a Volkswagen). So he changed my ticket to a 1 way flight to LAX, so that I would have to get my luggage and haul it across LAX, and then go through the checkin process again in a short period of time, all the while hoping that the next airline didn’t have “a Bob” working for them.

Option 3 of this choiceless choose your own adventure story:

I fly to California and then make a crazy fast run out of the plane to find my luggage. Of course it took it’s sweet time showing up, but eventually I had luggage. So I then needed to go and check my bags back in… To do that I asked some people and they told me I could take the “A Bus” to get to Air Pacific… However that bus just left so it would take awhile, and I would be better off just walking. At this point I was cool with that since my luggage had wheels, so I took off in the direction I was pointed being informed that it was only a 10 minute walk.

Well the lady had told me that it was just a horseshoe shape and to just walk to the end. Well I did that, and my arms built for typing were about to fall off when I noticed that the airport seemed to go on forever, but nothing looked like the place i needed to be. So after way way longer than 10 minutes I hopped on the “A Bus” and it proceeded to drive me another 20 feet backwards from the way I came, before stopping again and announcing the airline I was looking for was at that stop. So I laughed and got off only to then still only see an arrivals section and luggage pickup.

Talked to some more random strangers and was informed that I needed to take the stairs up to the to the top because the bottom was just for arrivals and departures were up top. Now I looked around for an elevator but on not finding one I just said screw it, and huffed it up the stairs.

Unfortunately the wheels on the luggage were not skilled enough to make it up these big stairs so I had to lift each bag and set it on the next stair up. I got to the top and was so bloody tired, but then I went and asked the person at the top how far it was to the airline checkin that I needed to go and they said… waaaaaaaaaaaay down towards the end, then hook a right and keep walking until u see it on the right. :sigh:

So I got to Air Pacific and I showed them my eVisa and they said that they couldn’t find it in the computer, BUT they believed me, so they booked me another visa right there, as well as boarding passes for there and for Fiji so I didn’t have to argue with them when I got there.

So I got to my gate just as it was boarding and then flew for 11 hours to Fiji. Now I was expecting to say that an 11 hour flight was the worst thing in the world, however on a 747 it isn’t that bad. After we all sat down in our assigned seats we waited till the plane was boarded and then everybody just moved seats. I took a seat behind the one I had so that I could take the one I was in and tilt it way forward and then I could tilt the one behind me way back because the person behind me had moved over one spot.

Ok, it still sucked sitting on the plane that long, but they give you free blankets you can keep / free face masks that block out the light / headphones with your own tv / free alcohol (yes, on international flights you don’t have to be first class to get that free) etc…

We got into Fiji (which was very beautiful BTW), and I instantly jumped into a long line to check back in for my connecting flight. Getting past that and the metal detectors (hey, I didn’t have to remove my shoes, woohoo) and I was then chilling out waiting 3+ hours for the next flight and I decided to buy some juice. I grabbed a small thing of pineapple juice and another beverage called “just juice”. I went up and was informed it was $6 FJD. I didn’t have that, so she informed me it was also 6 Euros, and then I said it was american currency and I could just go exchange it for FJD, but she said that they accept USD and that it was $6. Now I know for a fact that they were screwing people over on that. I was able to rationalize the $6 on the juice, however I may not have known the value of a Fiji dollar, but I do know the value of a Euro and if it was 6 euros it would have been just over $9.50 in USD. So I guess I was glad I wasn’t paying with Euros. I have since done the conversion and 6 FJD is $4 USD.

Another 3 hours on a plane and I was in Auckland. This plane wasn’t a 747, but I had the original seat I booked which was directly behind business class and had a massive amount of leg room!!!!!!!!!!!! The breakfast they provided on that flight was actually pretty good as well. So my last 2 flights were Air Pacific and I would recommend them to everybody. However if you are going to fly on United I would warn you that if “electronic tickets are not available” for the flight and you have to get paper tickets and check in with somebody at a counter, that you should look for another airline and save yourself the stress.

I mean I get it. If Bob had booked my flight all the way to NZ and then I got there and they sent me home, United airlines would have had to pay for my return trip home and then it would have been his fault. However knowing this didn’t mean shit to me because I had an approved visa and knew I was just getting dicked over, and was worried that I would get dicked over in LAX as well.

Ok so I arrived. Will write about that in another post.