Coming back on Sunday was all kinds of suck. United really is impressive in their ability to piss off everyone.

We had upgraded to first class using miles, in part because the car seat we had for Jackson doesn't fit very well in coach seats. Last time, Katy left substantial amounts of skin and a certain amount of blood on the plane trying to get the car seat out. The flight to DC was first class, and it was much, much easier.

Anyway, we check in the day before, and are sitting in row 2 as expected. But Sunday morning, Katy goes to print out the passes, and discovers that we are now in row 18, economy (not even economy plus). Uh, that's not good. She calls United and talks to someone, probably in India, who looks at the computer and assures her that we in fact have our seats up front, and puts a note in the file about the conversation.

But, of course, when we got to the airport, no such luck. The agent checking us in evinces zero sympathy, and in fact doesn't appear to believe we have any grounds for complaint. "You upgraded with miles, and that allows you to be downgraded." Her whole attitude was that we should expect that sort of thing to happen. She tells me there's nothing she can do and says that if I could try talking to the people at the gate.

I ask to see her supervisor, and she says no. Uh, nice. I suggest that perhaps there's a reason that United is in bankruptcy if this is how they treat their customers, to which she responds by ripping off the priority tags on our luggage. "Wow," I said, "You're even taking the tags off?" She passive-aggressively replied, "I don't see anything here that says you should have it," gesturing to her computer. "Nice service. Way to treat your customers."

So we go sit through the very long security line (we would have had access to the fast line if we still had first class seats), and TSA decides to look at our bag with the baby food in it. The thug security person tells us that there's a new policy about baby formula, which is that it must be opened before they will let it through.

Um, first of all, we've traveled with formula gazillions of times and have never heard of this. Second of all, the formula we have is in cans. If we open it, how will we carry it without spilling it? We don't have that many bottles with us, and they aren't spillproof in your backpack.

Third of all, formula goes bad after an hour. So actually, once its opened, it's totally useless. So we just told the woman to throw it away. I would have protested but at this point we're getting near boarding time, I've heard enough horror stories about how security abuses people who get uppity, and Jackson is old enough for cow's milk, so we just move on.

I now see that the TSA policy on baby formula and breast milk doesn't say anything about opening it. It does say that they can test it if they want, but the agent didn't indicate that anything would be tested -- she just instructed the other one to open everything (including all the jars of baby food).

I would seriously travel on an airline that didn't have any security. It can't be worth this amount of hassle and time.

When we get to the gate, the desk is mobbed by people who are standby. I go get a gate check tag for the stroller and ask about our seats. The agent is very apologetic and nice, explains that she can't do anything (first class is already boarding, actually, so I didn't expect she could), and suggests that we write United a letter, and that they might compensate us in some way. We should do that.

The conversation was night-and-day different from the first one. She really did understand that we were unhappy for a reason. Was it really so hard?

Anyway, we finally board, and the captain announces that he too is sorry -- they were expecting a plane of a certain size, but ended up with a much smaller one. Presumably they had a mechanical problem, rather than simply lying to all the people who bought tickets who don't have seats. So we got downgraded because there weren't as many first class seats as first class tickets. The people immediately in front of us were United 1K members, super frequent fliers that the airlines love, and they too were stuck in economy.

The thing I don't understand is, why didn't anyone tell us? If the first agent had said, "I'm sorry, we had to switch planes due to a problem, and we only have 1/3 of the first class seats we though, and we have to give them to people who actually paid the fare" I would have been grumpy, but at the situation and not the airline. As it was, I was vowing never to fly United again, and even after it turned out they didn't randomly fuck us, which the agent suggested we ought to expect, I still feel a good amount of residual bitterness.

The gentlemen in front of us also complained they were told nothing. One of them said he had 450,000 miles, and he was going to use those up without spending another dollar and then switch airlines. I certainly don't blame him. Though my guess is that United will do whatever it takes to soothe him.

Anyway, the flight itself was fine. Jackson only cried a few minutes, and slept for an hour and a half. The person in front of me reclined his seat all the way, which was annoying for both of us -- my room was greatly reduced, and every time I needed to do something with Jackson or move around, I bumped his seat. Jackson even grabbed it to shake it at one point. He didn't seem to notice that that never happened when it was up. Perhaps I should have pointed that out to him.

Traveling is always tiring and unpleasant. It seems like many of the people involved actually do their part to make it worse, not better. Does it really have to be that way?

We're going to Spain in February. Dealing with Jackson on a 5 hour flight is fine. I'm not at all looking forward to the 11 hours to Frankfurt, then the 5 hours to Barcelona. Hopefully the trip itself will be worth it.