Incomprehensibly frustrating ticket agents

Saeeda left today. The whole day was gloomy to begin with, because I was going to be bored out of my mind once she left. I guess I can rely on some of the other exchange students to become my travel buddies, but there is only so much silliness I can engage in with other adults before they decide I'm best left alone. Saeeda seems to have wondrous reserves of patience when it comes to my childlike behavior. What's going to happen when I have no adult supervision?

But the day was made maddening by the actions of the Cathay Pacific gate agents. Let me start by saying that I love the airline. It's taken us all over Asia and we've had a great experience with them. Until today.

We rolled up at the ticket counter with two bags to check-in for Saeeda, as well as a roll-on hand luggage, and a backpack on Saeeda's back. The agent informed us that our hand-luggage was overweight after weighing everything, and told us that we could stuff some things into the bags we were checking in, because they still had some room. So we do the desi thing and pull away to the side to open up our suitcases for the world to see while we shuffle things around. Once done, we check in Saeeda's two bags and head off for the security gates, where Saeeda is promptly stopped.

Apparently her roll-on luggage is too big to be allowed on the plane. We know something is wrong because a) we have a combined 10 years of consulting travel between us, and know exactly what fits in the overhead bin; b) the ticketing agent never stopped us when issuing our tickets; and c) because Saeeda is being stopped before she even gets to the security line.

Still, no amount of pleading gets us anywhere, so we return to the ticket counter to ask them to do something for us (issue us a note, perhaps?). The same ticketing agent that has helped us now sees Saeeda's backpack, and says that we have too many things. We can't believe our ears. Not only do we not have too many things, but I point to Cathay's luggage policy, which is lying in the form of a flier on top of the ticketing counter. Here, it clearly states that passengers are allowed one hand-luggage, and in addition, either a purse, backpack, garment bag, etc.

I can't begin to tell you how frustrating the next twenty minutes were. Nothing we said, I mean nothing we said could convince the gate agent, nor her supervisor, that we were following Cathay's stated policy. For some reason, we now had an "extra bag" in our possession, even though I have no idea how the ticketing agent hadn't noticed Saeeda's bag in the first place. Held hostage like this, and with no other option (my silky smooth voice nor my negotiating tactics helped), I had to pay an "excess bag" fee, not to be confused with "excess baggage" fee (the latter is actually much cheaper if you're not too far over the weight limit, which we weren't). After shelling out over US $100, and saying goodbye to Saeeda, I fumed back home. This was not over.