Category: Travel

Las Vegas Monorail

TL;DR: It started off bad due to poor software and ended up bad for unknown reasons.

I went to Las Vegas as a birthday gift for myself, and (so far) all I got was resentments.

Once I got there, my mood turned sour when I tried to use my mobile ticket on the Las Vegas Monorail. I paid $24 for two days of rail pass, but the gate denied me my first day. The software scanned the barcode I was showing on my phone, it claimed the ticket (and the money) and then … did NOT open the gate. So I tried the ticket again, and it barked at me that I was trying to use the ticket “too soon” although clearly nothing checks that the gate had been opened or not.

I went back to my room and checked their website from the laptop I brought. Now I got conflicting information: apparently, just scanning a barcode on a cell phone is NOT supposed to work – but from a mobile wallet it will. Their web page said something about combating fraud due to images shared by people. Oof. I had not printed the piece of paper, and now it was too late in the evening to find an open print place.

I’d never opened the email from the Las Vegas Monorail on my cell phone, because I don’t do email on my cell phone. Likewise, I also had trouble finding the email from six months ago, but eventually I found it. Back to my cell phone, I use webmail and open the email and then the mobile ticket the email linked to. It has a link I’d never seen before: Add to Apple Wallet.

I’d never seen that link before, because I don’t do email on my iPhone. Whenever I’d opened the email on the desktop, it would say Add to Google Wallet (which irritated me). Their website also touts Google as their partner with Google Pay (more irritation).

Okay, the email on iPhone might work: I click the Add to Apple Wallet button, and it takes me to the page, and … it barks at me that this ticket has ALREADY been claimed as a paper ticket. Damn it!

The next morning, I try the monorail again, and this time the barcode does work.

Okay, so it was all just a big glitch from when they claimed the ticket and fouled up linking that to an “open the gate now” action. And the warnings about not allowing cell phone images instead of paper were wrong.

I try the monorail to get to the show I’m going to see, but of course, casinos are going to route people to where the gambling is – but I need to find Las Vegas Boulevard. I get lost, wander around outside, then inside, then outside again. I’m too hot and eventually call for a Lyft.

One last problem: the iPhone was infuriating by blocking the QR code display every time.

Every time I tried to show the QR code to the turnstile, Apple Wallet took over and preempted it with the NFC “Double-Click the side button to pay”. There are two problems here: 1) To show the QR code, the iPhone screen is facing away from me, so I don’t know that the image of the QR code has been replaced by the image of my credit card with the button prompt madly blinking at me. 2) All weekend, I tried every setting in Apple Wallet that I could think of to turn it off and stop fucking up the boarding pass. NOTHING worked. Finally, on the last monorail trip, I got the inspiration to put the phone into Airplane Mode. That was the ONLY thing that worked to stop Apple Wallet from fucking up the boarding pass QR code.

And OBTW, the monorail broke on that last trip, and what should have taken fifteen minutes took an hour and a half in a jam-packed car. They even sent us north on the southbound car for some reason. With some hindsight, it was comical, but during it, it was quite annoying.

Days later, I’m wondering if the Apple Wallet NFC preemption is what broke the first interaction when the turnstile registered the ticket (claiming it) but failed to open the gate. I’ll never know. But I do know I felt defeated that I’d paid for a two-day ticket and was denied late in the evening that first day.

Expedia Untrustworthy: my frustrating encounter at a Holiday Inn Express in Gridley, California

My stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Gridley (Oroville Lake) wasn’t particularly terrible. However, during the checkout process, something incredibly bothersome occurred: they adamantly refused to provide a printed receipt (folio). The counter agent simply refused, conveniently attributing it to management’s decision.

It’s possible that this nonsensical decision stemmed from misguided management. I don’t hold the agent responsible for following instructions. Nonetheless, two aspects make this situation particularly irksome:

Firstly, I understand why financial departments require receipts: scammers exist. Secondly, they lied about sending me an email receipt.

Anyone can make a reservation, receive the email confirmation, print it out, present it to the finance department for reimbursement, and then cancel the reservation. Financial departments are aware of this, which is why they rightfully demand proof of actual hotel stays. The receipt (folio) contains the final charges and the checkout date.

The Holiday Inn Express in Gridley, California, flat out refused to provide me with the receipt/folio: all because someone wanted to save a penny on a piece of paper.

This would have been less troublesome if they had actually sent me the email receipt as promised. However, they failed to do so. I highly doubt that the agent knew for sure—she was probably instructed to inform customers that they would receive an email.

To clarify, the email receipt did not end up in my junk mail folder. I’ve been an email administrator for twenty years. I ought to be able to figure that out, no?

This ordeal frustrated me to the point that I decided to leave a negative review on Expedia. That’s when I discovered that Expedia allows property owners to censor the reviews they display. Each time I submitted a review, I received a rejection message claiming it was unacceptable. I tried toning it down and making it friendlier, but it still didn’t meet their standards. Only after significantly revising it did they finally accept it.

The most valuable lesson I learned from this experience is that Expedia’s review system is untrustworthy. I have no intention of ever using their service again.

Delta Airlines did the right thing

I just received an email that Delta is processing my refund. Good on them.

I had never minded Delta a company; at least up until they had told me they were issuing a credit, and AIG didn’t need to pay out because the credit was as good as the original trip. Every time I went to the BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City, I had flown Delta (SLC is a hub for them). It was always a nice flight, and the people seemed efficient and friendly. I’ve met some really nice passengers on flights to and from Salt Lake City.

After cancelling the flight and getting the email that I would need to file against my flight cancellation insurance policy, and then AIG saying the credit from Delta nullified the insurance; I was pretty unhappy. Although really, I was more unhappy with the insurance company AIG than I was with Delta.

Now, Delta has done the right thing. I like Delta again. 🙂

And now AIG is off the hook. I would kind of like to see Delta redeem the cancellation insurance policy that AIG got paid for; but since I paid for it, I doubt that the insurance is transferable to Delta.

Booking.com and Red Roof Inn Dearborn Michigan did the right thing

I screwed up. I had put in my cancellation on my airline flight during my lunch break months ago, but was running late. I couldn’t find the email for the hotel. Turns out it was because it was with Booking.com instead of my legacy booking site. And then life got distracting, and I forgot that I needed to deal with this.

The morning that I was supposed to check in, I got a reminder email. D’oh!

I called them up, and explained that I needed to cancel, and yes it was my fault. I fully understand that they deserve their cancellation fee. The Booking.com agent also asked that I telephone Red Roof Inn, Dearborn, and let them know I wouldn’t make it. I did.

They refunded me in full. That was very gracious of them. I am thankful. Although I doubt that I will ever have a need to go to Detroit for the rest of my life, if I were to go, I absolutely would book again with Booking.com and the Red Roof Inn, Dearborn.

The other thing the whole thing reminds me of, is that Search in Mozilla Thunderbird is really poor. I’m spoiled, of course, because in my work life, the email system I run has an excellent indexer + search. Rather than be a failure and cause these people the headache of having to refund (and waiving the cancellation fee), I would rather have found the right email and gotten the cancellation done in a timely manner.