Here I am six hours early or is it two hours late? Well, to be honest it is the latter. I am dealing with old ideas and paradigms in a new world I guess. I used to be Delta Platinum when it was the highest tier and a Hilton Diamond member. That meant I spent a lot of time on the road.

I am travelling for the first time in three years for business or pleasure for that matter. My flight was at 6:15AM so I planned to be at the kiosk for check-in one hour early. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes to get from my house to the airport with no traffic. There is no traffic at the four AM hour.

What I didn’t count on was the check-in kiosk was broken. So, I tried four times before I switched to another kiosk. By that time ten more people got in line before me and I only packed to check my luggage. By the time I got to the counter, I was too late to check my bag on the flight because there is a forty-five minute cut-off (which is new) and they would not send my bag on another flight (which was also new).

Fortunately, I am flying to a hub airport and there are additional flights throughout the day. With my new job, I have to book through a travel portal and I didn’t see later flights as an option otherwise I would have forgone waking up at three in the morning. So that is something else new I learned on this trip.

Sometimes with flights this early, I would choose to stay at a hotel where the cost of and overnight stay was equal to the cost of parking for the week. That way I was only a fifteen minute ride to the airport. I completely forgot about that option and I am kind of weirded out by how constrictive the rules and travel policies are so I am trying to be conservative in my spending. Plus, I would have had to book it on the front end.

I have slept through a flight before but I have never been at the airport not quite on time. This formula for leaving and time is the same one that I have always used but I didn’t count on the environmental changes. Probably, I am out of practice as well and a few minutes here or there was just unforgiveable.

Today is a travel day anyway. It kind of screwed up my afternoon plans to meet my boss face to face for the first time but I have no other commitments. I will cross security at some point in the next hour to hopefully find some breakfast and then wait five more hours. I have always said that I am willing to be late leaving, coming home is another story.

I suppose I didn’t need to check my bag on this trip. It is only four days. My standing rule of thumb is I only carry on if I am travelling first class or with a group of people that are also only carrying on. Why? I think it is a huge hassle at security and I am not really time constrained waiting for baggage. I find trying to get overhead space a pain and my company is paying the baggage fee anyway. Plus, I can bring items on checked bags that I can’t carry on and that is the real reason.

End Your Programming Routine: What did I learn? I need to add another half an hour to check my bag. It probably wouldn’t hurt to check-in online ahead of time so I can skip that step and go directly to the drop-off. I also need to seriously consider going carry-on only. These are all reasons I dread air travel. It has no magic for me and I am proud to say that I have no status with any airline, hotel or rental company anymore. Those perks are nice when you live a miserable life on the road, I am happy here. I just need to realize that things change.