Reading Borpatch’s post on travel routing HERE, brought back ‘fun’ memories of SATO and their enforced routing they used to shove down our throats while on military travel…

A few (well QUITE a few) years ago I was down in Bay St. Louis, MS for a meeting. Getting there was pretty straight forward- SFO-STL-MSY, rent a car and go.

Coming back?  Well, not so much… They had me scheduled MSY-ATL departing at 0700, with a two hour layover; ATL-DFW, change airlines, THREE hour layover; DFW-LAS-LAX, change airlines AGAIN, two hour layover; LAX-SFO.   I would have finally arrived at SFO at something like 2200 that night…

So I asked the agent at MSY what the cost difference was between my ‘current’ schedule and a more direct flight to SFO.  Turned out it was literally THREE damn dollars!  She changed my flights, I paid the $3 (in cash), and was back home by 1300.

But… It seems I had violated ‘policy’ by rescheduling myself without SATO’s approval, so PSD was directed not to pay my travel claim until everything was sorted out…  Two months and at least 8 or 10 letters, statements and voucher copies later, I still had not been paid for that trip or the other three trips I’d been on.  I finally went to the staff admin officer to try to get some help and get paid (this was back in the day when you got a government credit card but had to pay the balance yourself)…

He stepped in and tried to unscrew it, but was getting nowhere until he got the boss involved.  Turns out the ‘discrepancy’ that was holding everything up was where the receipt was for the $3, since I’d changed official travel orders!  Of course, since I’d paid cash, I had NO receipt…

Thankfully, the bosses wife worked for that airline and she was able to track the agent down. I called the lady and she was nice enough to give me a cash receipt on the correct form once I’d explained what happened!  Of course it took another week to get to me, and finally about three months after I’d committed the ‘violation’, I got paid for all the trips (and got the damn credit card paid off)…

Every trip after that, I meticulously checked what SATO was doing to me BEFORE the trip, and if they tried to screw me over, I fought it and got it changed before I ever left (and boy did I learn a LOT about the OAG and city pairs, and how to use that damn book)…

Of course, sometimes my luggage took those ‘other’ routes without me… Including one time when my bag got lost on a DIRECT flight!

So yeah, I ‘do’ know that routing through Timbuktu…  BTDT, never did get the damn luggage back…

And a word of warning here, if you have meds you need, ALWAYS carry at least a 7 day supply in your carry-on. And spare glasses if you need them… Don’t count on your bag actually getting to you in a timely fashion. Even today, I never check a bag unless I absolutely have to, and even if I’m carrying the bag on, I still have meds in my backpack.