Some days you can stack benefits one on top of the other.  Yesterday was one of those days.  Real simple - I went to one of those "I can show you how to secure your money" type of seminars.  I have to say it wasn't the worst thing ever, but the woman did downplay some of the downsides of what she was promoting.  Realizing this is one of the upsides/downsides of being financially literate.

And the product was... "Fixed Index Annuities".  I won't go into the pros & cons of them, you can easily do a quick search and find out the details.  I think I was sitting at the "sofisticated investor" table as while other tables seemed to be mostly enthusiastic about this idea, we could see the downside to them.  Hopefully I came up with the most balanced response as we discussed this: "If you are an unsofisticated investor without tons of money this may not be a bad idea.  If you are less than 55 y.o., or have a pension, or have over say $250,000 these are probably not a great idea."  To the presentor's credit she did say variable annuities are bad, so at least she knows will say that much.

EDIT: I did some searching on Bogleheads forums on these products.  They bring up worse issues than we could see during this sales pitch.  Also, the woman wouldn't answer questions during the presentation (OK I suppose), but would only answer afterwards.  One thing however, we started food right away so she would only answer questions a table at a time.  You don't want a large group of people to hear various issues with your product when you can keep it limited to a small number of skeptics.  Right????😇

Anyway, so what was the triple win?  I was able to get out and learn about this financial product, I got a great meal out of it (everyone at our table thought the food was good - maybe not super great, but much better than expected), and I had my car charging for free just outside.  The presentation & meal took so long I was able to get 95 miles of charge, just in time for me to drive out of town to Florida this Saturday.  They even gave us boxes so we could take home any extra food, which we all did.

Now comes next week... do they offer me another time share presentation at my mother's timeshare?  Last year I didn't get any good offer so I passed on it.  I was sad as the prior three years I was able to get a free timeshare week in Florida.  So is a freebee week on the horizon for me or will I be disappointed again?  Only the shadow knows.

Ever have one of the those airline trips where its like everything goes wrong, or is just plain uncomfortable / painful?  Well that was my trip back from Europe this week.  (Oh and if anyone checks... the "Friendly Skies" was a United slogan, but while I was flying American the American ad slogan is "Doing what we do best".  I never knew that until I researched it - has anyone ever heard this one?  All I can say is they need a new ad agency.)

Well my mother and I went to Europe on American (this isn't an American Airlines rant, but take of it what you will....) for the first two weeks this month.  Long haul flights are rough in economy, which is what we did.  Rough as in seating and length of flight as the airline *did* give good in flight food and has (to me anyway) good in flight entertainment options.  What is a long flight over to Europe is longer on the way back by over an hour due to the winds going from North America to Europe.

BTW, this is only about the flights.  They deserved their own posting, as you'll read (should you dare).

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Flight #1 - Long but Bareable:

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So the flight over was long, but nothing bad really.  Pleasant enough and a direct flight. The people we were meeting (co-travellers from the US) were supposed to arrive an hour before us.  Well... guess again.  Their flight was delayed a half hour, so still arriving before us.  Somehow they arrived almost the same time, so we go through customs and then go and wait as they're not waiting there.  And wait.  And wait some more.  Hey, we're really tired, what's the deal???   Finally they arrive at the meeting location an hour after us.  Huh???  No customs issues, nor luggage pickup.  Instead the organizer woman didn't stretch / move about on the plane and I dunno but at arrival was pretty much a cripple and after finding our driver almost collapsed.  We had to wheelchair her to the taxi.  Thankfully she recovered enough that a trip to a hospital wasn't needed, but sheesh, take care of yourself (I may sound bad but if/when I do a trip review... you'll see where I'm coming from).

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Flight #2 - A Short Jump:

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OK, this is an intra Europe short haul flight.  Shouldn't be bad, maybe 1.5 hours.  Well... nothing terrible really, but... on the flight we are required to check our luggage.  Our whole group packs light intentionally, so we can take everything as carry on, but nope, gotta check em.  (Grumble grumble)  We go to get on plane and at least half, maybe more, of the riders can be seen to have carry on luggage just like ours that we were forced to check in.  Ummm, what gives?  But whatevah (sigh).  Arrive in country number two, get luggage, and then walk to where you can pick up taxis and rides (we had pre-paid for a driver to take us two hours from airport to destination).  Well we walk following signs to the taxi location.  And we walk more, and walk, and walk.  And up stairs, and down stairs, and up stairs.  And did I mention walk?  Person #4 in our four person group had one of those fit bit style step / distance monitors and says we walked over two miles in the airport from departing the airplane to where we are to pick up our ride.  I think she overstated it, but over a mile is likely.  WTF???  And we're talking none of those moving walkways either, so my three compatriots - all 70+ y.o. women - were really exhausted at the end of that death march.  Gawd.  And then of course the driver is nowhere to be found.  Finally appears from (coffee break waiting for us?) after 15 more minutes?  Sigh.  But all's well that ends well.

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Flight #3 - Where it all goes FUBAR:

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(Appologies for the length, but there is ALOT to unpack here - you've been warned)

OK, the first two flights could have been better, but were a warm up for this trip.  My mother was ready to explode on anyone at the end of this day.

To be fair, this was always going to be by far the roughest of the three flight days.  We knew this.  Going Europe to North America takes longer, we couldn't get a direct flight coming back, so we were flying into Charlotte and then connecting to Philadelphia to be picked up, then two hour drive to mother's friend's house, then another two hour drive to mother's house.  Well... if only it were that good.

The day before I caught a cold, so I am heading to the flight with massive sinus issues and drainage, just miserable. Thankfully I got to enjoy my time on the trip healthy before the flight back.  Unlike in America there are no check in kiosks at the airport, so we are forced to go to see an agent for the boarding passes.  And it begins...  The agent asks us to check our luggage.  "Ummmm.... we just have carry ons, see?"  "Just put them on here please."     "Can't we just take them?"  "There's no charge to check them, put them here"  And a look like we're crazy Americans.  Ugh, after a bit more of back and forth, our bags are checked in.  Oh if we only knew...  Oh and by the way... again most people got to bring on carry ons that looked just like ours, and we even had room above our seats to have fit them no problem.   Why are we being picked on????  WTF(#1)???  (insert many more cursing here - because WE WERE RIGHT - as you'll see)

A long flight over, I'm in a little pain, cramped seats, but really nothing unexpected.  As we start our descent into Charlotte we hear that everyone's luggage that was checked in will *NOT* be checked through automatically to connecting flights even though they tagged all luggage to do that.  WTF(#2)???  So we need to pick up our luggage.  Oh great.  We have to go through customs first, so the luggage should be there waiting for us anyway.  Right? (HA HA silly boy, you'll see)

We arrive at Charlotte and we're about the last off the plane (we're two rows from the very rear).  My mother found out about the MPC service, a phone app to allow for expedited (to a point) entry through customs when arriving in the USA.  I had loaded this onto my phone and got it prepped weeks ago.  Turned out I needed to do more data input in the airport, which I finally did.  At first it didn't seem to help as we were put into a special MPC line that was slow too, but in watching the regular customs line, we probably got through in half the time, so yay us?  

On to luggage pickup now in the adjoining hall ... and the fun begins.  I'm in a lot of pain now, probably from eye strain watching too many movies to try and pass the time on the nine hour flight in cramped quarters on the plane (along with major sinus pain).  So I am ready to move, as is my mother.  So we get to the luggage carrosuel and a good chunk of the plane passengers are already there waiting for some time but no luggage.   So we wait and watch another plane's luggage unload next to us.  And then another plane's luggage.   The boards above the carrousels are not showing our flight like it should (well none are to be honest) so I check around to make sure they didn't send the luggage elsewhere.  Nope.  We keep hearing messages on the speakers that our luggage should show up here any minute.

OK a half hour later everyone from the plane has long arrived and no luggage. WTF(#3)???   And like us there are other people with connecting flights, and a lot of upset faces at this point.  Finally we hear a new message.  The belts have jammed and our luggage is being sent to a new carrousel.  (This was not on my bingo card)   Oh, and for giggles, there is some luggage in the system already so that luggage... who knows when it will arrive, or which carrousel.  So where is this new location?  Its the next carrousel to this one - good news.  Right?  

Have you ever had your luggage get lost, or at least ever heard of someone having this happen?  Well... ever hear of them losing the whole plane's luggage?  As we heard later the airport sent instructions to send the luggage shuttle to a location in another part of the airport (it was supposed to be the next one over - how could they mess this up???), and then had trouble tracking the driver down to get him back where they told us it was to arrive.  WTF(#4)???  OK, over an hour after clearing customs a miracle happens - our luggage starts to show.  And then talk about the slowest unload I have ever seen.  By the time our second checked carry on showed up it was another 30 minutes.  And at that point there were maybe 25% of the people still waiting as I left. Unbelieveable.

Thankfully I did one really smart thing in the middle of this.  When the first of our two bags showed up, I gave it to my mother and told her to take it and go ahead towards the connecting flight location.  Turned out that saved us more pain.  American Airlines did something right here - shocking I know.  Knowing they had a FUBAR situation going on, they had a special expidite counter set up with agents pulled in to help get all the missed connections booked on new flights.  My mother was able to get in line early without me and get us on another flight two hours later (the last of the day) to Philly.  But... After all this they still insisted on us checking in our carry ons.  Really??  WTF(#5)???

So onto our gate, right?  Oh no no no, its time for you to go through the TSA / security check you see.  WTF(#6)???  Wait, don't you get through to the connecting gate right away?  Oh heavens no.  Dear reader, apparently in the US (or at least in Charlotte) if you go through customs its like you have left the airport (though you have not) and you need to go through the whole process again.  And long process it was.  There was a sign where we got in line saying 15-20 minute wait, and a single line that disappeared around the corner.  Great.  Around the corner we wind in 10 minutes and what do we find but a massive winding morass.  Oh my lord (deserves a wtf, but honestly I should have expected this one).  They're doing their best, but still.  Another 45 minutes later we get through and head straight to the gate.  Arriving there the plane is already loading and within five minutes we are getting onto the plane (if I hadn't pushed my mother to go ahead without me at the luggage pick up... I can only imagine - sigh).   They rebooked us onto a plane leaving 90 minutes later, and we barely made that flight - what if we couldn't make it and it took our bags???

Of course most people again are carrying on luggage just like ours that we were forced to check in.  (Another wtf moment, but at this point I was expecting this one).  So we make it on, and I am in so much pain I keep my eyes closed and a sleep mask on for the whole flight.

We arrive over Philly airport.  Do we have another lost luggage situation in our future, hmmmm?  Of course not dear readers, the writers of this script are making sure to keep it new and fresh throughout.  For this this leg we are getting the circle the airport routine.  Not unusual you say?   Well this is not just any routine as you'll see.

After a good half hour of buzzing about (and me feeling miserable) we finally start to land at the airport.  And land we do.   (Safely - the script writers weren't that sadistic though it felt it was going that way)  So is it time for the disembarcation gate (is that a word?) to break down?  No? How about the airplane door gets jammed?  No, not that one?  Can we lose the plane's luggage?  No, we can't do that one again.  Lose just one of their bags instead?   Come on, lets be original here..  Oh I know!  This time we can have no open gates to unload the plane at. (The script writers high five each other at this juncture and head out to celebrate a job well done)  WTF(#7)???   Oh yeah, no gate for us.  So there we sit in the middle of the tarmac, and sit, and sit, and everyone is on their phones letting people know that while yes we've landed, ummm no we are not getting off.  As an amusing side note, the person waiting to pick us up said the flight board showed us not as "delayed departure" or "delayed arrival", but "delayed disembarcation" which was a new one for him to see.  Who forgets to have an open gate for incoming planes???

Anyway for the next 30 minutes we get updates from the pilot ("we're waiting for the airline to open a gate", "I see them starting to move the plane away from our gate", "they have stopped moving that plane, I don't know why", "they're attaching a new vehicle to move to the plane" (huh???  the other one broke down?), "Now its moving out again").  Shortly thereafter we get off the plane with no new WTFs in sight.

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Drive Home - Meh:

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I won't bore people here with the details, but our driver (a friend of my mother) is nearly deaf and not great driving at night, took a wrong turn adding maybe 20 miles, we had maybe 50 miles of construction on the drive, and I gouged a knuckle on a seat buckle during the drive.  You know, the usual stuff during a drive home from an airport.

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Anything Else? - Would You Believe...

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Funny you should ask, but yeah.  The next day my mother talked with the other two who were flying to the west coast via connecting flight in Iceland.  I didn't listen, but at the end my mother says it sounded like they had a worse trip home than we did.  WORSE???  You know what, I don't want to know.  I just started work on trying to wipe the memory of flight #3 (this will be my backup memory instead).  OMG.

Excuse me now while I go get a good strong drink...