On A Wing & A Prayer

For quite some time now I have known that I needed to call Delta to get a later flight on the way home because a NINE minute layover isn't going to cut it.

The saga started two sundays ago when I tried to call Delta's office in Bangkok. I never could get through. I asked my field mentor about it and she informed me that I needed to put a zero in front of the number. I think by the time I was actually able to call it was friday and apparently it was quitting time too because no one answered the phone all weekend. I finally got through on monday (or maybe it was tuesday). Here is the conversation in a nutshell (after all the pleasantries and explaining that I wanted to change a flight):

"What is your flight number?"
"5145."
"What airline?"
"Delta." (I thought this should have been obvious since I was calling Delta's office, however...)
"This isn't Delta."
click.

Today I went to Chiang (a Thai woman who works in OMF's offices) to find out if she could find a number for Delta that was different than the one listed on their website. I don't know what she did or how she did it, but within seconds I had two different numbers to try. I called the first one, explained what I needed. She asked for the same info: flight number, name, etc. (Note: it took about 5 tries at me spelling my name for her to actually get it right. No matter how much I emphasized the 'v' she kept hearing d or p or t.) Then I was informed that I actually needed to call Cathay Pacific Airways, who I am flying out of Bangkok with. She graciously gave me their number.

I called it and it didn't work. (Does anyone see a pattern?). I looked online and saw that they had an office in Chiang Mai. Excellent. I called that number and then found out after being on hold for five minutes that they couldn't do anything about it in Chiang Mai and I needed to call Bangkok. They gave me that number and it worked, thank goodness! After being on hold for an eternity, I again explained my situation. She asked where my destination was, so naturally I said St. Louis. It was quite obvious by the silence on the other end that she had never heard of St. Louis. So, then I walked her through my itinerary and explained that the last two flights were with Delta. I was convinced she was going to make me call Delta again. Finally, she said that I couldn't change any of my flights without changing all of them. I told her that my reason for wanting to change the flight was having only nine minutes in between flights. I was assured that the flights would not have been booked so close together if I was going to miss the last one. According to her there is no reason to change anything.

I am hoping that she is right, but I am preparing for her to be wrong. I really don't understand how I can NOT miss that flight with only nine minutes to get from one plane to the next. Good thing my flight is in the morning so that I won't be stuck in the airport all night :)