Check, Check, Flex

May 10, 2007 Scheduled to fly Denver to Dulles to Jacksonville, FL on United Airlines

Check in on line and print boarding passes 24 hours in advance. Check.
Arrive at DIA 1.5 hours before flight at 4:30 am. Check.
Get to gate at 5:15 am, flight delayed by 1 hour for mechanical reasons. That meant the down line connection would be missed. Time to be flexible.

United was able to reroute me on a Delta flight that would leave DIA at 6:30 am and arrive in Jacksonville at 2:10 pm, 10 minutes earlier than my originally scheduled flight on United. The only catch, according to the UA agent, was that my checked bag probably wouldn't arrive with me at 2:10 pm. Should I take the 6:30 am flight on Delta or wait around DIA for a later UA flight so that I could travel with my bag. The simple answer was that was I going to go ahead and get to JAX as quickly as I could, as I had plans to meet friends for dinner. Sure enough, I arrived and my bag did not. I had dinner with my friends and then got my bag the next day. My moral of the story is: keep moving towards your final destination - your bags will show up sometime later. If necessary, one can make it for a few days in Florida with a new pair of shorts and a few new t-shirts.