1. Buy the flight for $15.00 round-trip with Delta SkyMiles so you don’t feel too bad that the co-pilot did not show up and you will be taking off two hours late.
2. When offered, take the free onboard wifi coupon from the girl handing them out in the terminal. You will need it to watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon while sitting on the tarmac for an additional 3 hours while the wings and plane are being de-iced and you wait in line to take off from the recently plowed of 5 inches of snow runway.
3. When you arrive at your layover destination just 15 minutes after your scheduled plane has departed, talk to the nearest Delta agent about a getting a meal voucher to tide you over the 3 hours until your next scheduled flight. Be sure to not spend the $7 voucher at Panda Express eating limp mixed vegetables that are barely too hard to mash into baby food. You may have to spring $1.50 for a yogurt for the young one.
4. Keep alert while watching Baby Mama on your laptop at the gate. You may think you and your family are the only ones there because it is still so early, but there just might be a gate agent looking for 2 passengers to be bumped.
5. When asked by the gate agent if you would like to volunteer to take a different flight- that leaves AT THE SAME TIME and arrives AT THE SAME TIME and the only difference is the destination airport which happens to be 23 miles from the one you are scheduled on- say YES. She will then print you two new boarding passes and two $300 Delta flight credits.
6. Board, enjoy Biscoff cookies, sleep, arrive home, sleep some more. It was a long day, but your dreams of a free flight for Spring Break will be sweet;)