Day 6 – No luggage!!
Got up at 7.45am and noticed I had a missed call at 6.45am in WhatsApp. Who on earth calls at that time of the morning? I always have my phone on “do not disturb” between the hours of 11.00pm – 7.00am which is why I hadn’t heard the call come in. I didn’t recognise the caller or the number.
I got showered and shampooed, before donning my Grand Canyon t-shirt and the inevitable white jeans. As we had given British Airways the Golden Nugget hotel as the address we wished our suitcases to be delivered to and it was now day 6 without our bags, we fully expected them to be waiting for us when we arrived late this afternoon.
We enjoyed our cereal bars and some fruit that we had bought at the Safeway’s over the road yesterday, as we had decided that much of the American food available in restaurants seemed to be lacking fresh fruit and vegetables. Apart from salad (which usually contained croutons and loads of dressing), vegetables did not feature prominently, unless it was potato in the form of hash browns, rosti or fries.
Around 8.30am my phone rang again. It was the same number as before, but it said that “customer services” were calling. Trevor said “it might be Heathrow Airport” in response to my message yesterday. I answered the phone.
A man with a foreign accent said he was calling from Heathrow Airport about my missing luggage. “What happened?” he asked. “You know very well what happened!” I retorted. “The debacle from last Friday with the so-called “technical issues” regarding the baggage system!” The man was silent for a while. “Are you telling me you don’t know what happened?” There was another pause before the guy said “Yes, of course I know”.
“So when are we going to get our luggage?” I asked him. The man continued, ignoring my question.. “Have you found yourself out of pocket as a result of having to buy items that you needed as a result of your missing bags?” he asked. “Yes, of course” I said. “Well, we will compensate you for that, and also give you some compensation for the inconvenience and the stress that has caused.” I replied “That’s all well and good, but we need our bags. When are we going to get them?” “Your bags will be with you today or tomorrow” he assured me. “About time!” I retorted.
Just then, we had to leave the hotel to board the bus for Las Vegas. In the general mêlee of people stashing their luggage (what luggage?) in the bus locker and boarding the bus, I told the man I would call him back. He said he wanted to help me, so he would stay on the line.
He continued. “In the meantime, we will sort out your compensation for you. I will send you a claim number; it should appear in WhatsApp.” I looked at my screen to see that there was a claim number there. “I need you to install an app called World Remit” he continued, “You will need it enter your email address as the user name and the claim number as the password in it”.
I had never heard of World Remit, but started to get a little suspicious now that the guy seemed more interested in the compensation payment than he did in getting our bags to us. Also, when I installed World Remit I saw that it was a money transfer app. Red flags started to pop up – this was all very strange indeed.
When the guy then told me that I had to scan a copy of my passport into the app, I told him I couldn’t hear what he was saying, the coach was too noisy, with people singing “Happy Birthday” to someone and everyone cheering. I was sick of the whole thing now, I just wanted to get the guy off the line.
“I can’t hear you!” I said. “I will call you back later on.” When the guy crossly said “When? How many minutes?” that settled it for me. No way was he from Heathrow Airport. The whole thing had been strange from the start. I hung up the phone rather shakily.
Going into X/Twitter, I decided to examine the “Heathrow Crew Assistance” account in more detail. The first thing I noticed was that the account had only been created the same day that I had first made my post. Secondly, I noticed that they had replied to all the other complaints that had been posted to the Heathrow Airport account (the genuine one, that had over a million followers). Finally, when I delved deeper into the account, I saw that the account holder’s location was in Nairobi, Kenya. Bloody hell – I had been speaking to a scammer! 🙁
The realisation that I had nearly been “had” made me feel sick to my stomach. With the luggage fiasco at Heathrow, the scammer had obviously spotted an opportunity for an impromptu scam – pretend to be from Heathrow and offer compensation to those passengers affected! My God! Straight away, I reported the fake account to X/Twitter, and also made a screen shot of it, which I posted to the real LHR account with the notice to people not to reply to these people, because they were scammers.
I then examined the World Remit app, and saw that it was indeed a money transfer app. Luckily, I had not uploaded a scan of my passport to verify my identity, nor had I given any bank details of where I wanted my “compensation” to be transferred to. I also hurriedly changed the password so that no-one else could get into the app. I knew I had to let Tomi know about this straight away.
She was shocked when I told her what had happened. She asked me if I wanted to take the mic to let everyone else on the coach know, in case they too found themselves to be victims. I related the story over the mic (for which I inexplicably received a round of applause) but I was still a bit shaken by the whole thing, and was only half-listening while Tomi, and Frank, pointed out things of interest to us on the way.
At 10 o’clock the coach stopped on a historic stretch of the old Route 66, which contained lots of original buildings, curios, old road signs and other interesting things. Frank told us we had an hour to spend here.
Trevor posed with a life-size cardboard cutout of John “The Duke” Wayne and I took a photo. Then we spotted a café and bar called “Road Runner” which asked us to “Have a beer, right here, on Route 66”. We thought that sounded like an excellent idea. 🙂
I really enjoyed the cold beer and put all thoughts of the scammer out of my mind – I wasn’t going to let him spoil my day. We were going to be optimistic – our luggage would be waiting for us at the Golden Nugget and everything was going to hunky-dory from now on. 🙂
Around 12.30pm, Frank told us we were stopping for our lunch break at a place called Kingman. He told us there were lots of shops and a large restaurant and country store called “Cracker Barrel” if we wanted a sit-down meal. We would be here until two o’clock. We decided we didn’t want a large meal, so I ‘just’ ordered some chicken with side orders of sliced tomato and coleslaw. “Do you want cornbread or biscuits with that?” the waitress asked. As visions of Custard Creams rose before my eyes, I realised that ‘biscuits’ in the USA are a type of plain scone, rather than a sweet treat.
We washed our meal down with a glass of the inevitable cold beer, and pottered around in the shop, where we bought some pistachio nuts, a carton of fresh melon slices, and some cans of cold Coke Zero.
Back on the road again, we continued for another 100 miles or so, through the arid desert landscape which made us feel hot and bothered just looking at it. We spotted the mighty Colorado River flowing along in the valley, and it started to make me wonder just how long this river was.
I looked it up and indeed it is 1,450 miles long, starting in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and passing through seven US states and two Mexican states before reaching the sea at the Gulf of California. Wow! The seven US states are: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada and California, the latter three of which we were visiting this trip.
Around 4.00pm we arrived at the outskirts of Las Vegas, and Frank stopped the bus to allow us to get off and photograph the famous Las Vegas sign, which forms the featured image for today. 🙂
We continued down the main Las Vegas strip, with Frank pointing out the different famous hotels and casinos on the way, as well as the replica places like “Luxor”, which featured a pyramid and the Sphinx, and “New York New York” with its fake Statue of Liberty. He told us that Vegas really comes alive at night.
Soon we arrived in Fremont Street, and the coach stopped outside the Golden Nugget Hotel, which would be our home for the next three nights. It was just after five o’clock. We were issued with our room keys (we were on the fourth floor) and we entered the famous hotel.
At first, I thought I was in a time warp. The hotel, with its garishly patterned carpet and flocked wallpaper, was a direct throwback to the 1970s. Slot machines pinged and bonged, coloured lights flashed and music blared from massive speakers placed everywhere. The distinctive smell of cannabis drifted on the air. All of your senses were assaulted at the same time.
We made our way to the concierge’s desk and asked him if any luggage had been delivered to the hotel today. He consulted a clipboard, on which was a piece of paper with a list of names. Ours was not amongst them. No luggage yet again. 🙁
This was blimmin’ ridiculous! As soon as we got to our room, Trevor called British Airways on the US number that had been provided to us in an email from them. He repeated our luggage claim number and the number of the baggage receipts we had been given at Newcastle Airport. He could hear the customer services operative tapping away on her keyboard. “There has been no change” she reported. “What do you mean, no change?” asked Trevor. “The suitcases are still at Heathrow Airport” she replied. WHAT?! This was beyond a joke. “Come on” I said to Trevor. “Let’s go out. I need a drink!”
We left the Golden Nugget and walked out into a phantasmagoria of light and colour and sound. This was known as the Fremont Street Experience. A huge pedestrian mall with a large canopied ceiling runs for five blocks along Fremont Street, with shops, tattoo parlours, pubs, restaurants and stalls selling holiday tat. Topless Las Vegas showgirls wearing thongs, thigh-high boots and stars on their nipples paraded around, trying to persuade passers-by to pose for a photograph (for a fee, of course). Oiled, bronzed and muscled men wearing Stetsons, chaps and cowboy boots tried to appeal to the ladies (or gay guys). Tourists flew along under the 90 feet high canopy on zipwires. Bands stood on stages and played music and light patterns flashed and swirled under the canopy. If I’d been on drugs I would have thought I was tripping – but this was all real.
As we walked along, our heads swivelling from left to right as if we were at a tennis match, we saw a place called Whisky Licker Up, which featured a revolving bar. We thought it looked fun, so we decided to go upstairs (the place downstairs was called Whisky Licker Down).
There were a couple of spare bar stools, so we took our places and ordered a cold pint each, then sat there, looking out of the 360° windows, as the bar, including our stools, slowly turned around, maximising our view. What a great place to people-watch; it seemed as if anything goes in Las Vegas. 🙂
We stayed for another drink; I fancied a cocktail this time. Looking at their list, I spotted a Manhattan, which used to be my facourite cocktail before I discovered caipirinha and Aperol spritz. I decided to have one. For those who don’t know, a Manhattan is created from sweet vermouth, bourbon and angostura bitters. You can have it on the rocks or straight up. I chose the latter, so it wouldn’t be diluted by the ice. It came in a classic cocktail glass, with a brandied cherry in the bottom. I tasted it – boy, was it a strong one.
We had noticed on the hour, every hour, that all the lights go out briefly before coming back on again, then a fantastic laser light show is projected onto the canopy. It was different every time, and definitely worth watching.
Once we’d finished our drinks, we left the bar and started to walk through the mall, looking in the windows of the shops. We came across the group of people from Southampton/Plymouth, and they all had cold cans of beer in their hands. Unlike most of the USA, where you are not permitted to drink liquor in the streets, you are allowed to do it in Las Vegas. But of course. 🙂
We thought it was a good idea, so went into a nearby shop and bought a large, 24oz can of lager each as well as a bottle of prosecco for consumption in our cabin some time. We also purchased another bottle of grapefruit juice as we were still missing our cases, which was beyond ridiculous now.
We walked around, enjoying our cold beer, taking in the sights and sounds all around us. It was just like Blackpool on steroids really, wasn’t it? Once we’d finished our beers, we disposed of the empty cans then decided to take a slow stroll back to the hotel, which wasn’t far away at all; the entrance to the Golden Nugget’s casino was within the mall.
Trevor and I have never been bothered about gambling, we just see it as a waste of money. We therefore walked without interest through the casino and the crowds around the roulette wheel or the craps table. We contemplated having a night cap in the hotel’s bar, but it was too noisy and we fancied some peace and quiet, so we returned to our room and opened the bottle of prosecco instead. Once again, it had been another eventful day. 🙂