My daughter Sarah and her husband, Dan, flew from Chicago Midway last Saturday to visit us here in Oregon for Christmas. Their direct flight on Southwest Airlines would deliver them to Portland (PDX), where sister Jenny would pick them up for the 4-plus-hour drive here to our home in Southern Oregon.

The minute they arrived at Midway early on the 21st, they realized they were going to be challenged, and they realized they’d not given themselves enough time to realistically account for the volume of travelers on that day. In line for an hour to drop their bag (and Sarah noted that all counters weren’t staffed fully), they rushed to the security line, dismayed to see a large backlog and only one lane open. Another line opened as they approached, but just as they were dropping items into bins and preparing to pass through the screening, they heard their names being paged for the imminent departure of their flight. A mad sprint in bare feet got them to the gate, where the aircraft’s door had already been closed. They blessed the gate and flight crew for reopening the door both for them and another late-arriving couple. Grateful that they were on their way to Portland on this busy travel day (with sketchy weather in the Midwest), they also knew the odds of their bag making it onto the plane with them were slim to none.

Indeed, they learned on arrival in Portland that their bag, though not in Portland, was “guaranteed” to be on the next flight in, due in five hours. Based on that “guarantee,” they decided to wait in Portland at a relative’s home and return for the present-filled bag. You guessed it — the bag wasn’t there upon their return. The agent at the lost baggage desk took their information and said every effort would be made to get the bag to them via courier overnight. Sarah and Dan made sure the agent understood that the courier would be making a 5-hour trip to the opposite end of the state (she did) and then left for their own trek south, not at all convinced they would see their bag before Christmas.

Happily, before they arrived at our home they received a call from Southwest that their bag was in Portland and would make it on the final courier trip of the night. True to its word, Southwest’s courier (looking, Sarah said, Santa Claus-ish, with a trim white beard and wire-rimmed spectacles) arrived at about 3 a.m. at our house. What had been a rather tense start to their Christmas vacation ended with a very happy outcome. These travelers learned an important lesson about travel during peak times, and they were pleased to find Southwest really went the extra mile (give or take 300) to reunite them with their luggage.

I hope your holiday travels go smoothly!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor