Usually our trips back to the UK go without any events to talk of, not this one.

It all started off when we arrived at the airport.

Being a little early, and with international flights just starting back up, we arrived to find that the premium check-in desk wasn’t open. Perhaps 6hrs before the flight us perhaps a shade too early.

We were directed to a baggage drop off area.

This was no cause for concern as there was no queues and we promptly served. We provided our passports and Jo was promptly informed that there wasn’t an ESTA on her’s. I’m not sure what happened but I know I submitted the details of both her passports when I applied for the ESTA’s last month.

We presented the AirNZ rep with her NZ passport, luckily this did have an ESTA assigned to it. Phew we can transit via the USA after all. Now we have to work out how to enter and leave the USA and still be able to get into the UK without any problems.

The flight to LA went without any further surprises, the meals as usual were a delight, if a bit fancy. Having said that the breakfast choice was a little disappointing and the scrambled eggs felt gritty so went uneaten.

We landed early in LA and had just over 2 hrs until our 2nd flight. Hopefully this would allow us enough time to get through both immigration and customs.

First stop immigration. The queue wasn’t too bad and we were soon staying in front of a scary immigration officer. Jo presented her NZ passport which cleared ok. We then asked if she could leave using her UK passport as she needed that one at Heathrow.

The officer took both passports and studied them both clearly. Then said “It’s very confusing having two passports you need to get rid of one.” The look of shock on Jo’s face was unbelievable. The officer then looked up with a broad smile on his face and said “Just joking, you’re good to go on either passport”

Next challenge was customs.

At customs along with everyone else we removed our electronics from our bags and deposited them into tray to be scanned. Our bags in another tray and then our shoes, belts before we ourselves went through an xray machine.

On the other side we then collected all our items, except for one. My bum bag was missing. I waited a short time while putting all the items back into my backpack and putting on my shoes. Still no bumbag. Jo went off to find someone.

Finding someone then wasn’t the difficult part, trying to get them to understand English was, that is until Jo remembered that the Americans call them a fanny pack.

Four bags later mine is eventually found. Now it’s off to find our plane for the second half of our trip.

Finding a departure board amongst all the shops was beyond both of us and we had to resort to asking for help only to be show a massive screen high up on the wall.

Number found it was a quick walk to the gate.

Our seats had not been allocated so Jo went to the attendant to arrange them. As she waited in line there was a large notice “We over book our flights”.

On checking our tickets the attendant informed Jo that the flight was full and that hardly anyone ever makes it to this flight from the AirNZ flight we were on.

After checking she found two seats unallocated and gave them to us. A little unfortunate for the other couple that were on our flight but hadn’t made it to the gate in time.

So we were going to be OK getting to the UK after all.