Free trip to FL: $1,000 - Finding out the school I want is right under my nose: Priceless

I spend a lot of time lookng at schools. There are several out there and, according to each one, THEY are the best. Hmmm. How to decide?

For me, it came down to finding the one that best fit MY needs, had a fleet of WELL MAINTAINED aircraft and was willing to work with me on MY terms.

We went to Florida to look at one of the largest schools. I won't name names here, but they are owned by a major bankrupt airline that is named after the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. They hammered me hard and offered to fly my wife and I from Phoenix to Orlando to visit. I was getting close to decision time and decided to bite.

What the admission rep didn't tell me was that they were sending us non-rev tickets. They scheduled us to go out the week of spring break. I asked if that was a bad week and he told me "Not at all". I explained that arranging for child care while we were gone and time from work would cost me about $750, so this needed to be a productive trip. He assured me it would. LIAR.

So we get to PHX for our 9:30 flight to Atlanta. "Sorry Mr. *******, but all flights to ATL are oversold until the 5:20p flight. We can accomodate you then. You should be able to make the last connection to MCO." So my wife and I go see a movie and have lunch (we already had the nanny and decided to make lemonade from lemons.

Our flight to ATL leaves nearly 2 hours late. OK...by my calculations we should still make MCO tonight. We are almost there and end up circling over Rome, GA for 90 minutes. CRAP. We land at 12:30 a.m. Connection to MCO long gone. Must find hotel. Doubletree or Amerisuites for $175. I hate how airport hotels pray on weather delayed passengers. Bastards. We get to the Doubletree at 1:30 and have to be up at 5 to make the Orlando flight.

Since the school is in Sanford and we didn't get in the night before, we have to get a rental car to get there. $80 to Hertz...cha-ching. $10 in tolls to get to beautiful Sanford...cha-ching.

Well, we tour the school. Uh...ok. It looked just okay. I was wondering why they were herding us so carefully and decided to make a diversion. I found a few students and chatted them up a bit. They said if they had it to do all over (meaning the school hadn't already locked up all their money), they would choose another school. They said that foreign contract students get better planes, preferential dispatch, lack of CFI jobs and a bunch of other unfair benes. Soon enough, our counselor found my wife and I and cornered us into his office for the hard-core pitch...

"I just talked to the director. He and I both agree, we like you. You're the kind of student we want here at the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet Connection Academy. You're going to be a great pilot and we need to get you started ASAP. We understand that you've been looking at a lot of other schools, but will they guarantee you a job interview?"

Right in the middle of his boiler room pitch, a window pops up on his computer monitor playing a filthy porno from someplace that features underage Philippino beauties. He insists that there is a network virus and that he knew nothing about it. Hmmm...strange. He had just finished telling us about his wife who happens to be Philippino. Anyway, my wife started digging her nails into my leg which made it even more apparent that it was time to leave. But this isn't the end of the story. Read on.

$10 more in tolls back to MCO. We drop of the car at Hertz and get to the airport. On the phone with the bankrupt airline that is named after the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet, we find out that we'll have no problem getting to ATL. Excellent. We could use a break. However, all flights from ATL to PHX for the next 5 days are oversold by at least 20 seats. Houston, we have another problem.

We discover that our best option is to get to SLC the next day and try for there to get home. At worst, we're close enough there to rent a car and drive home.

Our choise is to either go to ATL or stay another night in MCO. Gee, that's a real tough decision. $175 at the airport Amerisuites in Atlanta or Orlando, where there are a host of better places at better rates.

We were lucky enough to get a suite at the MCO airport Hyatt for $142! I went back to Hertz and they gave me another car. Again, make lemonade from lemons. We had a nice dinner at Fleming's and enjoyed much needed R&R for the rest of the evening in our suite.

The next day we flew to SLC and, to make a very long story short, got the last two seats on the last flight back to PHX thanks to a couple who missed the connection.

Lesson learned. Costs: Nanny $500, hotels $400, rental car $80, misc. food and other expenses $200. Total: >$1200 for our free trip to a school I now KNOW I would never attend.

BEWARE of free trips to the school owned by the bankrupt airline named after the 4th letter of Greek alphabet. They just might cost a little more than you think!