Case Study: Proactive Aspen Travel Planning

Flying into Aspen can sometimes be problematic, especially in the middle of a Winter storm. Being properly equipped with the right information can help you implement "Plan B" and minimize the problem. Here is a case study of how proactive planning worked.

My wife and I traveled to Grand Rapids, MI for Thanksgiving. On the day of our scheduled return to Aspen we checked the weather reports and noticed that there was a Winter storm warning with two feet of snow predicted.

In anticipation of the potential for Aspen flights to be cancelled, and before we left Grand Rapids, we booked a reservation at the La Quinta Hotel at Denver International Airport using the DIA hotel contact information in my cell phone and available you you in the " Need A Hotel At The Denver Airport? " Post.
When we arrived at the Denver Airport on a Tuesday we found that all flights to Aspen had been cancelled for two days. We went to the United Airlines Customer Service Desk and were told that the earliest Aspen flight they could confirm us on was on Friday. Yikes!

It turns out that booking the hotel before we left Grand Rapids, MI was a wise move because many outgoing Denver flights had been cancelled and most hotels were already full by 4 pm.

Our next step was to explore other options for getting to Aspen. We checked both the Live Aspen Mountain Camera and the  I-70 and Highway 82 Traffic & Road Conditions via the browser on our Blackberry and determined that the road conditions were dicy enough that we did not want to rent a car and drive to Aspen. United was not currently offering backup bus service because of the bad road conditions. United was also not flying into Eagle for the Winter season until December 15. But we were able to get a confirmed flight into Walker Field in Grand Junction (GRT) on Thursday.

We decided on the following game plan. We would stay at the DIA hotel Tuesday night but attempt to fly stand-by to Grand Junction on Wednesday morning. We made a rental car reservation in Grand Junction for Wednesday morning to make sure we had ground transportation reserved in case we were able to get on a morning flight.

Because we had United Premier (frequent flyer) status we were able to get on a morning flight to Grand Junction. We had a rental car waiting. We landed in Grand Junction around noon, made the 2 hour drive to Aspen, and arrived home early afternoon.  We managed around, and made the best of, a potentially lousy situation.
The learning experience: Keep your eye on Aspen weather and make proactive contingency plans in case things go bad. Check road and traffic conditions to evaluate the sanity of driving. Keep DIA hotel phone numbers stored in your cell phone so you can quickly make a hotel reservation BEFORE you arrive in Denver. Earn United Premier status so you have priority in getting re-booked or getting to the top of the flight standby list. Make advance rental car reservations to insure you are covered in case you fly to Eagle or Grand Junction.