Mexicana Airlines: #Fail

I'm sitting here enjoying the smooth jazz sounds of Orbitz's on hold music. In all my years of using their online service, I've only had a problem with Orbitz once - and today is not that day.

No, my trouble is with Mexicana Air. I should have learned my lesson last year, but when I see cheap, efficient flights, I get all googly-eyed and buy them. Last year we had a trip to Cabo planned and a week before we left - all hell broke loose. "Swine flu" wrecked havoc on flights in and out of Mexico City and I spent hours and hours on the phone with Mexicana and Orbitz trying to find a solution. We ended up flying a red-eye out of SFO and enjoying an 8 hour layover in Guadalajara. The word "refund" was not in the vocabulary for Mexicana.

Once again, a week before our flight, I receive a lovely flight update: two layovers now, one with a six hour stop. Insane and wholly and completely unacceptable. Orbitz is working to get a refund for me. I'm sitting here thinking it will be a cold day in hell, but who knows? I might get lucky (for once) with this crappy airline.

So yes, I should have learned my lesson last year, but I assumed the swine flu was a once-in-a-lifetime weird timing thing and it would be OK this year. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

UPDATE: After over 100 minutes on the phone, Orbitz came through for me! The airline is processing the refund after Orbitz got a supervisor involved. Yeah Orbitz!