x Bedlam at U.S.-bound airlines at CDG in Paris early this a.m., as Americans pay as much as $20,000 for last-minute flights. pic.twitter.com/kkbOAEFn4Y — Mike McIntire (@mmcintire) March 12, 2020

That might have been the end of his story if almost any qualified president were in office. “But wait! The TV says Trump erred and Americans are actually NOT covered by the ban,” McIntire tweeted. “I scramble to cancel the tickets I just bought and cannot. Delta and Amex Travel web sites won’t let me. Calls are made. Delta now has 6-hr wait, Amex plays music for two hours and disconnects”

Another couple, Dora Dynov and Alec Huxford, told Buzzfeed News they were hoping to celebrate their engagement in Paris and ended up paying more than $4,600 trying to desperately return home to New Jersey. "We packed within minutes and immediately went to the airport in case it got super hectic. We sat at the airport for 7+ hours before our flight," Dora Dynov told the news site. "Exhausted truly isn’t even the word."

It’s a feeling McIntire soon came to know well. After trying to force the internet to oblige him, the journalist decided to go to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport with his wife instead to try to at least recoup some of their money, but when they showed up McIntire said there were about 100 people in line. “It was obvious that in the hours it would take to finally reach the customer service counter, our flight would have already left,” McIntire said in a New York Times story about the incident. “We debated what to do. Looking around at the growing chaos that seemed destined to intensify in the coming days, we swallowed hard and pulled out our gold-plated economy tickets.”

The agent who checked the couple’s bags told them they weren’t alone and that the passenger who paid $20,000 for flights was also trying to cancel the tickets. “Fortified with that tale of someone else’s woe, we boarded the flight to New York, joining other frazzled Americans, wiping down seat armrests with sanitizer and wondering if being home would really be any safer than staying away,” McIntire said in his New York Times piece. At least he got a free peach Bellini on the flight, he tweeted.

x Just arrived at JFK from Paris. Zero screening, testing or even questions related to coronavirus (and the Global Entry scanner spit out someone elseÃ¢ÂÂs entry receipt for me, and the guy behind me got mine, and so on) — Mike McIntire (@mmcintire) March 12, 2020

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