Where in the World is Rebecca Today?

(X-posted)

I seriously have an awesome friend.

My friend’s mom works for an airline and gets “buddy passes” that can be used on any flight. She talked to her mom, and her mom offered me buddy passes to go to the UK, and for less then what AirIndia was charging me…..AND she’s letting me pay her back after I get my refund from AirIndia.

The caveat is that I have to fly out of Dulles, which is farther from the house than PHL or BWI, but…I already talked to my mom and she’s willing to do it, so I also don’t need to use trains and shuttles anymore to get to the airport (As far as I know, there isn’t a train to Dulles, other than going through DC anyway), which will save us money, because Train+shuttle was going to probably run $100 extra anyway!

God, I love them both so much right now.

I booked my trip to the UK back in August through cheapfareguru.com to fly on AirIndia on Oct 16 out of JFK (getting to LHR Oct 17) and coming home on Dec 22 because my mom wanted me home for Christmas. My flight was US$602, which was perfect for my budget.

They called me today to tell me my flight was canceled and it will take two weeks to get my refund!

The exact conversation went like this:

cgf: Your flight’s been canceled
Me: can you put me on another flight?
cfg: Air India canceled all their flights for the next three months
Me: Can you put me on another airline?
cfg: We can’t apply money paid for one flight to another. We can rebook you using the same card
Me: I don’t have enough money to do that. Did the refund get credited back today?
cfg: It can take two weeks
Me: that’s not acceptable, I need to leave for London on October 16
cfg: We can try to expedite it
Me: Are there any other flights you could put me on after I get my refund and I rebook? Anything in the same price range?
cfg: I will look into it and call you back, but I can only hold a price for three days

…and then I went to their website and the best they have is $760..which I can’t afford right now, and it would even be tight to try to re-book after I get my refund, assuming flights are still that low.

My mom has agreed to letting me stay over through Christmas, so if I can find a cheaper flight that’s longer, that’ll work, but Tim and I have tickets to a show on Oct 21, so I need to be there at least by then. And Tim took leave Oct 17-31 so we could travel, so if I go later, we wouldn’t have that leave available and I wouldn’t actually get to see much of the UK because Tim would be working.

But I can’t book anything until I get my refund. because I don’t have any extra money hanging around to book with.

But the saga gets deeper.

I called cfg back to find out if there were any options. Sam (the guy I talked to) told me I needed to call Air India directly, and gave me their 800 number.

Cue two hours of getting no where. The 800# goes to Bombay, btw, and they have no connection with the New York office. They give me a 212 number, and I call it and get nothing but piano music. So, I call the 800# back. I get another number, but this one goes to a law office in NYC. I call back, get another number that no one answers. I call again, and get another number that goes to the law office. I call the 800# again and ask for a supervisor right away.

Supervisor (which I swear I kept being bounced around. I’d abruptly get told to hold on and then I’d have to re-explain everything) told me that this was all my travel agent (cgf)’s fault, and they couldn’t re-book me because a refund has been issued. I said I hadn’t gotten the refund, so why couldn’t they cancel the refund and re-book me through EWR (which a friend of mine on another message board told me they had been doing to everyone booked with a JFK flight that was cancelled). They told me they couldn’t because of something with cfg. Oh, and this person told me the refund could take two months!

So….I called Sam back and told him what happened. He told me it wouldn’t take two months, and he was trying to get me my refund faster so I could rebook something. He’s calling AirIndia to see what he can do, since all AirIndia would tell me to do was “call your travel agent”.

Tim and I also did some flight hunting before he had to leave for work, and I found a BA flight for $722. The problem is that without the refund, I don’t have $722 to book anything, and if I have to wait 2 weeks? I’m sure the flight will be way more than $722. I mean, I’m supposed to leave in 28 days! 2 weeks for now leaves me with…two weeks to get a flight.

So, I’m at my wits end. I need a way to re-book a flight before the refund comes through and I just don’t have it.

I can’t completely cancel this trip. Tim and I have been looking forward to this and we have tickets to Shakespeare in October and we have loads of plans.

*sigh*

Today I embarked on the first leg of my trip up to Dauphin!

Flights:

Northwest Flt 1765 PHL -> DTW Departed 9:25 Arrived 11:12 at Gate A-40 (or some insanely high number)
Northwest Flt 4739 DTW -> YWG Departed 12:15 at Gate C-29!!!

YIKES! I had to travel across pretty much the entire MacNamara terminal to grab my connection…but I still had time to grab a gardenburger from Fudruckers. It wasn’t a bad burger, and surprisingly only $5.79. And other than a bagel I scarfed down in the car, and a peanut butter and jelly uncrustable, the only food I ate today so far. Oh, and I get to add “tram” to my list of transportation devices I’ve taken on this trip. IF I go to the mall, I’d also add a bus, but I just walked around one mall,and I’m not sure I have the energy to walk around another.

Types of transportation today: Car, Plane, Tram, Cab (do the people mover things in the airports count?)

Probably the most nerve-wracking thing for me was going to be going through Customs once in Canada, but surprisingly? No problems at all.

here’s my passport stamp!

Thank you, Canada for hiring competent customs agents who are BNL fans and who just stamp my passport while babbling about BNL instead of asking me all the required questions!

After breezing through customs, it was a short (albeit pricey – CDN$12.30) taxi ride over to the holiday Inn, where Sarah had booked me for the night. The hotel is really nice, here’s a view from my window:

After settling in, I took a walk down to the Shoppers Drug Mart and a mini mall, then I headed to The Bay to do some browsing. Now, I’m back in my room, drinking the horrible excuse for tea the hotel offers for free.

Oh, and I turned the sink in the bathroom into a wet bar:

To see more photos from today, check out my album for today: http://photos.beccajanestclair.com/winnipeg-manitoba-august-2008

The Department of Homeland Security announced today that they can now search an international traveler’s laptop without reasonable suspicion. This includes US Citizens re-entering the country from abroad. Not only can they confiscate your laptop for months on end, but they also can share the contents of your laptop with other departments. There’s an article on Engadget with some comments including ways you can keep your data secure.

My advice would be that if you do have sensitive and confidential material on your hard drive, you should remove it and possibly store it on a secure online server where you would be able to download it once you reach your destination.

Just another example of why I’d love to move out of this country.