I spent five days of my three week winter break in bed, sick. It sucked. As I was laying there I started to calculate the number of vacation days left before I reenter the workforce. And that’s when I realized that I absolutely must take advantage of every single one of those vacations. SO, I decided to go to Greece for spring break. Yes, I realize that you can’t do Greece in a week. Yes, I realize that the “season” in Greece starts in April and my spring break is the last week in March. Yes, it was somewhat of a snap decision, but one that my gut just tells me is right. As I lay there surfing the internet looking for destinations where I could work on my photography, Greece just kept soaring to the top of the list.
In the last few weeks, I researched and planned my trip. First I tried to encourage fellow law students to join me, but to no avail. I renewed my passport. I looked at package deals and roundtrip airfare. I looked for professional photographers who have photo workshops in Greece and I looked at tons of people’s family vacation photos and blogs of Greece. I ruled out package deals because the single supplement killed the price and because some of the cruises spent only three hours on each island. I decided I wanted to be in charge of deciding when and where I go and how long I spend there.
I emailed a photographer who lives in Greece and has a photo workshop during the “season.” Through several email correspondence, I negotiated a great deal, where he will take a few days and mentor my photography in Western Crete. I visited with a travel agent who set me up with her Greek friend who is helping me create my itinerary – including pointing out which hostels are good and which should be avoided. It has been amazing how many people have generously helped me in these very beginning stages of planning this trip.
After deciding I wasn’t going to do a package deal, I spent the last two weeks scouring airfares. It was such an adrenaline filled process. I would think I found the perfect flight, only to discover that although it was a hundred dollars cheaper, I would be traveling for 36 hours. Or maybe it was only a little cheaper, but I would have to change from La Guardia to JFK airport with a 45 minute connection time during rush hour. Then there was the decision of whether I wanted to mix and match airlines or whether I wanted a company to do it for me.
Two days ago, I finally found a flight (through smartfares.com) that was 75 dollars less than what I had budgeted for airfare. This flight was also 100 dollars less than the next lowest airfare I had found, the travel time was significantly shorter, and it was only one stop between St. Louis and Athens. The only draw back was that I would not be arriving back in St. Louis until 10:20 pm Sunday night before having to return to classes on Monday in Columbia.
I logged on to my discover account and signed up for 5% cash back rewards on airline flights. It went into effect last night at midnight. At 12:30 a.m. I logged on to purchase the ticket. I opened my browser window and searched for the St. Louis to Athens flight. It was still there and the price hadn’t changed. CHEER! I opened another browser window and searched for a Kansas City to Athens flight – just to be sure that I couldn’t find a better deal. NOTHING! I opened another browser window and on a whim looked for a flight from Columbia to Athens. The price was ridiculous and it would have involved a nine-hour layover in St. Louis on both legs of the trip.
Fully confident in my decision to purchase the St. Louis to Athens tickets, I switched to that browser window. I filled in my credit card information. I read the terms and conditions. I clearly noted that the ticket was non refundable, non cancelable, and all that other good stuff. I clicked on PURCHASE. It was 1:00 in the morning.
My confirmation appeared immediately, congratulating me on my round trip ticket to Athens Greece. As I scanned the confirmation email, the first thing I noticed was bright red words notifying me that I would have to change airports. My heart jumped into my throat. I knew that I had not picked the flight where I had to switch airports. Next I noticed that the flight was NOT from St. Louis, but rather from Columbia. I jumped out of my seat and started freaking out. Of course I blamed myself immediately. I must have gone to the wrong browser window! How could I have done this? After weeks of planning and scouring I had purchased the WRONG tickets. In fact, I had purchased one of the worst priced, worst itinerary that I had come across in all of my research! And it was NON refundable and NON cancelable.
But then, suddenly, I knew that I wouldn’t make that mistake. I remembered very clearly seeing the price right before I clicked purchase. I looked at the two browser windows that I had not purchased tickets from. One was for Kansas City to Athens and one was from Columbia to Athens. Again, I was sure that when I clicked on purchase it was for MY flight from St. Louis to Athens. But my confirmation clearly said Columbia to Athens. As I looked more closely at the confirmation letter, I noticed the fine printed phone number and email and that it would take at least an hour for the purchase of the tickets to go through. HOPE!
I called Smartfares.com at 1:40 in the morning. Their business hours, in case you were interested, are from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm pacific time. I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone until 9:00 am MY time! The first message I left was frantic. I didn’t even leave my confirmation number. I just kept saying, “Please DO NOT issue the tickets from Columbia to Athens. I do not want those tickets. There has been an error. I want the tickets from St. Louis to Athens.” I must have repeated this five or six times before the answering machine cut me off. Next I called discover card. By the time I got to Holly in disputes I was half sobbing. The preliminary charge had already shown up and there was nothing that discover card could do unless I wanted to dispute the charge in 15 days. All I could think was that I would never get my tickets to Greece if I had to wait for the dispute to be settled before purchasing another set of tickets. Holly told me that I would need anything that could confirm that I intended to purchase the St. Louis to Athens tickets. With my fingers crossed, I pressed the back button on my browser. I was certain that it would be an error message telling me that the web page was expired. But it wasn’t. The web page appeared with the form that I had filled out and the St. Louis to Athens tickets. I immediately printed a hard copy and printed it to a file.
At 2:15 am, I emailed the help center. I explained the situation in a somewhat lengthy email, attached the copy of my form showing that I was trying to purchase the St. Louis to Athens tickets and practically half begged, half threatened them not to issue the tickets. I then called the help desk again and left a much saner voicemail, which included all the important information and the fact that I had a print out showing that I had not made an error.
Nine minutes after I sent the email, I received a response. “You are in luck, the reservation below was not issued and we were able to cancel at no charge.” RELIEF!
I was so jacked up on adrenaline that I couldn’t fall asleep until after 4:00 in the morning. I got up this morning, restarted my computer and purchased the correct ticket from St. Louis to Athens, Greece! I think somehow their ticketing system actually knows the last fare that was requested on the computer, even if it is in another browser window. The correct ticket was confirmed (as well as the cancellation of the incorrect ticket) this afternoon.
Suddenly my trip to Greece is a reality!
