February!

Whee hee! My heart is still racing.

It started this morning. Actually, that's not true. It started many moons ago, when Boyfriend and I kept talking about travel. He's never been out of the country, doesn't even have a passport. He also loves British history and politics, so I of course told him about the awesomeness of London, even suggested that Christmas in London would be fantastic. I bugged him and he kept forgetting and putting it off and joking that he didn't want to go anywhere anyway. I always look out for airfare deals to Europe, and so I started looking at fares to London in December.

The British Airways base price was not bad, a total of $480 roundtrip. I am a a whore for British Airways; they are by far the best flight expereince I've ever had. (Partially because I got to fly roundtrip on business class TWICE) That price didn't change for months, but I still watched out. I kept checking Kayak, because it is my new best friend.

BF finally applied for his freaking passport a couple months ago.

Last week I saw a special for BA to London, the Christmas week was down to $450. Sweet! Fantastic! That was, I think, Thursday or Friday.

When I told BF about it, he was all excited to FINALLY buy the tickets. So when we went back to check, the British Airways flight had gone up to $504! There was still a cheaper flight on American for $460, but it had an OVERNIGHT layover in Boston, of all places. Not worth it.

We decided to keep watch and if things didn't change soon, spring for the BA flight. And just GO to LONDON for CHRISTMAS.

So anyway. Back to today. Wednesdays are when all the travel e-newsletters get sent out. So I made sure to look for deals, and right away saw a blurb about New York to London for around THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Total!

Holy crap. I emailed BF about it after I checked it out for myself. Christmastime didn't work, but the February break dates did. $314, with taxes and all! The only downside is that it's from Newark to Gatwick. Not great, but for that price, who cares?

Ooh! Exciting!

I went on with my day, doing laundry and ironing (I have never owned an iron before; I got one a few weeks ago and finally broke it out today to dewrinkle all my button-down shirts for school)(It wasn't the first time I'd ever ironed or anything; I'm not a barbarian. I'd only ironed a little back at my mom's during college, and after that never had money or really felt the need to iron stuff). I went into school for about three hours, organizing my stuff even more. Good times.

BF and I talked a couple times, and I remembered to check again when I got home. Except that my friend Kayak told me that on the airline's site, that same fare was only $303. Un-freaking-believable!

By then the $314 fare was already gone, and the $303 fare didn't work when we put in two tickets instead of one. BF and I agreed that this deal was too incredible to pass up, and we both tried to see what we could do. So I called the airline to make sure there were two seats on those $303 flights. There were, and I took a deep breath, and booked them. There was an extra ten-dollar charge to do it by phone, but geez, who cares.

So I did it, and bought the tickets. Two to London for a complete total of $626!!! Multiple exclamation points because it's so amazing!!!

After the booking, I called BF to let him know, and I called my mom to tell her. Then I glanced at the confirmation email and almost had a heart attack--it had the wrong dates!

The airline had the automated dude who asked for departure and arrival cities, and dates. I said, "February 16th" and he said, "Okay, February 8th." I cried, "No!" But he wouldn't let me go back.

I forgot to ask the woman that I spoke with, and during all the info gathering, she never asked/confirmed the dates.

I immediately called the airline back, my heart pounding in dread. The booking woman had told me that it was non-refundable and any changes would cost $200 plus the change in fare.

Once I got a person on the phone, I quickly explained that the date was wrong, the voice guy had gotten it wrong. The first lady transferred me to a second lady. Both were very friendly and polite, and it was all taken care of. She changed the departure date to the 16th, said she would send another email with that, and it was done. I thanked her profusely and with great relief.

And a couple minutes later, the email came through with the correct dates and with no extra charges. Wow, and PHEW.

We're going to London in February!! Squee!!