Sat 3am, 10th - I bought my ticket!!!

[Luciana]

I'll the whole story later, but we've been searching for a ticket for the last four hours and I'm exhausted, I can only say that Renata is the kindest and most enthusiastic person in the world . Thanks, Girl6, Kitty, Pool Boy, SkepticScott, NoZed, Chani, everybody there who rooted for me like Hal, Moe, US, Yeti, Patricio, Suez, geez, I must have forgotten...

Basically, if not for those folks, specially Renata, I wouldn't be able to attend TAM, for lack of ticket. So.... trillion thanks! I will tell more about it later. :)

:cs: :cs: :cs: :cs: :cs: :cs:

[MoeFaux]

Renata is a goddess! All that hard work! We love her!

I'm so glad it all worked out, Luciana.

[TruthSeeker]

Good for you!

I look forward to reading all about your TAM2 adventures!

[Yahweh]

Yay!

Renata rocks! :)

[Foofer]

Cool! Glad you're coming Luciana.

[kittynh]

we are all so glad! And if you need a ride let us know!

Hugs!

[Patricio Elicer]

I'm glad to know that I'm going to see you IRL once more Luciana. And yes, Renata, Pool Boy, Scott, NeoZ .... ROCK!

[Cleopatra]

LOL I second what Luciana said about Renata's enthousiasm. She can really motivate you to do everything and the word difficulty doesn't exist in her vocabulary.

After I bought my tickets to Vegas yesterday something poppep-up, I have a problem but Renata with her attitude has made me believe that we will be talking about it in Vegas and the funny thing is that I believe her :D

Thanks Renata!!

[SkepticScott]

Reneta did it all. I just unsuccessfully surfed other web sites, looking for a low fare. Kittynh, Pool Boy, Luciana and Renata had already hit Orbitz, Expedia, etc. I didn't have much success, the minor travel sites require your trip to start in the U.S.A. It helped that the administrators were very active in controlling the room and red-dotted anyone that disrupted the process. Renata deserves a round of applause for an extraordinary effort!:clap: :clap: :clap:

[Doubt]

This sounds like a good story. So what happened?

Details people! Details!



:D

[renata]

Aww, shucks :)

Thanks, guys. The important thing is that Luciana is coming. The thought of how I must milk my own role in this at TAM and gather appreciation, fame and flory only crossed my mind a few dozen times....;) Oh, and my apologies to anyone who I offended by being short, and cranky yesterday- it was a crisis, and needed to be dealt with in a certain brusque manner. And, after many hours, and several disappointments- success! :D

Not to mention that there many a dozen people involved- Luciana, Girl 6 who helped make this happen from the beginning, Cmdr Poolboy, kittynh, Skeptic Scott, NoZed (who IS coming to TAM, threats of multiple paternity suits notwitstanding), rustypouch, Chani, USA, Moe, Patricio, EvilYeti, and many others I am blanking out on, and I hope they forgive me.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yahoo! Another fer'ner to kick around at TAM2! Glad you're coming, Luciana.

I was going to be annoyed if I printed your badge for no reason.

~~ Paul

[Luciana]

Ok, whole story...

Last year I also bought the ticket less than a week prior to the Conference. The difference was that I didn't need to hurry, as seats were plenty, and I could wait for a discount, which happened in the end.

So, on Dec. 15th, as I became sure that I'd have the money for the ticket, I entered a waitlist for a US$950 flight. More than what I was expecting for, but still ok. I waited for almost a week, but the travel agent was told that the waiting list was closed, all seats were sold. By Dec. 23 I was in a waitlist for a $1150 flight, but in a couple of days that too was closed.

Then came the holidays and I was too down to fight for anything. Didn't insist with the travel agent. Due to Renata's incentive, my interest was again raised, and on Jan. 2 I got a reservation for a $1,220. Not a waitlist, a reservation! I just had to pay to have it confirmed. But here I was hesitating, so expensive! The deadline was Jan. 7th, last Wednesday, 18:00. At noon I went visit my travel agent, with Renata whispering on my back :D, and he opened the flight in his computer terminal and... where is it?? Nothing. American Airlines had pulled my reservation many hours prior to the deadline!! I had paid nothing so far, I could not complain. Next waitlist was for a flight costing $1,540. Here I drew the line. It goes against my religion, if I ever had one. I was so discouraged. Well, I failed at finding a ticket.

But Renata wouldn't give up, would she? :cs: Up until Friday I was bugging the travel agent, but there really was no seat to be bought. Then Renata asked: why don't buy the ticket from Expedia, for example? Simple answer: because I can't pay for it, only US residents can. My credit card is no good in this situation.

To make a long story short :), on Friday night Renata decided to buy the ticket for me on her credit card. I was both embarassed and delighted - but what was the option, really? We were at Paltalk PMing back and forth, and then kittynh joined in helping us find a ticket. Renata opened Munuviana so that we could exchange info among us. Soon SkepticScott joined. All of a sudden the room was full of people, somehow the word was spread, and everybody was searching for tickets.

Four times did renata found a reasonably priced ticket, only to find out that, upon clicking "buy it", the price more than doubled. From $1405 it became, say, $2960!!! I was seriously begining to think that that was a scam, that those tickets never existed, we were only wasting our time. Extremely frustrating. What was happening was that in the few minutes we took to decide (layovers, immigration time, number of connections, dates, etc.), the ticket was lost. And that went on for hours, soon there were more than 10 people all sending links and checking prices. My, what a team work!!!

And Pool Boys DOES exist, and he was mighty cool to keep looking for a ticket for me only because kittynh wouldn't give him another option. :fg: Now, that's a likable guy if I ever met one!

I'm paying Renata cash at TAM, failing that I owe her a few body organs. :j2:

[Doubt]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery


I'm paying Renata cash at TAM, failing that I owe her a few body organs. :j2:

Cool. I won't even make any of the body organ jokes that come to mind.

:D

[exarch]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
I'm paying Renata cash at TAM, failing that I owe her a few body organs. :j2:Just out of curiosity, how much did you end up spending, and how come flights from Brazil are so expensive?

:confused:

[Luciana]

I came by a few numbers today:

Number of Brazilians who travelled abroad in the following years:

1998 - 4,2 million
1999 - 2.9 million (sudden devaluation of our currency)
2000 - 2,9 million
2001 - 2,3 million (more devaluation)
2002 - 1,7 million (major crash, economic crisis, 9/11)
2003 - 1,9 million
2004 - the 2001 level is expected to be met, optimism,

Source: Embratur (the tourism agency)

What it means is that in 2002/2003 many regular flights to the US were cancelled. They were empty. 9/11 made it worse, no wonder that in January 2003 finding a seat was the easiest thing in the world. What's happening now is that demand is on the rise, but airline companies didn't react in time. Therefore, prices went up. I'm paying US$1,314, plus taxes on my side. Last year the ticket to Miami was barely $700...

But apparently Patricio, from Chile, also paid around US$1,200. I'm not the only freak. :D

[exarch]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
But apparently Patricio, from Chile, also paid around US$1,200. I'm not the only freak. :DLuckily, I didn't spend that much, but I ended up having to combine the flight in (with a 4 day layover in Chicago) with another package that was 50 Euros more expensive and which required me to rent a car for at least one day for another 50 Euros. Had I known rooms in Las Vegas were not that expensive I would just have taken the flight out on Tuesday and saved myself an unnecessary 100 Euro expense :rolleyes: