Ho comprato un biglietto aereo!  In other words, that plane ticket done been bought.  This is something I have been looking forward to for a long time, to not just say "I'm hoping to leave for Florence in June" or "June is my goal departure date," but to have an actual date, something to count down to, for June to be official and not just a hope and prayer!  And June it is, June 20, in fact.  The Lord has been faithful, last post I shared about when I thought departure might need to be delayed until later in the fall, but He allowed June to prevail and still has, but not without really, really, really, making sure I am relying on His way and timing in this wonderful roller coaster of an adventure, una meravigliosa avventura.  Even in just buying a plane ticket, it was not as simple as searching for a ticket, entering my information, and pressing "Book."  Oh no, no, no.  Come, step back in time with me, to the wonderful world of Kayak, AerLingus, and CheapOAir.  

Caution: The story below is long and detailed and possibly boring to anyone but myself, but it made me feel better to write it out, haha.  Therapy. 

So You Want to Buy a Plane Ticket?

Tuesday, yes, Tuesday the 19th I decided would be a good day to buy a plane ticket.  Tuesdays are usually my day off from teaching dance, and so I would be at my leisure to thoroughly scour all the tickets and find the best flight for the best price.  Now this was not spur of the moment, for the past two months I have been keeping my eye on flights and prices, watching them go up and down, and saving ones that looked ideal.  Originally I thought June 14 might be nice, but I had noticed two months out the prices all jumped, and then stayed up.  I wasn't ready to buy a ticket yet at that point, so I decided June 19thish might be better, prices were still lovely and cheap for those dates, and anything after Tuesday would be after the 2 month mark if these ones decided to jump up too.  They weren't getting any cheaper, this I knew. 

Tuesday came, and so did my excitement and anticipation.  Even thought I pretty much already knew which ticket I wanted, on Kayak.com, thorough is my middle name, (no it's not, liar) so I double checked all the tickets.  Then I also compared flights on Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, GoogleFlights, asaptickets, justairticket, CheapOAir, JustFly, Onetravel, Cheaptickets, Staydrivefly, Travelopod, Tripsta, and Travelocity.  (But maybe thorough SHOULD be my middle name??)  Kayak still seemed best and least expensive, so I booked that ticket.  Or tried to.  As my flight was being confirmed, the website notified me the price had jumped up $500, and would I like to continue?  Um, no thanks.  Slight sinking feeling, there goes that nice itinerary.  So I try my next pick, same story.  And my next pick, same thing.  I tried every single one on Kayak that would work for me, and every single one had jumped in price.  I then proceeded through the above mentioned list of flight sites; every. single. ticket. was either unavailable, no longer existed, or jumped in price as my information was being processed.  No matter how many times I tried to refresh the page or do new searches, the flights would always show up at the low price, but it was never true.  It was all very bizarre.  I began to wonder if there was something I was missing here, or if this was the Lord trying to tell me something, maybe these were not the dates I was supposed to go, maybe I should wait for October still, maybe different airports?  I wasn't sure, but one of my biggest prayers in this journey is to not get ahead of the Lord.  So I took a break from the multiple open tabs on my web browser and hundreds upon hundreds of flights I had seen.  To pray, read the Bible, refocus my attention on Christ.  There were just four more flights in my price range I hadn't tried yet.  And they weren't available/jumped in price.  Ok yeah, not Tuesday. 

So You Still Want to Buy a Plane Ticket?

Two days later I decided to check again.  Some of the websites were updated now, reflecting the much more expensive tickets, but most still tauntingly displayed the low, fake prices.  Frustrating.  Except CheapOair seemed to have some new itineraries up.  So I tried to book one.  Oh no, someone bought that ticket before you!  was the notification I got every time.  Lies, all lies.  Then I got a call from New York.  CheapOair trying to help me.  Except they weren't much help and said all the ones I was trying to book had gone up in price $500-700, but I should still book before they go up again.  Erm, nope.  I still tried a couple more on CheapOair, I mean at this point I knew they weren't going to go through anyway, but it made me feel better to know I was exhausting all avenues.  I got another call from CheapOair, again, they told me nothing I didn't already know. 

After I got home from work I made the realization that all the itineraries I'd been trying to book were Aerlingus, they seemed to be the only airline with the cheap tickets.  Well, not anymore, now they were all the same price as the expensive ones.  I tried going straight to Aerlingus.com, and realized that most of the tickets I had been trying for didn't exist, so no wonder all the booking websites weren't working!  If Aerlingus didn't have them how could they?? 

I looked on CheapOair some more.  I realized every time I tried to book a flight and it failed, I would get a call from their help center.  I didn't answer anymore, I knew they couldn't help.  It became a joke, oh here's my friends at CheapOair calling again.  Needless to say, I had lots of missed calls on my phone.  Then I somehow stumbled upon CheapFareGuru, and found relatively inexpensive itineraries through British Airlines, not Aerlingus!  Clap, clap, clap.  I tried to book one.  And guess what?  It went through.  I saw the beloved "Confirmed" page.  I then received a text saying my flight went through.  Yay!  But I didn't receive my ETicket.  I woke up the next day to a still empty email inbox.  At this rate I wasn't sure if I would even get my ETicket before the 24 hour period for free cancellation was up!  As I was getting out of work I got a text saying my card was declined and my flight was on hold.  This has never happened to me before.  Then I got another text saying my booking was cancelled because of my card.  Ok Lord, what are you trying to tell me here?  I know my card is fine, there is no reason for it to be declined.  On the bright side, I realized I had booked my flight to leave on June 19th, Father's day.  Now I was free to find another date if possible.  ANY DATE.  PLEASE.  Haha. 

At this point I knew if it wasn't meant to be the Lord wouldn't let anything go through, so I didn't see any harm in continuing to try.  I found another British Airlines flight for June 20, and even cheaper!  It was perfect on so many levels.  So I booked it.  And I saw that beautiful "Confirmed" page.  And I got the confirming text.  And then I got an email!!!!! But wait, it was not the Eticket, it was letting me know that I would need to

1. email them back to confirm my email and say "I, Jenny Morris, blah blah blah" and

2. Confirm my identity and credit card when they called me.

I emailed them back. Check.  Then I briefly ran upstairs, came back down, and I HAD MISSED THEIR CALL.  Surely they would call me back, right?  It got to be after 10pm and they hadn't called me back, so I called them.  After briefly listening to some nice hold music, I got a hold of someone who said my card was declined, same as yesterday.  We figured out some of my card digits had got mixed up.  Phew, easy fix!  Not.  Still declined.  Went through and confirmed all my other information.  Still declined.  I had to call my credit card company.  The nice lady said my security code might be mixed up, fixed it, and said I was good to go and have CheapFareGuru try my card again.  Called CheapFareGuru again, another nice 10 minutes of hold, annnnnnnd card still declined.  Went through all my information two more times.  Everything is as right as rain.  But sopping wet with my tears and not working.  Just kidding.  I have to call the credit card company again.  This time, however, I am connected straight to someone with the fraud prevention center.  And she said the first agent didn't have clearance to where she could see the hold on the airline purchase, which is why my card couldn't go through.  So now they were able to confirm that I wanted this purchase on my card, and everything should be good to go.  FOR REALZ.  I call CheapFareGuru for the third time, a rocking 25 minutes of hold.  They tried my card again.  And it worked.  Glory be.  Now midnight, I check my email and I have an Eticket.  I check my online card balance, and I have never been so happy to see it charged. 

So that was fun.  And if you would like any advice on anything regarding plane tickets and itineraries, I might be able to help.  Or I might just start twitching. 

It's such a nice feeling having a real plane ticket.  (Unless British Airways goes bankrupt or something.)  There is still a lot of work ahead of me, continually fundraising and building my prayer and support team, but having an official date spurs on the excitement to continue this course set before me.