Big problems in vacationtown. First, a little background…
Last year, I canceled a flight to Israel. I had assumed that I was given credit through British Airways to redirect the flight wherever I felt like within a year, but it turns out that there was a misunderstanding.
Today it was confirmed by both British Airways, and my booking agency Vayama, that the flight is only good for SFO to London to Tel Aviv. Oh goody.
I no longer have much to do in Israel. Visiting Shiranne would always be nice, but it’s not worth taking a week out of my work schedule to do. I had originally planned on using the credit to book a flight to Paris, where I’d hang out with Hannah for a week in February while she’s off from the Sorbonne.
But if I were to do that, turns out it would be an extra $500 plus another ten hours on a plane, as I would have to go from SFO to London to Tel Aviv to Paris (and back), at best. I’m not so sure this is worth doing anymore.
This is a week of unpaid vacation. By not working, I would have been losing less money than I had already spent on this ticket, but with this extra cost and burden of going through yet another airline and expecting flights to go as planned, I no longer think this is a good idea. But I feel pretty bad about already having spent over a thousand dollars on travel and having it go to waste.
And if I were to decide to go to Israel, it probably would be en route to somewhere else. So why not Paris now? And since I was thinking of spending extra time in Paris because Shiranne would possibly visit, why not spend that extra time visiting her in Israel instead, since I kind of have to go there?
So in summary:
If I go:
$1000+ credit used
$500 extra spent on ten extra hours (not counting airline transfer time) for a round trip flight from Tel Aviv to Paris
At least an unpaid week
Hundreds spent on hostels and other accomodations
Fun in Paris and perhaps elsewhere
If I don’t go:
$1000+ credit lost (or used some other time in the next half year to still go to Israel)
No work schedule interruption
No visiting Hannah, etc.
Hey LiveJournal! What do you think I should do!!!
i’d say complain at british airways enough for them to give you a refund or better ticket or something JUST KEEP AT IT
tell them you don’t want to go to israel because of the war, and see if you can get it changed based on that.
alternatively, is it transferable? sell it.
Nope, not transferable. If it was, I’d have sold it a long time ago.
For those who haven’t been to Israel I guess “war” is a good excuse. I guess it’s worth a try.
How often do you plan to visit Paris in the (near) future? Or to Israel again?
I don’t really plan on visiting Paris in the near future. I visited 10 years ago and I’d much rather go somewhere I haven’t gone before – but I have a friend there.
As for Israel, I don’t really have any plans on visiting again. I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not worth taking a week off of work to do.