Flight Plan

We bought tickets this week!  I can hardly believe I get to say this. 

I learned, from my Yahoo Groups and adopting family blogs, that ticket prices to Asia are skyrocketing.  It seems that when school is out, everyone travels to Asia.  T., one of the Mom's adopting this summer, received permission to book mileage seats in advance in order to be sure she can afford the tickets.  She notified our group that she would be flying July 1.  She is about two weeks ahead of us in the paperchase and, like us, does not yet have travel approval. 

Usually, a family will wait until they have the final approvals from the USCIS and China AND have received their travel approval (TA) before buying tickets.  This means you buy tickets for a flight only a few days to weeks away at some exorbitant high season price.  This avoids purchasing tickets too early as you must have the TA in hand before getting on a plane.  However, with the way the ticket prices are going up ($100-$300 a day since I started looking), we were not going to be able to afford take the boys and Nana unless we bought tickets now.

The agency person who coordinates this part of the process (Sabrina) calculated potential travel dates out for us numerous times.  While she worked on this, I tried valiantly to get us mileage seats for at least half the group.  Multiple lengthy attempts were unsuccessful as I found that all mileage seats to Asia available to us had been booked about a year in advance.  I started getting very desperate.  When looking at various airlines and dates, I only found things to be more and more expensive.  Additionally, the potential calculations for reasonable dates that would ensure that we had received ALL of our documents pushed things from the idea of receiving Lulu in June into July. 

Then Sabrina settled on a date that was comfortable for her to expect all paperwork to be completed:  July 19th.  We would be allowed to purchase tickets for July 19th with a presumed/hoped for "Gotcha Day" of July 26th.   This is the first time I have heard a proposal for a real honest-to goodness Gotcha Day.  This will be the special day in which we meet, receive, and begin to connect with our daughter at the provincial offices in Nanning.

I spent hours trying to work with a website and on the phone with a help center in India.  I went to bed that night furious with an airline.  I couldn't book six tickets at once on their site but since they were the least expensive airline, and recommended by an acquaintance from US and Mainland China, I was determined to work it out.  I worked two computers at once and was able to buy two tickets at the promised price but was locked out of buying the other four tickets.  I tried every credit card, multiple options, and then called for help.  The help desk first told me there were no seats on my flight.  I had 2 out of 6 on a plane that I needed 6 to fly on.  The website gave me every indication that seats were available.  The reservations agent spoke with a supervisor and let me know that they no longer had any online pricing seats available but that they could release seats to me at the higher price.  I was completely miffed but at this point I recognized that we were going to be lucky to be able to fly on the same plane at all and if I had to wait even one more day, we would lose the opportunity to travel at all.  We were allowed to reserve the seats that night and if we called back in the AM when their credit card desk re-opened, we would have the tickets.

Did I get up early to call reservations desk in India?  I sure did!  We bought them and the boys went off to school that morning and spontaneously started telling their teachers and classmates how excited they were to be going to get their sister in July.  Even if it is two months away, it is ONLY two months away and that feels a lot better than having no idea when we would go and whether we would be able to take the boys.

So, very happy news from the Harp household this week.  We will depart on a Monday, arrive in China Tuesday evening, tour either Guilin and Yangshuo along the Li River or tour Beijing - we still have to decide that part of the plan- then we will get to Nanning on Sunday and unite the family on Monday.  Then we have days of adoption related activities in Nanning and then in Guangzhou.  More agenda later.  Right now, I just want to bask in the joy of having tickets.  It does feel good.