Travel Headaches

I get headaches when I travel-literally.  I get migraines, I vomit, I sleep, and then I recover from traveling.  (This poor kid will be meeting me on my recovery day.)

What I don't need is headaches just trying to get the tickets bought, but I have one of those now.  Yesterday I got the amount for the fare, made a transfer from my checking account to my credit card so I'd have enough available, and in the evening faxed my credit authorization to the travel agency.  Done, right?

No.  First the fax didn't go through.  Resent it.

Next I double checked that my transfer had gone through.  It hadn't.  So I called the credit card company and they said it would post at the end of the day today and that they would put an override on my account so there would be no problem when the charge came in.

There was a problem.  The travel agency called to tell me that the ticket charges were declined.  So I called the credit card company again.  They said no charge attempt had been made and for the company to double check the number and try again.

They had my number and expiration date correct.  They tried again.  Then they called me to say that they were able to buy tickets for myself and Yan Aidan, but not for LB.

So I called the credit card company again, while I had my account information open on my laptop and, since my portable phone had died from long wait times, I had my other phone and laptop stretched toward one another from opposite sides of the room so that I could look and talk at the same time.  (No, it didn't occur to me to unplug the laptop-too easy) 

The credit card company showed only one charged ticket.  The guy told me that he showed no payment pending (it was on my screen) but that he could authorize a one-time charge for one of the tickets but not both.  I told him that I couldn't travel without one of my kids being on the same flight and that I would have to cancel the whole transaction and try again.  He told me to hurry and do that transaction right away if I planned to.  (Jerk)

I called the travel agency back.  They said they definitely had two tickets authorized and would ask the airlines to hold one and try charging it again tomorrow.  They called a few minutes later to tell me that the third ticket went through.  And all the while, my credit card history on-line showed only one ticket being purchased. 

This is just the beginning!