Not to be horribly obvious, but why don't you book online? British Airways do e-tickets, you pick them up at the airport from the machine, no post to get lost in. I've also booked train tickets online (the Rail Europe and SNCF websites are OK, Deutsche Bahn is rather spiffy). My Eurostar tickets arrived pronto, but had they not I had a reference email from the site, no intermediaries to pursue. How much is five hours of your time worth?

Because none of the online systems can handle "get me a return ticket that gives me eight to ten days in (blah) with five core days (specify here). Two seats, departing somewhere reasonably convenient for us (no car, we're based in Edinburgh, so any airport we can reach by public transport) and remember, Feorag's a vegan and gets claustrophobia attacks if she can't get a window seat."

Seriously.

Human travel agents are basically AIs that can handle that kind of fuzzy query. Do it yourself and you're going to spend a long time (five hours? Not atypical) hunting around the web for bargains. Plus, at the lead time when we booked the tickets they were the cheapest on offer. (We're now into the last-minute seat filler season, hence the low Air Canada prices -- most of 'em are still way more expensive.)

I hope things work out and you get to Torcon okay, but in the future I have two words for you: "Electronic tickets".

There is absolutely no reason you (or anyone) should be forced to carry around a paper ticket. Is this not the 21st century? I haven't had a paper ticket in almost a decade... just show up at the counter and present your ID. All done.

Many passengers believe airline tickets are readily replaceable because the reservation is in the computer; sad to say, but airline tickets are equivalent to any other negotiable document.

When a ticket is lost (no matter the specific circumstances), expect* the airline to:
• Charge you a re-processing fee (US$25 to US$100);
• The airline could require you to repurchase the ticket in order to proceed with your trip. If you no longer meet all of the restrictions on your discounted fare, the new ticket may cost more than the old one. (Should you have to purchase a new, higher fare basis ticket, it is this higher fare the airline will refund, if you leave unchanged your original itinerary.)
• It could take from 30 days - 1 year + 30 days to process your refund request. This is due to a ticket being valid on most airlines for up to one year. If anyone uses or cashes in your ticket while the refund is pending, the airline can refuse to return your money.
• Require you to sign an indemnity if someone subsequently uses the ticket.

*Expect does not equate to they will or must do the preceding. The better your argument (i.e., facts such as ticket numbers, etc) and the quality of your appeal (are you a frequent customer/flyer with the airline?, are you booked in first or business class?, etc), then the above policies could be over-ridden.

If you must replace your ticket, you should:
• Provide the ticket *stock number*. (Always, always have on hand this number. Any wise travel agent would forward this via email or telephone conversation upon issuance of your tickets.)
• Immediately report the lost/stolen ticket to the airline, in addition to notifying the local police department (to file and obtain a police report).
• Proceed to the nearest airport and present your identification to the ticketing staff for re-ticketing. (What, you were about to trust the ‘post’ once again? :-)


E-tickets are a fine suggestion; unfortunately, they too have drawbacks and pitfalls. The lack of transferability between airlines is only one. This article:

<http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/04/...et.transfer.idg/>;

would have the reader believe this deficiency soon would be a thing of the past; alas, three years on...

I agree with your unspoken comment: Who needs grief and aggravation such as this?

Good luck!
David

Except that the problem is not that the tickets are lost in the post. We know exactly where they are - the travel agent has them, and the travel agent appears to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

For the uncomplicated stuff, I've been booking online since easyJet first launched online booking back in the Dark Ages (my friend and I were the bearers of the first online booking printout the check-in staff at Turnhouse had ever seen). Even then, if I want to go to London, I have a choice of British Airways to Heathrow and Gatwick, British European to London City, British Midland to Heathrow, easyJet to Luton, Gatwick and Stansted and Scot Airways to City.

Charles: After reading your post about Bush and Blazing Saddles, I could definitely see the resemblance, but, here, in the US, when I was a kid, there was a guy on TV who had a children's show, named Doodles Weaver, who was in every way a bona fide Bush clone. He had that same close cropped hair, that same slightly cross-eyed moronic stare, as if he had just been hit on the head with a ball peen hammer, the same less than remarkable features. And the character he played was that of an idiot. If you want to see Weaver, I doubt you can find the old shows, but he does have a cameo part in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. He's the guy driving the little boat that takes Rod Taylor to the island where they are having the birthday party. Also, there may be some publicity shots around on the web. You will marvel, though, that this kind of tragic anomoly could happen more than once.

Best,


Jeffrey Ford

Found a pic of Doodles Weaver. Wow. Yeah, the resemblance is there.

extreme ironing: it certainly is a joke. quite funny too!

I've seen the book at work.
It's real.
I've seen worse though.

Naw.... Extreme ironing is serious. Back when I was working for SCEE, there was all sorts of Extreme Housework going on.

If extreme ironing's a joke, it's a very involved one (extreme irony?). Much like Intercal, which people have suggested you yourself invented, it's spread like jam.

Chris

Aaaaah! My eyes!

Damn you.

Looks so cute, until you get to the nude shot...

Have a look at the _current_ Radio Times -- there's a TV company facing a court action from the victims who were put in a reality TV show with a pre-op trans-sexual, without being told that the "girl" they were flirting with was still fully equipped.

You think those photographs were startling?

But, Charlie, I used to think _my_ friends were weird...

Looks cute, even /in/ the nude shot. I'd go there (if I didn't have a better offer).

As for "There's something about Miriam", the TV show in question, I have to wonder why those guys are complaining about humiliation when they volunteered for a TV show in which they'd do stupid stunts in the distant hope of a shag from a woman who'd been paid to be there, whatever she might have had between her legs.

But it's not the dumbness of the people who volunteer...

It's the sick mindfucking attitude of the people who made the show in the first place.

Those kittens have a communism thing going on AND a fascism thing, which is a bit weird.