Astronomy and Coffee

The whole day was spent on solving the "ticket home issue".

As I said here before, TAM refused to correct our names that were switched. A large travel agency in Brazil was unable to get them to do this simple thing, even though they first said they would they changed their mind and forgot to tell us.

Checked a last minute agency and found a good price as alternative, but we would have to act fast. Used a contact inside TAM (a cousin) to fix it, the reply is "the booking code is different now and the names are fixed". The travel agency (airline-direct, a bad option) did a new booking, even though I didn't ask for it, what invalidated the first (and wrong) one ... so nothing to be fixed!!

Called the agency, who confirmed the new booking with the old price, I would just have to pay the fine for canceling the first one. Great ... great??? Last friday I was refusing to pay anything because it was not my fault. Now after a week fighting I was glad I would be able to fix this just paying the fine ... that's their strategy. Every time you call someone different answers, they give any answers (never written), but you're the one that is always calling back and forth, to you're tired, fed up, pissed off, they are fine.

Anyway, I would accept this as a good option, given the circumstances, and asked for an e-mail giving all the information, including the price that I asked the agent to confirm to me about 5 or 6 times. Turns out that when the e-mail arrived (way later than they promised me) the price was 300 euros more expensive. After calling 3 times and not talking to the same person, who would call me back ASAP, I managed talk to the same agent ... "sorry sir, when we checked my colleague saw that the price was more expensive". As Fernanda said "we still have a little bit of integrity, we won't accept that", my words to the agent were "So, as the price is different, I don't want that ticket, you can cancel the old one also, I will pay the fine, and I will not travel anymore".

Called the last minute agency, who still had 2 places on the flight and while booking it the attendant probably did something wrong and came with a "sir, I'll have to call you back after talking to my superior" ... in the mean while I found a KLM flight for an even cheeper price. While filling up the form, called back the last minute agency saying "don't do anything, I'll call you back", finished up the KLM booking ...

Of course, the day was not the best one, so there was an internet problem after paying (this never happens before paying), their phone service asked me to call tomorrow to confirm, but I've already got their e-mail with booking code. I'll call them anyway.

SO! NOVEL (NIGHTMARE) IS OVER. Unfortunately we're flying with one connection, the TAM flight was direct, and coming back the 31/12, so reveillon will be at 12,000 meter of altitude ... the bright side is that we arrive yet on 30/11, my father's birthday, which he will celebrate with his grandson (Matheus is all that matters now hehehehe).

Hopefully I'll have some time on the weekend to work a bit, let's see. Monday 7:03, train to Munich.