It’s official. Hands On‘s deployment to Gonaives, Haiti has been extended until February 28th and I have some decisions to make. Expensive ones. I, once again, overplanned and bought plane tickets down to my supposed next destination, Buenos Aires, in advance.
I obviously didn’t learn my lesson from the US$500 I threw away on a deposit on a course in Thailand that I didn’t end up attending and now I’m set to lose out on about US$750 on plane tickets. Losing out on the money is annoying but not the end of the world. This thing that scares me is truly not having any plans after February 28th when the deployment ends. It’s so unlike me and I’m kind of scared about it, to be honest. Excited, but scared.
I do still really want to go to Buenos Aires afterwards but I’m thinking now that Central America somewhere makes more sense. I’m not really too interested in travelling down to South America at the moment and will be on the lookout for WWOOFing and volunteering type things but have nothing in mind so far.
As of right now, it looks like I’ll be throwing away my plane ticket fares. The flight from Port-au-Prince to Miami is changeable but would actually end up costing more to change it than the actual ticket. The flight from Miami to Buenos Aires is, I’m told by Travelocity, of the ‘use it or lose it’ variety. A few of the people here are telling that I should call their respective airlines and plead my case for a credit of some kind… does anyone have any experience doing this? I think the first flight is with American Airlines and the second is with Aerolineas Argentinas.
So I need to book my shuttle out of town tonight and that means I need to make the call now. It’s not the end of the world if I can’t go back on the shuttle because it’s full, but it’d be a pain in the arse. I am loving it here at the moment. My body is sore all over but I’m addicted to mud, loving the people that I’m here with and really can’t imagine leaving on January 12th. On the other hand, I had been excited to head to BA and I don’t really want to throw more money away.
Nobody here at the moment seems to want to leave and people are extending and even coming back to Haiti because they’re having so much fun. I think I’ve got a good thing going at the moment so staying seems like a no-brainer… why am I still having a hard time making the call?
Cost of 6 weeks in BA/Miami about $2000
Staying in Haiti $750
Seems like a no brainer to me
I’d plead your case with the airlines they may give you a break if youi tell them what your doing
Staying or leaving?
If you decide to stay you can write it off as experience and even write some articles for your sites about the lesson learned to compensate.
What would/will the tickets cost if you buy them closer to those departure dates? I
f you subtract your original price from that amount you’ll get the netto figure you would have saved by postponing your purchase. And you can evaluate if having flexibility in your travel plans is worth that amount.
Sounds like you have already made up your mind. I agree with Matt and try to plead with the airlines. Mention that you have a high profile travel blog and will write a positive/negative article on the airline depending on the outcome.
The airline really isn’t going to lose anything if they just move the date of your flights.
Neale that’s a good point and one that has factored into my decision making. I’ve decided to stay put her ein Haiti until the project ends on Febrary 28th. It means missing those flights, missing a wedding in Australia and coming away from Haiti with no plans whatsoever.
I still haven’t gotten off my arse to call the airlines because it’s difficult from here but I might try to do that thing where you can put money on Skype and make some calls that way. We’ll see if I can muster the energy but $750 is a lot to throw away.