airline woes

Update: I haven't done anything yet - my only real option is to cancel the British Airways part of the flight if I want to change my reservation at all. That is the roundtrip from Gatwick, London to Malta. What a mess!

So for some silly reason I booked our flight to Malta a day later than I should have. I am supposed to be there by the 11th, but we don't get in until the night of the 11th. It has been quite a pain to get it changed. In fact, it hasn't been fixed yet.

The first time I called Orbitz, they said they could do it for a fee of 200 for Continental and 30 for Orbitz for each person. I said OK to this. Then they said that the new fare had to be equal or greater to the price I paid for the original ticket. Problem was, the new flight was 10 dollars cheaper than the old. ANd the next ticket she could find was 400 dollars more. That was just too much of an increase, so I declined and thought I would check out different date combos and try again later.

The second time the person transferred me to an international specialist. They read the fare rules and told me that one segment of my flight was non-changeable and I was screwed.

The third time they also transferred me to an international specialist, who also told me I was screwed, and suggested I call Continental directly.

A couple of the people I talked to at Orbitz weren't exactly the best phone people - it was kind of hard to understand them. But others were nice and easy to hear, and easily understood me. They all were American, btw - unusual in this day and age. Also, Orbitz keeps you on hold for ever - I'm guessing at least 10 minutes - Continental didn't take nearly as long to pick up - just a minute or so.

So now I am on hold with Continental. Who knows what will happen.

The thing that is most annoying about this is I thought I looked over the Terms and Conditions carefully beforehand. I did this because I almost booked trhough onetravel.com, but then got worried that the rules and regulations would be too strict. So I made sure to check out Orbitz' rules. It just looked like it would be expensive to change the flight. And I have to say - 200 bucks is really steep. Lesson - remember that it takes a long time to fly from the states to Europe, especially when you are leaving from a little po-dunk place like Albuquerque.