Clare has a special gift.
On the way out, she bagged a flight from London to Buenos Aires for a mere $1,000.00 when the going rate was over £1,500.00.
On the way back she surpassed even her own lofty achievements.
LAN are Chile's national flag carrier and maybe they had a rush of blood to the head in the pricing department - or perhaps it was just a straight forward stroke.
For something approaching a nano-second, the deal of the century flickered across the LAN website screen and Clare, never being one to pass up on the opportunity to fly half way round the world for less than bugger-all, snapped up the chance.
Five hundred, I hear you ask?
Nope.
Four?
Ahem - I don't think so.
Three...?
I know. I know. You don't believe me so let me put you out of your misery. A mere $121.00 in fact.
It's not attractive and I'm not proud of boasting about it but I think the lovely wife deserves some credit. After all, she has patiently born the endless photographs and forgone the sleep as I tapped away at the computer late into the night, to catch up on the endless backlog of unposted blogs. She's waited while I dawdled and even carried the pebble collection across continents when my arms were full of unwanted purchases that will find their way to Oxfam faster than a Christmas sweater.
So ridiculously low was the fare that we waited weeks with baited breath, expecting an email from an apologetic but ultimately implacable LAN official. It would tell us that there had been some terrible mistake, some glitch in the software, that unless we were willing to add another zero to the ticket price, we would have to....have to....I can't even say it.
Fly.
Air.
France.
We arrived at the airport.
The bazooka weilding soldier at the door asked for our passports and tickets. There were no tickets we said. This was an e-booking. He stared blankly for a moment and told us that we could not come into the terminal without a ticket.
We went in circles for a while.
Finally he relented. We could come into the terminal if first we got a stamped copy of the booking confirmation from the LAN desk. And where was the LAN desk?
In the terminal.
Mmmm...
Sometime later the paradox dawned on him and, rather disconcertingly, he waved us through the doors with the pointy end of his bazooka, on condition that we returned immediately.
The pretty LAN lady greeted us enthusiastically and as soon as we explained the requirements of the bazooka, began tapping equally enthusiastically on her keyboard. After a moment she looked up apologetically. There was no LAN flight to Madrid today. She checked and double checked but the answer was the same.
Bazooka was eyeing us suspiciously from the doorway a mere 20m away.
Oh Dear!
This was worse than we thought. Clearly LAN had not only withdrawn our tickets but cancelled the whole flight in a bold gesture of defiance. We had a wedding to go to. What could we do?
Another LAN employee in trousers that could have been shorts and a jacket that might once have been his trousers, spoke frenetically into his walkie-talkie in rapid machine-gun Spanish while Bazooka fingered his trigger in the near distance.
Was this how it ended? Banged up in some bleak Ecuadorian prison for the rest of our lives, while the Foreign Office sent some ineffectual, chinless fellow shuttling back and forth to plead on our behalf just like in that second Bridget Jones movie.
I've seen Midnight Run. I know what happens to handsome auburn chaps like me, who look younger than the age in their passport - and its not good.
I could see bazooka approaching from the corner of my eye. Oh Dear God - no!
Turns out we had the wrong terminal all along. Bazooka very helpfully pointed us in the right direction and an equally enthusiastic LAN person checked us in across the corridor in the international terminal.
For $1,000.00 Air Europa had only provided two engines for 10,000 miles on the way out. LAN went the whole hog and gave us four on the way back.
There is subtle sense of relief that comes from a plane so noisy that you can't really hear what the person sitting next to you is saying.
It turns out that the fare was even better than we expected.
It included the $45.00 Ecuadorian exit fee as well.
Now, you can't ask for better than that.
On the way out, she bagged a flight from London to Buenos Aires for a mere $1,000.00 when the going rate was over £1,500.00.
On the way back she surpassed even her own lofty achievements.
LAN are Chile's national flag carrier and maybe they had a rush of blood to the head in the pricing department - or perhaps it was just a straight forward stroke.
For something approaching a nano-second, the deal of the century flickered across the LAN website screen and Clare, never being one to pass up on the opportunity to fly half way round the world for less than bugger-all, snapped up the chance.
Five hundred, I hear you ask?
Nope.
Four?
Ahem - I don't think so.
Three...?
I know. I know. You don't believe me so let me put you out of your misery. A mere $121.00 in fact.
It's not attractive and I'm not proud of boasting about it but I think the lovely wife deserves some credit. After all, she has patiently born the endless photographs and forgone the sleep as I tapped away at the computer late into the night, to catch up on the endless backlog of unposted blogs. She's waited while I dawdled and even carried the pebble collection across continents when my arms were full of unwanted purchases that will find their way to Oxfam faster than a Christmas sweater.
So ridiculously low was the fare that we waited weeks with baited breath, expecting an email from an apologetic but ultimately implacable LAN official. It would tell us that there had been some terrible mistake, some glitch in the software, that unless we were willing to add another zero to the ticket price, we would have to....have to....I can't even say it.
Fly.
Air.
France.
We arrived at the airport.
The bazooka weilding soldier at the door asked for our passports and tickets. There were no tickets we said. This was an e-booking. He stared blankly for a moment and told us that we could not come into the terminal without a ticket.
We went in circles for a while.
Finally he relented. We could come into the terminal if first we got a stamped copy of the booking confirmation from the LAN desk. And where was the LAN desk?
In the terminal.
Mmmm...
Sometime later the paradox dawned on him and, rather disconcertingly, he waved us through the doors with the pointy end of his bazooka, on condition that we returned immediately.
The pretty LAN lady greeted us enthusiastically and as soon as we explained the requirements of the bazooka, began tapping equally enthusiastically on her keyboard. After a moment she looked up apologetically. There was no LAN flight to Madrid today. She checked and double checked but the answer was the same.
Bazooka was eyeing us suspiciously from the doorway a mere 20m away.
Oh Dear!
This was worse than we thought. Clearly LAN had not only withdrawn our tickets but cancelled the whole flight in a bold gesture of defiance. We had a wedding to go to. What could we do?
Another LAN employee in trousers that could have been shorts and a jacket that might once have been his trousers, spoke frenetically into his walkie-talkie in rapid machine-gun Spanish while Bazooka fingered his trigger in the near distance.
Was this how it ended? Banged up in some bleak Ecuadorian prison for the rest of our lives, while the Foreign Office sent some ineffectual, chinless fellow shuttling back and forth to plead on our behalf just like in that second Bridget Jones movie.
I've seen Midnight Run. I know what happens to handsome auburn chaps like me, who look younger than the age in their passport - and its not good.
I could see bazooka approaching from the corner of my eye. Oh Dear God - no!
Turns out we had the wrong terminal all along. Bazooka very helpfully pointed us in the right direction and an equally enthusiastic LAN person checked us in across the corridor in the international terminal.
For $1,000.00 Air Europa had only provided two engines for 10,000 miles on the way out. LAN went the whole hog and gave us four on the way back.
There is subtle sense of relief that comes from a plane so noisy that you can't really hear what the person sitting next to you is saying.
It turns out that the fare was even better than we expected.
It included the $45.00 Ecuadorian exit fee as well.
Now, you can't ask for better than that.
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