I just had to cancel a trip to Belieze this Jan.
The airfare more than DOUBLED from the time I booked the hotel room to when I wanted to buy the tickets.
Have you ever canceld a trip? Why?

That'll teach you to organize trips the wrong way around!



Why cancel if you can adjust. That's my motto. Just go somewhere else - where you can afford the air fare to. Don't let the economic crisis get in the way of your fun!

I am about to cancel a trip that is long paid for. That hurts.

Using my income tax refund, I bought a ticket to Bogota for January. I bought it months ago, when I still was gainfully employed. Fast forward months later and I am starting a new job.
No vacation possible, plus I kind of need to pay for rent and food.
(and cigars, bourbon, hookers, racing forms, etc.)

If you cancel an international ticket, you don't pass "Go" and you get DINGED $200.

Oh, this is a sore subject....

I had to cancel a trip this last June due to a funky thing that happened with my visa. I had planned to go abroad for a full year, so I cut my lease short in Colorado, sold/gave away most possessions, lined up an english-teaching job and a sweet apartment at my (then)destination.
The whole story is rather long and drawn out, but the short of it is that due to a bureaucratic oddity, my visa was denied, and would not be able to produce the document they requested (that was not listed as an original requirement...) for a minimum 3 months. As a result, I lost the job i had found, and with that, I lost the ability to obtain a long-stay visa...
I had to cancel my non-refundable-one-way flight about 4 days before taking off, and it was too late to re-coup any of my travel insurance that close to my departure.

It hurts to lose a trip- I had invested a lot of time, money, and (most devastatingly) a ton of emotion into it.

But, everything seems to work itself out. I'm now in California, working away to save up for another adventure!


Needless to say I learned a big lesson about refundable-airfares....


~kpm

Wow. Now you made me curious about that 'burocratic oddity' and the country in question. That was a good first paragraph for that travel novel you always wanted to write!

quote:

That'll teach you to organize trips the wrong way around

Time to ass-kick myself. Now I'm paying $500 US for a hotel room I'll never see.

crackers

quote:

Originally posted by semicolon:
Now I'm paying $500 US for a hotel room I'll never see.

For that kind of money, I hope that the price included hookers that you'll never see.

Might as well let the hookers use the room.

Or, keep checking, just in case some unexpected airfare opens up. Or, see if there's airfares to other places from which you could get to belieze from. Maybe Belieze itself isn't on sale, but a place from which you could get to Belize is. Just thinking outloud.

Well recently I cancelled a trip halfway through. Was supposed to be doing part of France and Italy. I got sick and determined to battle on, but in the end I had to stop a few days and recover. I made a brief recovery then almost immediately I got sick once again. So at that point I gave up and went home to recover in the comfort of my own house.

I'm losing $180 on a trip because I booked it "the wrong way around"... There were 4 openings for a 1-week teaching position in Poland last summer. I could ONLY go if I used my FF miles for the trip, so I had to book the flight first. I was sure I'd get into the program, so I wasn't worried. And, it turns out, I would have gotten into the program, had the organizers been honest about the application deadline! They said "Applications are due by April 1, then they will be reviewed and a decision will be made by April 20." I applied March 30. They had chosen the last person the week before!!

Luckily I only paid $80 in fees to book the flight. If I had time to go to Poland before Feb, I could use the flights with no additional fee. But, I don't. The upside is I'm going to pay $100 to "restore" my miles and use them for a ticket to Africa in 2010

I had a trip to Jamaica planned for my 30th b-day. I canceled the week before because my grandfather was ill and ended up going to Chicago for that week instead. I'm glad I did because although my grandfather lived another 18 months, my grandmother died 2 days after I left. I was home less than 24 hours before I had to fly back to Chicago because she'd fallen into a coma. I'll never regret not going on that trip but thank god for travel insurance.

I'm contemplating this right now. I have a trip booked to Israel, leaving on Jan. 20th. It's a tour - a friend had booked months ago and wanted a roommate and so I booked up in November - now with what's happening not sure what to do. I know this is an unfortunate familiar situation in the Middle East, but I don't know whether to just go and hope for the best or postpone until....? As of yesterday, there were no changes made to the tour itself.

Any comments?

Krisk,
I don't think I'd cancel for that reason. With the way the world is today, bad things can happen anywhere. It's just the way it is.

But I'm the time to go through panic periods when I'm planning a trip. I'm in the middle of one right now. Wondering if I've bit off more financially than I can chew.

I canceled a trip to Spain and France this past October. I booked the ticket and hotels through a travel agent, which allowed me to pay in installments. My financial situation changed, and when the final payment came due, I just hadn't gotten it together. Luckily, I had insurance and got all but the premium of $139 back (although it took more than 4 months!)

I was heartbroken and still worry I'll never have the opportunity again, but whatever is meant to be will be.