NC Penguin

Personally, I think it's far too early to be booking travel for May 2008. I would start looking at buying fares, at a maximum, three months before the travel date.

Bearing this in mind, by the time you book your tickets, Mark may have had his N-400 interview and naturalization ceremony.

I hope Cindyabs will contribute to this thread. She may have suggestions about getting a good fare and the pros and cons about using a travel agent. I have used a travel agent for business and the agent did charge an agency fee of a minimum of $25.00 per ticket. I tended not to use a travel agent in general because dealing with them is far slower than booking online. e.g. the agent doesn't return calls promptly. Pricewise, I don't know if there's an advantage to using a travel agent.

Just Jenney

Thanks again for all the feedback. I have PMed Cindy and she is looking to see what she can find.

In the meantime, I'm trying to sign up for these "farewatcher" thingies on various sites. I started with Travelocity, as they usually seem to have some decent deals. I signed up for their "Farewatcher Plus" and added two "trips" for them to watch for -- Richmond to Heathrow, and Wash-Dulles to Heathrow. I asked to be emailed when the fares for each trip drop below a certain price.

However, I am confused about two things and have been unable to find these questions addressed anywhere on Travelocity's site -- maybe one of you might know:

1) I am unclear whether the Farewatcher will automatically look for round-trip flights or not. It only asks for "Departure City/Airport" and "Arrival City/Airport" -- but there is no box or anything to tick to indicate that I'm looking for round-trip fares, not one-way. Do I have to put in FOUR trips -- RIC-LHR, IAD-LHR, LHR-RIC and LHR-IAD?

2) I also could not find where to put in the specific dates I need the Farewatcher to look out for. I mean, if I get an email telling me the fare has dropped to $XXX that does me no good if it's for, say, next month. Again, I couldn't figure out how to do this -- I don't see how that couldn't be part of it; I mean, what's the point in "farewatching" if you can't specify which flights you need?

I'm already getting irritated by this. I've tried registered at BA.com for several hours now but they're having "system problems." Ugh. And now all this confusion with Travelocity...

~ Jenney

ps. Why is that when I look up fares on BA.com now, the cheapest flight they have is for like $3,500?!? What's that about??

scrubbedexpat099

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tra...#flightchecker

Is that the one, I use it see who is flying where I want to go and then go to their sites.

BA site is good at allowing you to see costs either side of the date you want, no idea about yours but from where I am they have one flight a day and when that gets booked up prices soar.

Just Jenney

Guess what? I just bought our tickets!!!!!! Yippeeee!

When I started this thread, the RIC-LHR airfare was almost $1000 per ticket, which was just too much. After Xmas the prices dipped down a little bit, just below $900/ticket, still too much. I figured I'd just keep my eyes peeled and check Expedia, Travelocity, etc every few days. I also signed up for the airfare alerts.

Well, I finally got an email from Expedia the other day about a lower RIC-LHR airfare opportunity, which I didn't notice until this afternoon. So I went to check it out, and the price had dropped to $750 per ticket, including taxes and fees! I double-checked the other websites (Travelocity, BA, CheapTickets, etc) and none of them had the $750 tickets -- it was an Expedia special. So I rang Mark at work, he said "Go for it!" and I did!

I'M SO EXCITED!!!

(Now I have to try not to get stressed out by the fact that Mark still hasn't gotten his N400 interview notice, and hope that everything works out fine in the end!)

~ Jenney

Deedee13

dont forget to apply for ur airmiles cards. Whoever ur flying with register with them. Dont let those miles go unnoticed!

cindyabs

Excellent Jenney! Now they didn't do anything goofey on Expedia like give you a 25 minute connection or a six hour one did they? All sensible flights? Forgive me, but sometimes folks get so excited by a price they don't notice anything off kilter AND I have had calls to that effect.

Fingers crossed on the N 400 for Mark AND the dollar gaining a bit more ground.

BigDavyG

Not a bad idea to book now - I'm looking for summer flights (July) already and booked my xmas flights back in July last year for nothing.

Re the passport thing. I don't understand why it is a problem - does Mark not have his green card or are there restrictions round the citizenship process that I'm clearly not aware of.

Just Jenney

It's just that we were hoping he'd already have his citizenship sorted out by now. That way, he wouldn't have to hassle with keeping track of days in/days out of the US, and he'd have plenty of time to get his US passport before our trip.

However, Mark's still waiting to be called for his interview/test (his application has been pending for 10 months now). Even after that's done, we're looking at about 2-4 months for the oath ceremony and passport to be taken care of. That's pushing it a bit for our comfort level.

At the same time, though, we'd really prefer NOT to have to reschedule his oath ceremony until after our trip -- not because it would take longer, but because we just feel that increases the chances of USCIS screwing up something later on. So, we'll just have to wait and see what happens...

~ Jenney

BigDavyG

Curious to know - I thought there was plenty of leeway with such things, and does the legislation not refer to residency rather than a simple count of days in/out of the country. For example if you are out of the US a lot for work reasons (being an employee of a US company, domiciled in the US) that wouldn't impact your citizenship application, would it ??

Not trying to prove a point here, just asking out of interest as I might be in a similar position one day, and last year I was probably out of the US for 2 months for work and vacations.

EDIT:
Actually a quick google answers this question - counting days hardly seems something to be stressing over...

Just Jenney

We're not stressing over counting days. But it's just one more stupid thing to have to hassle with before we can finally wave US immigration goodbye once and for all! It's annoying, not really stressful...

~ Jenney