European airlines hate America

Yesterday morning started out fantastically well (THAVMA!).  Maya found super cheap flights to Istanbul, so that Annie could come with us at the end of February.  I finalized with Annie that she was willing to pay for the flight, and I agreed to book them for the two of us in the evening.  It seemed simple enough.  I found the flights, went to pay for them, and my credit card was rejected.  I reentered the information (I am definitely known to make stupid mistakes filling in online forms). Still rejected.  I changed the card contact information to my US number in case the company was bothered by a forgein number.  Still rejected.  I called my dad, he called the credit card company to make sure there wasn't a hold on my account, there wasn't.  They suggested using his name since he's the primary account holder.  Still rejected.  I tried my parent's credit card.  Still rejected.  My dad suggested the problem might be the browser.  I switched from Chrome (which is awesome, by the way, other than the fact its still kinda buggy) to IE (evil evil evil) and tried my card.  Still rejected.  Tried my dad's card.  Still rejected.  Called the toll-free number from the Olympic website.  It was disconnected.  Called the other number.  They were closed for the night.  At this point I have been trying to buy tickets for TWO HOURS.  It is one in the morning.  I hate my life.  I talk to Graham and he tells me its probably because my card is attached to an American address, the good deals are reserved for locals.  Bah.

So, after class this morning I call the (not free) number to try to figure things out.  The phone booking agents tell me to call the webmasters, they have no policy against selling tickets to non-Greeks, it must be a bug.  I call the number they give me, find out that you can't use an American credit card online for "security reasons," that I should make my reservation over the phone. Call the phone booking number again, tell them the date and time, am about to book,until  the cost is nearly twice what I was trying to pay online.  Turns out, they can't give me the cheap fare.  Neither can the agents at the Olympic agencies in Athens.  Oh, that fare is only available if you buy online.

Lovely.

So, now I'm trying to set up an appointment with a travel agent so I can be like OMG BUY TICKETS PLZ.  Turns out, the one who CYA sends us to isn't allowed to charge us a booking fee.  But when I emailed her she mentioned the great travel packages she has to Istanbul.  I'm nervous it won't be worth her while to just get me two one-way tickets.  Its getting to the point that I'm spending more time working on buying these tickets than I'll end up actually staying in Istanbul. Gross.  Olympic airlines is damn lucky they have the cheapest flights by far.  But I'm clearly not paying for customer service...

Anyways, that's my excuse for not posting last night.  I do have some sweet pictures from yesterday.  Which I can't post now either because I have class...  You'll get them eventually. Hopefully.