Last year, we had made elaborate arrangements for travel to India. Baab and I would fly to India first - we would attend a 30th anniversary reunion of my Xth class passout buddies (KV HEC Ranchi) then take a train to Aurangabad. After spending 10 days with my parents, I would return via Mumbai. A week after my return, my father-in-law would come to Aurangabad and take Baab back with him to Bengaluru (where they live). A few days later, Katya and her mom would fly to Bengaluru where they would all spend a couple of weeks before travelling to Aurangabad. In the meantime, I would fly to Aurangabad and meet them there. We would return from Aurangabad to Orlando (together from Aurangabad to Munich, where we would take separate flights to Orlando - Baab and I via DC and Katya and mom via Toronto). Elaborate travel arrangements balanced on a dime, in chronological order of planning.
Ticket combo 1a (Baab and I) MCO-YUL-ZRH-BOM-DEL-IXR
Ticket combo 2a (Mine alone) BOM-FRA-MCO
Ticket combo 3a (Katya and mom): MCO-YUL-FRA-BLR
Ticket combo 2b: MCO-FRA-BOM
Ticket combo 1b: BOM-MUC-IAD-MCO
Ticket combo 3b: BOM-MUC-YYZ-MCO
And then it all got unhinged when my father was first admitted to the ICU, then passed away. As a result of that, we first postponed my return flight (ticket combo 2b), then cancelled it altogether, cancelled ticket combo 3b, and got a separate one-way return trip for me. Katya and mom got a whole new set of (last minute mucho moolah) tickets, which had to be coordinated with a separate one-way only ticket purchased (also LMMM) for Baab, so all three of them could return together. Because we were all back before the origination date of ticket combo 3, so we thought it would be pretty easy to just cancel them. Think again. We learned that because of the specific class of tickets that we had purchased, there was no option to cancel the tickets. The only option we had was for them to use the tickets - on the <em>same</em> itinerary - within a year of <em>ticket purchase</em>, not travel!! Consequently, instead of travelling during the summer vacation this year, they had to complete the flight by March 1 (this is where our elaborate planning of last year got me).
Ticket combo 1a (Baab and I) MCO-YUL-ZRH-BOM-DEL-IXR
Ticket combo 2a (Mine alone) BOM-FRA-MCO
Ticket combo 3a (Katya and mom): MCO-YUL-FRA-BLR
Ticket combo 2b: MCO-FRA-BOM
Ticket combo 1b: BOM-MUC-IAD-MCO
Ticket combo 3b: BOM-MUC-YYZ-MCO
And then it all got unhinged when my father was first admitted to the ICU, then passed away. As a result of that, we first postponed my return flight (ticket combo 2b), then cancelled it altogether, cancelled ticket combo 3b, and got a separate one-way return trip for me. Katya and mom got a whole new set of (last minute mucho moolah) tickets, which had to be coordinated with a separate one-way only ticket purchased (also LMMM) for Baab, so all three of them could return together. Because we were all back before the origination date of ticket combo 3, so we thought it would be pretty easy to just cancel them. Think again. We learned that because of the specific class of tickets that we had purchased, there was no option to cancel the tickets. The only option we had was for them to use the tickets - on the <em>same</em> itinerary - within a year of <em>ticket purchase</em>, not travel!! Consequently, instead of travelling during the summer vacation this year, they had to complete the flight by March 1 (this is where our elaborate planning of last year got me).
