Change of Planes... err.... Plans

This past week has been a bit on the stressful side for Kristian and I. Due to the Swine Flu outbreak in Mexico we had to change our vacation plans at the last minute. We were scheduled to go to Mexico May 10-17 to celebrate my birthday. The resort had been setup thru my mom's timeshare and our tickets had been bought and paid for. Well we (mainly Kristian) decided it would be better not to chance it and try to find something else. So I spent most of the day yesterday on the phone, first with the timeshare people then with both Priceline and US Airways.

Changing the timeshare was relatively easy minus the $250 change fee that we incurred. But we were able to book ourselves at a resort in St. Ann's Jamaica right on the beach for May 9-16. It's all inclusive so our meals and drinks are covered along with some activities. I've always wanted to go to Jamaica so I'm really excited that we were able to get this on such short notice.

Changing our flights was a whole 'nother issue and left me with a massive headache and almost breaking down into tears at work. Unfortunately as of now the trip insurance we bought isn't covering the Swine Flu because we are only at an advisory level. If that increases than hopefully we'll be covered. Then I moved onto Priceline who initially told me I had to go thru US Airways. US Airways told me to go thru Priceline. And so the pounding in my head began. I called numerous times spent literally 30 minutes on hold at one point only to find out that we're basically screwed. Because our flights are on United (on the way down) and US Airways (on the way back) we would have to rebook using those airlines in order to change our tickets (with a fee of course). Problem is United doesn't fly to Jamaica...and so the pounding in my head increased. Even the US Airways guy I called AGAIN told I didn't have a lot of options. Sigh. So after talking to Priceline again and discovering in order to book our tickets using both airlines in some way and incur the change fee we would be spending about $900/each on new tickets.

Sooo we decided to just not use our Mexico tickets and hope the advisory level goes up and the trip insurance refunds our money. We bought brand new tickets to Jamaica for about the same cost as our Mexico tickets. All in all changing our trip is still costing us a good deal of money that we weren't planning on but in the end it's worth it to not get some deadly flu and also have a nice vacation which after this week I need even more now! So now I will be spending my week here: