Saturday, July 18, 2009

Japan Delayed

I messed up.  I didn't realize that Tim needed a visa to visit Japan.  Unfortunately, there is no way to get a visa before our scheduled trip on Monday.  Tim spoke with someone in the travel industry who told her that it typically takes at least three days.

We considered moving our trip back five days and shortening it by one.  That would bring us back to Thailand a day before the kids had to go back to school.  The other option was to go in October during the week long school holiday.  The kids would miss a couple of days of school under this plan.  We decided to go ahead and move the trip back to October.  The weather is usually better then, and late July and early August can be more crowded as Japanese students are on holiday.

Changing the trip was not without cost.  There was a cancellation fee for the airline tickets, but I was able to cancel the hotel reservations without cost.  In the long run, the trip might actually save us some money.  I used miles to buy the tickets, which was refunded when I canceled.  I did some calculations, and it turns out that we would be better off actually buying the tickets to Japan, and saving the miles for trips to the U.S. 

I still feel like a bit of an idiot.  I'm not quite sure how it slipped between the cracks, but it did. 

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