[Tammy1976]

We've been looking into airline tickets for our trip to pick up our son, and since we are flying from Europe, the tickets are a fortune. The closer it is to our flying dates, the more expensive the tickets will be. So my question is...how far in advance did you buy tickets? Did you wait until the last minute or did you buy tickets in advance that were changeable? Any advice would be great!!!!
Thank you!
Tammy

[soozeek]

Tammy,
I have been watching the prices of round trip tickets out of Chicago and they generally run from $350-550 for the low end range. I like using the travel site through compuserve, they seem to have the best rates that I have seen.
HTH,
Susan

[4kids4meTN]

Tammy,
Delta has an "adoption rate" available, and you are allowed to change your dates as many times as you like w/o a penalty. I'm not sure about flying from Europe though...but I would check. Good luck!!

[jlwcats]

Tammy,

I traveled in May, and I did not purchase tickets until the new birth certificate was complete and I had my "pink slip". It is really difficult to anticipate exactly when all will be completed, and I didn't want to have to pay the penalty to change my tickets I don't know how far in advance you want to buy them, but I didn't get any difference in price if I were to purchase the tickets two weeks in advance, or one. Good luck!

[4kids4meTN]

Tammy,
Delta has an "adoption rate" available, and you are allowed to change your dates as many times as you like w/o a penalty. I'm not sure about flying from Europe though...but I would check. Good luck!!

[Diana H.]

Tammy--
Last year about this time we got changeable tickets through Continental. We were advised by our agency to wait until we had the pink slip, but we were concerned that there wouldn't be enough seats left if we waited until the last minute. Instead, we waited until we knew we had the passport, and then booked a flight for a little over a week away. Sure enough, the day we wanted to leave didn't work out because flights were full, but we were able to leave just one day later. Our plan was that if the pink slip wasn't ready, my husband would return home with my older son, and my mom and I would change our return tickets and remain in Guatemala for as long as it took. The morning after we got there, we learned that the pink slip was in our file, so we all were able to come home together.

[DMDes]

Tammy

We are having the same problem, although, we are flying from the US. The tickets for us are getting more and more expensive as we get closer to our travel date. We can't make definite plans until we get the clearance through the embassy, which should be on Tuesday. We reserved tickets or seats but when my husband called back the next day the price had gone up. They said we could reserve the seat but not the price. We are going to continue to shop around for the lowest fair possible. I hope we can make definite plans soon!

When are you traveling? Where are you staying? We are staying at the Marriott.

We are so excited to think next week at this time will have our little girl in our arms.

Best regards.

Diane

[Tammy1976]

Thanks everyone for your help! Here's our situation...We exited PGN on July 29th and the birthmother signed off on July 31st. As of the beginning of last week, the new birthcertificate hadn't been issued. But that's the last I heard. Our case worker was out of town and someone else was covering our case. So I'm hoping to here that things have moved along and we just weren't told.
Our original tentative dates of travel were Aug. 10 or Aug. 17th. I'm kind of assuming that it will be the 17th, especially since I haven't heard anything since Tuesday. But at this point, tickets for the 10th are over $2,000.00 from here. Tickets for the 17th are are around $1300.00 on Delta. We did ask about the adoption rate through them and were told that it's 35 percent off the full price fare, which they told us from here would be still more expensive than the $1300.00 price. I'm afraid that if we wait any longer, the tickets for the 17th will be $2,000.00 also!
Oh, and they told us that to change our tickets it would be $100.00 per leg of the trip (which would $300 a ticket for us because we are stopping in the states for a few weeks to see family and take care of some things.)
So what do you all think.....do we buy the tickets for the 17th and hope that it ends up being that date or do we wait a little longer?
Thanks!
Tammy