Return Plans Jiggled

Mui returned from Eskişehir yesterday. His farewell get together with the family was a success by all accounts and they had great fun Saturday night at their mock New Year’s Eve dinner.

As it turns out, we might have to do a mock New Year’s celebration here in İzmir, too. You see, our travel plans have changed. This is not a change we wanted, but circumstances dictated that this would be our least stressful alternative. It is what it is!

At the time we made our travel plans, Turkey had a COVID-19 testing requirement to enter the country … the US did not. By the time we left the US in September, things were reversed. At the time, the US re-entry requirement gave us 3 days prior to departure from Turkey to complete our testing. That officially changed yesterday and the US requirement for testing went from 3 days to 1 day prior.

Any other time that would have been OK. Labs in Turkey provide ample testing locations with results provided well within the required time frame. But the “1 day” before our 2 January departure is a holiday. Labs are either closed … or unsure whether they will be open … or cannot guarantee results for travel testing within the normal timeframes. Mui checked with a lab that has multiple locations, a private hospital, and the testing kiosk at the airport. All with the same results … no guarantees.

So, Mui followed my suggestion, and while he was at the airport, he went to the THY ticket sales counter and asked about our options to change our departure date. As we had anticipated, a later departure was going to be too costly as our fare bucket — the 40% off promo — does not extend beyond 2 January. The agent who helped him said we could move to 31 December, but suggested 30 December would be a safer bet for testing purposes.

Thus, we will be departing on 30 January … same flights as we originally booked … just a different date. Another change … the equipment we’ll be flying won’t be a Dreamliner. Rather, we’ll be on the B777 that we’re more used to flying. I’m OK with that. We’ve got our seat assignments and all’s good.

Of course, there was a domino effect to these changes. It was now my turn to get busy making alternate plans.

Long story short, our IAH-COS flight with UA has been rescheduled … with the same exit row seats, no less. And our hotel reservation at IAH has been rebooked for the required overnight before continuing home (we don’t have enough time to make the last connecting flight to COS)

Our new arrangements are all in the can. Our ducks are lined up. 🤞🏻 all goes well.Read more