An Urban Fable

Last September, in the spirit of saving money, I decided to take my bank (Scotiabank) up on a promotional offer they were having. The offer was that if you open a 'Scotia One' account you get a free flight to any one of a number of destinations in the US and Canada. The fine print was that you had to either have your paycheque regularly deposited to that account or have two other bills set up to automatically be paid from the new account. I decided to do the paycheque thing.
So, I went into my branch and got that all figured out and then sat back to wait for my flight voucher. They were supposed to send me a card/form where I was to fill in my preferred flight days and destinations. After a month and a half of hearing nothing from them I called my bank and made an inquiry. The woman who had originally helped me was kind enough to follow up with the company who was arranging the promotion. A company called "TLC". She discovered that my information had been lost somehow on their end. Nothing had been processed. After she spoke with them they somehow magically 'found' it and after a couple of calls to confirm my address, etc. they announced that my card/form was on its way! I finally received the card around Christmas time.
According to the materials supplied I could have chosen, New York, Montreal, San Francisco, LA, Portland, etc. but I filled it out with my top three destinations all as Saskatoon, since that is where the wedding is. I simple chose three different departure dates. I posted the card that day.
About a month later I received the card back in the mail with a letter stating that it was filled out incorrrectly. That I needed to choose three different destinations. By this time I was feeling a little frustrated. I scratched out the 2nd and 3rd destinations and wrote New York as my second destination and LA as my 3rd, with my birthday weekend as the dates. My rationale being that I have friends in both cities that I would love to see and that the company I work for has apartments that are available to staff so as a last resort it wouldn't end up costing all that much to spend my birthday in either city. Since my intention was to use the ticket for my sister's wedding in June of course I kept my first destination as Saskatoon.
I threw the card in the mail.

On May 1st I received the card back again. Apparently there was some fine print I had missed in which it explained that the promotional guidelines outlined that people who's departure city was in the west could only travel to a few select Western cities. This meant that my second choice, New York was out of the question. I was so frustrated at this point as to be near tears. I called their customer service number and tried to keep my cool. I explained the situation to the young woman I spoke to and the only help she could offer me was to use white out on the form to make it more readable before I sent the damned thing in again.
Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention....one of the rules that IS clearly stated is that the form /card must be received by the company at least 30 days before the flight is due to leave. On May 1st, the selected departure date for my sister's wedding was 26 days away.
I got the white out, filled out the card and marched down to my bank the next morning. A lovely woman at the bank (Nicole) helped me by faxing in my card and was somehow able to talk them into not observing the 30 day thing. Phew.
Okay...that was May 2ND. I received a phone call this Monday (the 7TH) from the promotional people. The guy was calling to let me know that they'd received my card and that someone would be calling me soon to book the flight. He had no confirmation as to which destination or when the booking agent was going to call. I explained my situation as to the dates of my sister's wedding and how I am the maid of honour....he couldn't speed things up...he was just a messenger. So, I gave them until yesterday to call me and set up the flight. It seemed to me that flights would just continue to get more expensive as it got closer to the date...or that I'd have to leave at some ungodly hour, or make three stops along the way, so 15 days ahead seemed like a reasonable cut off point.
They still haven't called.

Today I booked my flight via West Jet, for Saturday the 26TH of May. Took me five minutes to book it. It cost me $537.78.
The moral of this story.....sometimes free stuff is more work.
Maybe I'll be going to LA for my birthday....! (?)
**sigh**

Okay, so I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, but there really hasn't been much to write about. At the moment, and for the last month I've been saddled with this coughing asthma bronchial thing. That's been distracting....and annoying.
I've done a couple of cool free things....the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design had their graduate exhibit opening last Saturday. It was really fun and there was so much eye candy it was ridiculous. I'm not talking about the art either. Honestly, I couldn't carry on a conversation with so many pretty people wandering around. After the opening, some friends and I went to see CocoRosie at a local club. I had bought the ticket about three months ago...so, not technically free I guess, though bought before I had even conceived of this 'buy nothing' thing.
I was looking forward to it, especially since it's one of the very few concerts I will be attending this year. They were fantastic. I was pleasantly surprised actually because I'm not really very fond of their new album. In fact, I find that some of it actually goes so far as to insult my intelligence. But, anywho, they were great and their two opening acts, Tez and Busdriver, were phenomenal! I had never heard of Tez but he did nothing but beatbox the entire time.....with no other instruments at all! It's totally nutso to hear those sounds coming from someone's mouth. Oh and, Busdriver is a total lunatic. The small stage could barely contain him. It was a thing to behold.
Well, it's getting to be the time of year to start thinking about getting on some volunteer lists.
Yup, I really need to get on that.