Tuesday, August 4

feeling a little better today

thanks for the comments and suggestions.  my favorite was doug miller's (liko's husband) idea to go get a new drivers license and say that i was divorced so it would have my maiden name!  ha!
i am happy to say (type?) that betsy found my marriage certificate!  yippie!  so it is being sent here. 
-i looked into amending my passport but they will only do that if you have been married less than a year.  poo.
-after pleading for my name on my ticket to be changed, the customer sercvice person told me to just show up at the airport with my wedding certificate, license, and passport and that would be fine.  then i talked to another customer service person that said "no way!  don't even think about coming if your license and passport names are different." poo again.
i have two options left at this point:
-first is to go LA to get a new passport.  the problem is you can't even make an appointment with LA till you are less than 14 days away from travel.  and then another customer service person (i was on the phone a lot yesterday) told me that it is really hard to get an appointment and that i need to start calling at 12:01 thursday morning to try and get one.  and then if i do get one, then it might not even be till the day before we leave.  and they can't even guarantee that they will have the passport done that day. poo three times.
-the fourth and final option, is to use a private company that will guarantee a passport in a certain time frame- but you pay for it.  basically, if i can't get an appointment with the dudes in la at least 3 days before we leave i will  have to do this for a good $250 at least.  but at least i will have it.  
i am usually not a stress case but right now i am a big frazzled ball of nerves.  we got our tickets 3 or 4 months ago and i pestered luke about getting his new passport.  didn't even think of mine.  i feel like such a moron.  i would try the whole go to the airport with my passport like it is now, but what if they wouldn't change things or let me go?  and what if the people in barcelona decide to not let me into the country- or out of it?  although, that would be a fun adventure!  
so, in this case we are thinking it is better to pay and be safe than risk it.  

and why are we going to spain?  luke has a 3 week break between terms this august.  everything sort of lined up perfectly to go (ha!) and so we booked tickets!  luke served his mission in spain and so we are going back to his old stomping grounds to do everything he was not able to do as a missionary and have a ton of fun!  

so there you have it.  thanks for your love.  hopefully i will have more good news to come!

11 comments:

Mrs. Case said...

I think a call to the consulate would be a better source of info than the airline, since they can be fickle.

I need to change my passport, too, so this was a good reminder for me. Are the kiddos going with you?

heidi said...

wholly crap...is there such thing as scalping airline tickets at the gate. that seems like a good idea---hmmm. once we got to australia and realized our ticket to new zealand was for the day before. we had to buy a whole new ticket. can you still buy a different ticket to spain? if you had to then you could put moffat and crappy as it would be now to pay, you could laugh about it later.

Stephanie said...

Shoot- good luck! I would skip to the final step and pay the $250- nothing like peace of mind!

Celine said...

Hi Ashley, I don't know you but came across your blog today. I've had the same thing happen last year (international trip) where I had my passport with my maiden name and my ticket had my married name and it was just fine. When we got to the airport and checked in, it popped up on the screen that the names didn't match, it said to check with the airline representative and they came over, checked my passport, checked my ticket and my driver's license and saw that the names matched and that was it. They can manually override it in the computer. You should check with your airline and ask what their policy is. We flew Continental and had no problems at all. I hope that helps.

liko said...

i would pay the money like steph says and be at ease about everything. of course doug suggests to just try and go and they won't even notice because they're so busy, but i don't think that's such a good idea. especially since you don't want to not be able to go and you don't wanna end up being stuck in spain. right? if you didn't have kids then it would be cool. and i'm glad to see you put the gun down and have a smile on your face again. it'll work out. gotta have faith. it will.

and keep us updated!!

Jennelle said...

I feel your angst! I did the same exact thing when Brady and I planed our trip to Europe. Luckly I caught it about a month before the trip so I still had time to fix it. Good luck to you I hope it all works out. Your trip will be so much fun!

mahina said...

wow! that sucks!! it will all work out! what a great story to tell, though, huh??!!

have a blast! in spain, i mean!

Damaris @Kitchen Corners said...

I know how you feel. When Enzo was born we had to make his Brazilian passport pronto because we were traveling to Brazil when he was only 2 months old. I had to change my Brazilian passport from my maiden name to my married name. Check this out, the Brazilian consulate needed my marriage certificate to have my maiden name and then my married name. WELL...Hawaii is one of the few states that does not actually put your maiden name on your marriage certificate, they only put your new name. So...I had to do all this crazy and expensive stuff to get a copy of the application of marriage license, which had my maiden name. Basically it all happened 2 days before our trip. I'm still traumatized by the whole experience.

I really hope everything works out for you. I have heard of people showing up with passport and marriage license. If worse comes to worse do that and pray for the best.

Autumn said...

Wow, we had something similar right before we got married, Brett couldn't find birth certificate, had to go to LA, wait like 3 hrs, pay some money and it all worked out! Just stressful and pain in the butt! Good luck friend

Jen C. said...

Oh jeez, I hope things work out. Let us know what is going on. Don't feel bad about forgetting. I think that it is a normal thing and that I might do something like that too!

Kristen said...

SPAIN?! This is ME, very JEALOUS...