<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by YYZC2:
Assuming Thai Airways allows the God-only-knows how many F class LHR-BKK itineraries to be ticketed, I will be traveling to LHR on Thursday, April 24th to get tickets issued for myself and whoever needs them.
I realize it is somewhat premature to be posting this info without even knowing if Thai will follow through, but it's best for everyone to be on the same page as early as possible since we're working under such tight time constraints. In order for this plan to work, I need to be in and out of LHR before Friday afternoon.
I'm not doing this to make a profit. I am an Air Canada employee who is currently laid off and unemployed, so I have plenty of time and the ability to travel cheaply.
My goal is to help as many people as possible and defray my cost of travel to LHR.
I have an obligation to fulfill in Los Angeles on Saturday, so I need to be at LAX on Friday night. As such, I plan to depart Toronto at 6:15 pm, arriving in London at 6:25 am on Friday morning. If I can get the tickets at LHR, great. If not, I will take the Heathrow Express train into town and the tube to the Thai CTO for its opening at 9 am. Ideally, I can catch a flight out of LHR to Vancouver at 1:30 pm, or at worst, a flight to Toronto at 3:30 pm, in order to connect to LAX.
work2fly has offered to phone TG's LHR CTO as soon as they open tomorrow (24th) which will be at 4 am Eastern, if I'm not mistaken. He will attempt to get the final word on Thai's stance on these tix. If he gets confirmation that they will be honored, our plan will go into effect.
I hope to be in communication with work2fly as soon as he gets off the phone with Thai in London. He or myself will post the results of his conversation here. If Thai is a go, I will start accepting payments via PayPal (info to come).
If I get the go signal prior to 6 am Eastern, I will try to get to the airport in Toronto in time for Air Canada's 9 am daylight flight to London. If I can get on this flight, I can accept payments until 2 am Eastern on Friday morning, as I will be able to work all night in London. If I end up on an overnight flight to LHR, I will have to cut off payment acceptance prior to departure, since I will not have time to check email and PayPal between arriving at LHR and going to the TG office. If I end up on an overnight flight, payments will be cut off at 2 pm Eastern on Thursday.
My ticket to LHR costs $108 CAD including tax. This is a bit more than usual because I am paying a surcharge to go to the front of the non-rev list. The flights to LHR are heavily booked due to cutbacks and I don't want to take chances.
The Heathrow Express is 22.50 GBP return.
The tube costs something like 1-2 GBP.
If I leave on the daylight flight, I will be in an internet cafe all night, so no hotel expense.
I'm going to budget 30 GBP for incidentals / food / internet access.
That puts my overhead at about 150 USD, give or take. If I pick up tickets for about 30 people, that works out to about 5 USD per person.
I would ask that I be paid, via PayPal, that amount plus the cost of all tickets you want me to pick up. Shipping costs will be worked out when I return to Toronto on Tuesday and paid for via a seperate payment. I'll have enough numbers swimming in my head by then.
What else, what else? I think that's about it until we hear from Thai. I'm new at PayPal, so if anyone has experience accepting payments, let me know!
If you have already been in contact with me, no need to reconfirm unless you have questions/concerns.
Cross your fingers, everybody!
Jeff</font>
Thank you both for all the effort that you are willing to put into this endeavour. Both class acts. Thanks again!! Too bad it didn't all work out.