Administrative tasks!

We leave tomorrow!  So, I guess it is time to get serious.  

First, check in with Air Canada.  I saw that I could upgrade to Business Class for $1400, just for the Vancouver to Seoul part of the trip but that is 12 hours!.  I have @ $1000 still in my Air Canada Wallet from the whole AC strike and having to cancel our AC flight to Europe.  I used up a good portion of that buying the ticket to Borneo but there is still $580 that is going to expire in July 2025.  So, I thought, hey, might as well use it to be comfortable since I am probably not booking anything else before July, and I really hate to give AC any free money!  So, I choose the 'upgrade' button.  It said, 'here is the amount and put in your credit card number'.  No mention of using my AC wallet money.  Hmm.  So, I call Air Canada.  I feel like I talk to AC agents on the phone more than anyone else including my mom.  

Of course 'the wait will be longer than usual'.  The wait is ALWAYS longer than usual.  I am curious when they calculated 'the usual', maybe in 2004?  But I digress.  Yes, please call me back.  While I'm waiting for the call back, the price went up the $1900.  Well, there goes my free money anyway.  But they called me and I asked if I could use my $580 for an upgrade to Premium Economy. Tickety, tickety.  No.  Absolutely not.  Wallet cannot be used to buy the optional upgrade.  

Condense an hour conversation into one paragraph...  End result, she checked what it would cost to upgrade my ticket to Premium Economy officially by changing the whole thing.  She didn't give me much hope but it turned out to only be $480.  Well, then.  Let's do that.  That would also allow me to buy entrance to the Maple Leaf lounge in Vancouver (but not Seoul because they don't have a lounge there) for $50.  Which I could also use my wallet for.  But I cannot add a guest.  And I don't want to leave Joe out there all alone, plus it is only a few hours.  So, no to that. 

While I was waiting for all of that, I wrote a packing list.  I think I have everything on the bed.  

After I got off the phone with Air Canada, it was time to fill in my Malaysian entry visa online.  No more than three days in advance.  What a terrible website!!  I ended up filling it out on my phone because it wouldn't let me input dates on my laptop for some reason.  And, (oh, I so love this, not), for dates, you have to use their calendar, starting in Feb 2025.  So, I got to scroll through the decades, one month at a time for all of the months, years and decades of my life to find my birthdate.  

I do that for a million little clicks on the calendar.  Give them my travel info, my hotel info, my demographic info etc., etc.  But it will not, NOT, let me add in the city where I'm arriving! The very last question!  Ok, deep breath (never deal with online forms after dealing with Air Canada).  So, I start again.  This time I do the non-demographic info first and it let me put in the city and even more questions about my flight.  It will not let me put in my arrival date Feb 13 so I said Feb 12.  Close enough, we are arriving just after midnight so it's gonna have to do. Then back to demographics, where I click, click, click to find my birth year when all of a sudden I am in 1910!  Somehow I accidentally, unrepeatably, inexplicably figured out how to scroll by year.  Anyway, I found my birthday back in the mists of history and managed to hit submit and it worked.  Now, I guarantee, no one will ask me for this info or form.  It's more like a 'why did you climb that mountain?' situation.  Because it is there! Or more accurately, because someone told me to.  

Ok, let's break while I go pack.  

Many hours later...  Time for bed.  I have to get up in five hours!  

I'm rereading what I wrote above.  I should have called my mom!  

I am packed.  I think I remembered everything.  If not, oh well.  I have the major stuff anyway, after spending half an hour searching for my binoculars.  I figured it is karma punishing me for not sharing but that is only true if karma is a sock on top of the binocular case.  Maybe, what do I know about karma.  

I just checked my mail and guess what arrived today!!  My Nexus card!  I'm not sure I will get to use it since Joe is one of those shifty 'untrusted travelers' but it is nice to have it all the same.  

Everything is charged, I managed to sign onto my travel computer, I found an empty SD card for my camera, five charging cords for the various, unsynchonized devises, and I think this is it.  Oh, and my travel pants still fit (or close enough).  

Next time we talk I will be in Borneo.  Enjoy the below-zero February!