Are you supposed to leave this week? What will you do?

Jennifer,

I suspect there will be an announcement of some sort on Monday or Tuesday, especilly as test flights have shown no problems so far. The E.U. authorities indicated on the news tonight that the present situation is "not sustainable", so a partial lifting of the ban may take place soon.

I'm supposed to depart in a few weeks, so I'm also anxiously watching this situation.

Good luck!

We're scheduled to depart for CDG on Friday evening. We've leased a Renault from Ideamerge and will do a 16-day driving trip around the country, ending with 3-days in Paris. We're going to let the situation do what it will. If we cancel, we'll forfeit lease money. Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time planning a 3-week train trip (on our bucket list) to Chicago, New Orleans and Washington DC and return So, on Thursday, if France is a no-go, we will go via train. The universe will allow us to do exactly what we need to do and I'm okay with that. Happy and Safe Travels to All.

My mom and I are supposed to be leaving for London tomorrow, arriving Wednesday morning. Its a 2.5 week trip and we're still trying to be hopeful.. I graduated early from college and am starting grad school here soon so this was going to be our big mother daughter trip we've been planning for the last year.

We too are trying to decide if we could reschedule, but besides having to take off more work, I don't know if the B&B's we've booked will be available with such short notice.

This is such a bummer.

I'd risk trying to go, I think. Just pack extra medications (figure on at least a week extra), be sure you have phone numbers for family/work, etc. - maybe consider gettting skype, and cross your fingers. Also take a couple of extra credit cards for emergencies and maybe extra cash. It looks like the airline industry is pressuring governments to let them fly.

Thanks all. Back to reading all the news articles again, and checking airline bulletins, if anyone else has their story to share, I'd like to hear it.

Hi Eli, we have Travelex insurance.

Im suposed to go to Venice on Friday for an RS tour on Monday. I go over the same idea - more about what to do if the delay occurs again in two weeks. As some posted elsewhere before - only you can decide if you want to go and risk coming home a week later (will your work or family be ok with that, and your finances)... according to rick - he is enjoying the go-with-the-flow-attitude of being flexible. But he is there for 40 days so thats a diff. story.

Id probably agree to wait for the canceled flight to make it official. As for now - maybe you can book a back up flight back home from Barcelona with a train ride from your last city to Barcelona - just incase - then cancel if not needed.

Jennifer,

I am sorry to hear how the eruption has affected your plans but I agree, sit back and see what happens. We've been stranded in Costa Rica over a hurricane and had flights canceled to St Maarten due to a volcano so I have some knowledge of how it feels. I wouldn't let fear stop you from this important trip if you are able to fly out on Thursday. Make sure you keep up with events either by watching the television, reading a paper or two or by the internet and be ready to make a change if you have to.

Fingers are crossed all goes as planned.

Jennifer---if you decide to hang on in hopes of going, and it looks like the flight will go, be sure and call your hotel in Amsterdam and confirm that you are coming. Hotel space is probably at a premium, and you'll want to be certain that your reservation does not get lost in the shuffle.

Actually, maybe you should both call and e-mail, on Wednesday.

Would you get 100% back from KLM if you cancelled before the airline actually cancelled the flight? I think you might have to rely on the trip insurance (with uncertain coverage, and only 80%) if you cancelled prematurely.

I know it must be nerve-wracking to wait to see if your Thursday flight will actually go. And yes, it may be pretty unsettled once you get there. Is it really impossible for you to choose the "rebooking" option and just plan to go another time?

I don't know about KLM, but British Airways is encouraging people to do this (give up their seats and re-book) so that they can get some stranded people home. A friend of mine chose this option and she is now happily re-working her trip at a later time.

Not an option for everyone, I know, but if it works for you it could take out some of the uncertainty.

Thanks to all of you for sharing what's happened/happening and your advice. We found out that we have all day tomorrow (tuesday) to cancel on our own. We are leaning towards going now, or at least, waiting to see if our flight takes off. The big (and really, only) question for us is: will the trip be considerably less enjoyable with all of this going on. Tomorrow we'll take our best guess.

Sasha, thanks for your note. KLM is offering rescheduling up until June, but this is the only time we could go in the next several months. If it doesn't work out this time, we will definitely plan a future trip.

Jennifer - By now you probably have a good idea bout what you are doing. We are suppose to leave for Frankfurt on Weds. 4/21 flying Air Canada through Toronto. I've talked with them today and of course they are saying that flights on Weds are still a "go". If we cancell now we forfeite the entire price of the ticket. If they cancell, we have the choice of a full refund or let them reschedule. They are trying to reschedule people within 2 weeks of your original flight day. When I asked if that didn't work for us, would we be able to schedule later in the year, maybe September. The answer was that we could do that but would be responsible for the price difference between the 2 tickets. We still don't know what we'll do. Good luck to you wherever you are

We were suppose to leave on Wednesday for Prague and Paris via London. Fortunately, we bought American Express travel insurance. We have opened a claim and will get all our money back.
We have already re-booked for September, we are really disappointed after all the planning!
Hope all works out for those of you in the same position.

Happy Travels!

Great discussion thus far. Thank's Jennifer for opening this up so people can vent and share. I have reservations for the 28th to Munich and beyond. Not really changing plans yet, but starting to develop a "Plan B". I am trying to decide if I should postpone the same trip or change plans all together and try 2 weeks in Costa Rica. I will wait another couple of days before really getting worried.

Hi all,

Just wanted to thank everyone again for sharing their advice and stories. It was a REALLY tough decision, but we decided to cancel last night (midnight was our deadline) and collect 80% of expenses through our Travelex trip insurance. We also were required to call each of our vendors and inform them of our cancellation. This was interesting:

Priceline: We pre-paid for an Amsterdam hotel room (not name-your-own-price) for a really good deal -- so it had an iron clad no-refunds policy. We called them just to tell them we were canceling - we had no expectations of a refund. Guess what? They said they've decided to give us a full refund!

Airfrance (we'd booked through Airfrance: KLM tickets to AMS and Airfrance tickets from Paris->SFO coming back): Air France really didn't want to accept our cancellation since the flight might get canceled anyway (although it seems like it will go through on Thurs).

Vueling Airlines: We bought a mid-trip ticket for Barcelona -> Paris. It was fairly cheap. We couldn't get through by phone to cancel, so we checked their website. They literally have a "Volcanic Ash Refund Request" page! So who knows, maybe they'll refund us 100% too!

It was so disappointing to plan for many months and not be able to go. But, now that I don't have to worry anymore about whether we'll actually make it, will we make all our flights/trains/etc, will the volcano erupt again, will the other volcano erupt, etc... It's actually quite a weight off my shoulders. We'll plan this again for next year and I'm sure we'll have a great time.

And now we're booking tickets to Bora Bora. :)

Good luck to everyone wherever you are. You're all very kind and supportive.
Jennifer

You have a great attitude Jennifer--thank you for the update. Now I'm envious--Bora Bora should be amazing!!