November Begins with a High and a Low

It's November 1st and despite the fall leaves still found on many of our trees, I'm feeling Christmassy and have begun my Christmas sewing!

I always make ornaments for our grands and give them to the kiddos on Thanksgiving Day, so I pulled out the embroidery machine and got busy experimenting with pattens that I might use.

Almost all our kids are coming for Thanksgiving along with my siblings so it will be quite a crowd. (29 is the current count.) I can hardly wait!

Thanksgiving, 2021

Mountain Mama Jessica and her family are flying in from Utah to join us. Knowing her dad excels at finding good deals for anything, be it groceries to plane fares, she asked Craig for help in finding tickets for her family. He was all over it, spent a lot of time looking at fares from a variety of airlines, and found some tickets at a really good price. Jessica approved, the flight was booked, and we ticked that off our to do list.

Except... it was a scam. 

The first indication was an email notice that the tickets were "in the process of booking." Then a notice came that the booking agent was "so sorry," but someone else had grabbed the tickets before us and so we did not get the flight. 

HOWEVER (and here's when the realization hit us that we had been scammed), the booking agent could offer us tickets on another flight "for a good price." Yeah right, they were double and triple what we'd just paid. It was a bait and switch scam!

Jessica got online and did some digging; instead of being an Indianapolis booking site vetted through Kayak as Craig had thought, it was an overseas company that was not on Kayak's list of reputable booking sites. Their tickets had been a popup masquerading as part of the Indy site when he'd looked at options from the reliable site. (Scary how easily scammers can get to you like that.) 

He's now cancelled that credit card and let our bank know it was a bait and switch set up so it looks as though we will not be out any money. That's good news, but Jessica and her family now don't have a flight here for Thanksgiving.

 

The kids' table, Thanksgiving, 2021

Craig and Jessie are going to try again today to find affordable tickets that will fit into the days they have off from work. Hopefully they will find some that are affordable, work for the days Jessica and Andrew have off, and are NOT a scam.

Wish us luck.