3 Days And Counting

  Things are looking up.  MBNA have come up with a new Amex card for me which is valid until 2013, so I shall have at least one valid credit card on my trip after January!  Having gone to the Apple shop in Regent Street and the O2  shop in Oxford Street, and followed their advise, O2 appear to have unlocked my iphone and I have been told to buy a local SIM card (Vodaphone seems the favourite in Australia).  Jim set up Skype on my notebook today and also on his own computer and we tested it and it works.  Sons Adam and Mark are also on Skype so communication channels should remain open.  Denise, Andrew and the grandchildren Shauna and James gave me a couple Nike/Puma teeshirts as well as a first aid box as early Christmas presents, so I'm well equipped.  I also discovered today that my luggage allowance is two bags at 23Kg each.  I had been working on one at 20Kg.  I shall stick to one, but it allows me an extra 3Kg.  The packing is nearly all done and I have managed to pack my chunky walking boots.  I'll break them in before I get to Peru - Australia seems to be favourite for this task.  Jim came good with the South African Rand, and Sarah found some Australian Dollars, all of which I have duly purchased, and I now have some £500 of foreign currency to take with me to supplement the sterling.

Credit Card Crisis

  After the fracas with Lloyds TSB over getting the validity extended on my credit card, I decided to phone again.  This time I got a chap instead of a gal, and without in anyway bringing any sexual bias into the matter, I found him much more helpful.  He suggested that he cancel the card and get a new one issued and this should solve my problem.  Within three days I was in possession of a replacement card.  I opened the envelope with anticipation only to find that the card inside was valid from 10/2010 until 01/2011!  I duly phoned Lloyds only to be told that it was correct because extended validity dates can only be issued a few weeks before the expiry date.  Back to square one!

  I checked that I had an MBNA credit card but that expired in March 2011.  What the heck, I gave them a ring.  A helpful Irish chappie at the other end told me that they would issue me a new card, and he duly noted all the countries I would be visiting so as to hopefully preclude security from blocking the card because of suspected fraud.  So far nearly a week has elapsed and there is no sign of the replacement card.  A week to go till departure.  Watch this space!

More Preparations

  A trip to Manchester to visit grand daughter Leia and my son Adam and his wife Karen, resulted in a significant advance in my preparations for the trip.  Adam gave me an early Christmas present in the form of a one year Priority Pass that gets me into the Lounges at various airports around the world.  As I shall be visiting quite a number of airports in my travels this will be very handy.  It gives access to lounges at Heathrow in terminals 1, 3 and 4, but as luck would have it I'm leaving from terminal 5.  Ah well you can't win them all.  To go with this magnificent present Adam also gave me a thermos cup to fill up with coffee at the lounges before departure.

  He and I went shopping on Saturday afternoon taking 3 year old Leia with us.  Her interest in proceedings was such that she slept through the entire excursion in her buggy!  However, I acquired a rain and windproof jacket from "The North Face", an item that Adam thoroughly recommended, especially on the Inca Trail part of the trip.  I also purchased a multi-continental adaptor that can charge two ipods/iphones simultaneouly.  As I have one of each this will be quite handy.  With a few additional leads and a carrier bag and a set of noise reduction earphones that Adam lent me I feel fully prepared on the gadget front.

The preparations had been going reasonably well.  I have purchased my ticket from Trailfinders including the excursion in Peru to Machu Picchu in June, only the internal South American flights remain to be sorted out nearer the date.  I managed to get travel and medical insurance far more cheaply than I was expecting, so that's a plus particularly when you are over 65!  Quite apart from a flu jab, I got booster injections for tetanus and typhoid but inoculation for yellow fever will set me back £49 as it is not available on the National Health, if I go for it.  I had successfully got an Australian Visa over the internet, and have even started on my packing. Then came snag no 1;  the doctor could only prescribe me 6 months worth of cholesterol and blood pressure tablets, whereas my trip is set to last 9 months.  So do I simply commit suicide after 6 months and be done with?  But no, the good Dr Ibanez, having elicited that I have sons resident in this country, told me that if one of them would ring her in January and identify himself, she would take a three month prescription over to the chemist and my son could duly pick up all the necessary medications from there and post them to me.  A cunning move, which would be further simplified if Jim Grant joins me in Australia next spring for the second half of the trip, as he could then act as courier.

I had phoned my credit card providers a month or two ago and explained that my Mastercard and Amex were running out in January 2011, at which time I would be on the other side of the world.  As I was going to be principally relying on them to pay my way around the world, as advised by the financial advisor at my local Lloyds TSB bank last week, what could I do to get new ones issued.  I was informed that I could get new ones issued up to three months before the expiry date, namely anytime from the beginning of October.  And so it was that on the first Monday of the month I duly phoned my credit card centre.  Somewhat surprisingly the phone was answered almost immediately, and even more surprisingly I managed to remember all the damned  passwords, memorable words etc that they lumber you with before they can access your account.  I then explained my predicament, which somewhat flustered the young lady I was speaking to, for she told me she would have to consult her supervisor and asked me if I would mind hanging on.  This I did and after a while she returned and thanked me profusely for being so patient and informed me that new cards could only be issued two months prior to expiry date.  When I pointed out that this contradicted the information I had been given earlier, she was very meticulous in assuring me that she would circulate a memo to all staff to ensure that this mistake was not made again.  That really made me feel better!  I pointed out to her that whilst I was not in any way holding her responsible, I did feel that I’d like to point out that I was the customer and I would therefore expect the bank to provide me with a reasonable level of service.  Effectively depriving me of a card for 6 months out of my 9 month trip, I did not really consider to be very good service.   What other options could she offer?  This necessitated another trip to see her supervisor.  I was again thanked for my patience.  They could offer me a new card, but it wouldn’t be a platinum one just a standard one.  But would they still give me the same credit limit, which they had recently raised to £6900, I asked.  Another trip to the supervisor, another thank you for my patience and the answer was “no”.  I then told the young lady that I was frankly appalled at the level of customer service that the bank were offering, and asked if there was anybody more senior I could speak with.  She offered to get her supervisor and I was again put on hold.  However it was my original girl who returned to the phone not the supervisor.  What if I was to contact them at the end of October, maybe they could get the new card out to me?  I pointed out that they would only have three days to get it to me, and what guarantee could they give?  None was the answer.  I thanked her for the offer but declined it and pointed out that they were doing their best to get rid of a customer, and I was seriously contemplating going elsewhere. And hung up.  

  After recounting the tale to my son Mark, he asked me why I didn’t phone the bank up and tell them that I had lost my card and that way I would get a new one.  An option I hadn’t thought of!  I now have to decide what to do:

 a) order a new card at the end of October and hope it arrives before I leave or if it

     doesn’t rely on Mark to bring it out to Australia in December.

 b) phone up and say I’ve lost the card.

 c) check out what my credit card with MBNA Bank is, see if I can find the pin number and

     us that instead.

I understand that Lloyds TSB receive 2000 complaints a day.  I’m seriously thinking of making it 2001 tomorrow.

  On a brighter note I have purchased plug adaptors for South Africa, Australia and South America - don't know if any of those will work in New Zealand - time will tell.  I have also purchased a 640 gig portable external memory to go with my Samsung notebook.  This will enable me to take quite a bit of information from my PC with me, and also carry on working part time for Charly during my trip.  My Arcos is fully loaded with films and TV programmes in case I am not enamoured with the films they show on the flights.  Jim has got about £400 worth of Rand left over from his trip to South Africa earlier this year, so hopefully we can come to a deal and I will relieve him of his South African currency shortly.