Back in January I asked my husband to put in a request for vacation time so that he could go to FinCon12 (Financial Blogger Conference) with me. I missed out last year and swore that wouldn’t happen this year. So many months in advance, he put in the request and got it approved.

Of course, I immediately purchased everything: conference tickets, booked our hotel and purchased plane tickets. I didn’t want to take any chances that I would miss out on such an awesome opportunity again.

Now with Honey’s boss on medical leave and his recertification (required to continue working and bringing in the bucks) falling right in the middle of the conference, I can’t go to FinCon…again.

As if that wasn’t enough, we’re also in the middle of buying our first house. The last time I spoke with our lender, he said we should be closing on the house the first or second week of September.

I had to cancel our hotel reservation and return our conference tickets. I was able to get most of the money back for those, and used it for some of our house buying costs. What about our plane tickets that I bought 7 months early you ask? I don’t even know!

I called Expedia to ask them for my money back or get a credit with them—that was interesting. Now I don’t mean this to sound rude or however it’ll probably sound since I’m typing it, but I cannot understand India phone people.

I suck at understanding anybody with a strong accent normally, but get me on the phone with India and I’m just dumbfounded. I know they are speaking English, but I just can’t understand anything they’re saying.

I did come away with this though…I think?:

• The airlines suck (United Airlines and Frontier Airlines) and won’t give me any of my money back and I cannot get a credit with Expedia either.
• I can change the tickets now to another date or destination and pay $150 per ticket (each way) plus any additional amount between the value and the new amount. ($600 in fees)
• I can cancel my tickets now and use them before January 23, 2013 and pay $150 per ticket, each way and any additional amount just like above. ($600 in fees)

I’m not sure what to do, or if that’s even right. I would really like to get my four hundred and some-0dd dollars back, but I’m not sure how. This was my first time buying plane tickets, so I should have paid more attention to what happens if you need to cancel. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it because I was so sure that I would be going.

On the brightside, I did learn a couple of lessons for next year’s Financial Blogger Conference:

1) The conference will not sell out the first day, so chill out and take things slow.

2) Before purchasing the conference tickets next time, make sure there isn’t a promo code floating around.

3) Watch the prices of plane tickets and buy when they are low.

4) Read the terms and conditions and all that jazz before purchasing airline tickets, just in case. It’s much better to know ahead of time even if you don’t anticipate cancelling.

Have you ever planned too far ahead and lost money too?