My parents are here to stay

All our plans to get my parents to Argentina next week, in time for my only living grandfather's 95th birthday, have now gone all gone down the toilet. And it's all thanks to Varig going bankrupt. A notice was officially handed out last week to all travel agents, that this Brazilian airline is bankrupt and no tickets must be issued for them. My parents' tickets, as well as my aunt's and uncle's, were cancelled, even though we booked and paid for them, over three months ago. They were supposed to fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil and then on to Buenos Aires. You cannot believe how much this pisses me off.

Not only have my plans now been totally ruined - I had invited some people to stay with us, host some parties, remodel the house a bit, even took leave to do all this, but worst of all, my parents' dreams of returning to their homeland (probably for the last time) have been shattered. It was tough to look at my mother's face when she realised that this was not going to happen. She really wanted to see her father. It has been almost 12 years since they have been there and my brothers and I thought this would be the perfect gift for them, for putting up with our nonsense for so long!

I have been trying desperately to get them tickets with another airline, but at the moment it seems like there is nothing available. There are many other people in the same boat as us and are all trying to get flights to and from South America. There might be some flights available with Malaysian Airways, which flies directly to Buenos Aires, but only in October. Even though it kind of defeats the purpose, this is probably our only solution. Its better than nothing. It will cost more as well, but we have to get our parents there, one way or another.

What pisses me off was that when we were in the process of booking flights, I wanted to book them on Malaysian Airways, cause its direct and it was not too expensive then. But my aunt insisted on booking on Varig. The travel agency should have advised us of problems with Varig - cause apparently this was a well-known fact for a while now. And they don't seem to be bothered now with trying to give us some customer service and get my parents on another flight. They messed up, they must fix it. We will at least get a refund, but it will take about a month! How pathetic!!

I am hoping for a miracle now. I will take anything I can get. My brother the Weasel is so desperate to get my parents out of here that he is even willing to put them on a boat. Lol. Hope it doesn't come to that!