Just a quick heads up to a type of 'scam' I just came across.

About a month ago I booked my flights to Los Angeles for E3 2011. I'll be staying in San Diego and Los Angeles throughout the two weeks I booked (June 1st - June 14th).

I assessed everything I'd be doing, how much cash I had, and a few other circumstances and decided to stay a bit longer... for two months actually.

I had previously booked my airfares through a website called 'Expedia'.

They offered great and competitive flight prices and I had no issues using them at first... until I needed to change my flights.

Basically they were telling me it was going to cost $1,400 just to move my flight to August 1st, even though a return ticket from Los Angeles leaving June 1st from Melbourne, and coming back August 1st was only $1,100.

My grandfathers god-daughter is a travel agent so I gave her a call and asked her how much it should be, and she confirmed it should be around (at the highest) $300 - which I was happy to pay as that's understandable.

I then called V Australia (International version of Virgin Blue) and they confirmed it would only be about $150, however if it was done within 24 hours of the flight leaving it would be significantly higher.

They also informed me that if you book your tickets through a travel agent (Harvey World etc), they cannot alter your flight details -until- you're in the country you're travelling to.

This might seem off topic, it is, but if you feel like you're being raped and unfairly at that, make phone calls. It just saved me $1,400 from a shitty and untrustworthy website.

Offtopic - I was hoping to head to E3 myself this year but couldn't due to personal reasons, so you have me very jealous at the moment, hopefully I can get to next years though!

OT - Yeah some companies are dicks when it comes to shit like this.

Last year when I went to America with my family and my old man booked everything himself (works out alot cheaper then booking 'packages' from travel agencies). We wanted to stay an extra 2 weeks so we could travel to New York and a few other places along the east coast (as we were on the west coast) and it took him a good 3 hours on the phone while over there to finally get it all sorted! So just be wary!

Sorry to hear that man!

It'll be good though, and I am extremely excited. Going to be doing a bunch of different shit.

I have travelled domestically with all the airfaires and I enjoy them all, I book all my tickets myself and I did have a few issues with aquireing the email of my ticket, but 30min on the phone cleared it all up. Quantas and ect seem to easy to talk too as your there customer and well that want you to keep on flying. Good luck on your trip and enjoy the value of the AUS dollar!

Just came back from a holiday, flew with virgin blue and they were actually really good. I have to change my return flight and it took like 10 minutes and only cost like $40 or something.

Best time to be going to the US with the current $AU

had to come home from schoolies a day early cos of family shit. Jetstar were heaps easy to deal with. they changed my flight for free.

I enjoy Jetstar just not there planes, eh you get what you paid for.