[Cynlite]

I purchased my airline ticket with about 10 days notice to Europe this past May. I used a discount broker for business class tickets. Here is the one I used but, you can also Google it and find a couple of others. They should be able to save you about 60% off the price the airline websites will charge. I talked to two discount brokers and they came in exactly the same. Mike dropped his price $100 to undercut his competition. The competition was pretty upset with me but, I didn't have time to mess around with it anymore and I was more impressed with Mike's professionalism. (I started my dialogue and emails with Mike in 2015 but, then my surgery got delayed 10 months.)

Michael Flores
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Mike@wholesaleflights.com

I'm not sure where you live but, I live on the west coast. Three legs of my trip were definitely business class and very comfortable. Delta put me on an old airline for the 5 hour flight from the east coast to home on the return flight and it was awful. Truly, the experience was pretty comparable to coach and I was in a lot of pain. I recommend you can get the model/age of the aircraft confirmed for all legs of your trip if you have the time and energy when you are ticketing. Also, be sure to tell them you want a transatlantic flight where the seats will lay completely flat. (I just screwed up and forgot to check the domestic aircraft ahead of time.) Delta's transatlantic flight was really nice in the pods where you can lay down. They did give me some money back on the last leg after I complained to them but, I would rather have been comfortable flying home which was the purpose of paying close to $4000 for an airline ticket. The airlines were quoting over $10,000 at the time! I checked prices on a ticket back to Barcelona for April 2017 recently, and Mike's price was still just under $4000 so, I'm not sure advance notice helps at all like it usually does when buying airline tickets from the brokers.

British Airlines is supposed to be one of the best international carriers if you have miles or American Express points to offset the cost.

When I wired my funds, I had confirmation from my bank later the same day. I then emailed the confirmation number to Yolanda. Dr. Clavel's office was able to confirm the wire the next day which may have been 48 hours on my end because of the time difference. I can't remember exactly. It should never take a week to wire funds because it's all electronic and that is why you pay a $50 wiring fee.

It will be interesting to see what Dr. Zeeger's diagnosis is for you compared to the other surgeons. Dr. Zeegers has a good track record for his lumbar patients on this board! Good to see Dr. Clavel's opinion is in the pack. I trusted him the most but, I was a cervical patient and that may make a difference. Both Dr. Bierstedt and Dr. Zeegers told me two ADRs while Dr. Clavel said I needed to replace three. Having said that, Dr. Zeegers was not certain I was an ADR candidate! He was extremely conservative when discussing my case. Because he wanted even more than the updated MRI, X-Ray and a nuclear test done, I never did get a final opinion from him. He is definitely conservative in his approach! In the end, I definitely took a leap of faith because I couldn't get any of the surgeons to completely agree on what I needed done. I'm glad you have having better luck with that!

I'll look forward to reading your future posts. You are on the home stretch! Best of luck for an easy recovery.