<div>
 <strong>What could have been an affordable trip that allowed me to meet a dying friend has ballooned in expenses.</strong>
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 When the meetup in London was announced for a Discord community I belong to, I was thrilled. I have a longtime friend of 25 years who lives in England but whom I've never met in person. And the company organizing the meetup offered to reimburse up to $800 in travel expenses. At the time, I found loads of flight + hotel packages that were just a little higher than this, making it very affordable! However, there was the possibility of the company getting a block of rooms people could stay in, so I waited.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 The block of rooms never happened, so I finally went to look at my travel options last week and found that everything had gotten much more expensive. The airfare alone cost more than $800, and then I still needed a hotel for three nights.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 <strong>I can't just stay at any hotel. I am a power wheelchair user, and I need to stay somewhere that my 400-lb wheelchair does not encounter any stairs.</strong> England does not have any accessibility requirements for businesses like we do in the US, thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and my options were frustratingly limited.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 Last week, on Wednesday, July 29, I booked a trip on Booking.com, not knowing how difficult it would be to contact customer service if I had a problem. <strong>I'd had a medical procedure that day, and I didn't even think about the fact that sedatives + steroid injections made me not mentally competent to sign a legal contract</strong>, which is what travel reservations are. It was more expensive than I can probably afford, but there were now extenuating circumstances that made getting to England to finally meet my friend more pressing.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 <strong>My friend in England has been diagnosed with a terminal illness since the London meetup was announced</strong>, and he was immediately unhappy with my choice of hotel, saying the area was not safe for a solo female traveler in a power wheelchair and that it wasn't as accessible (the area, not the hotel) as my scant research had suggested, so I was going to have a terrible time getting to where the actual meetup events were happening several miles away. He spent several days asking me if I'd changed my hotel yet, begging me to get it done.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 To complicate things further, <strong>I never got my confirmation email for my trip</strong>, but my debit card was charged. Not getting the confirmation email meant that, days later when I finally got a phone number to call, I didn't have the PIN the AI-powered phone line required in order to speak to an actual human.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 I asked my husband to call the phone number that appeared next to the charge on our bank account, and it was for Priceline. This was Monday, August 3. <strong>While in the same family of companies as Booking.com, Priceline had a different reservation system and different customer service team</strong>. He finally got a human on the line, and they actually seemed willing to help, but they had to get permission from the hotel property to cancel my reservation, and they weren't able to get anyone on the line. This was a time zone issue, but I still haven't heard from them today (Tuesday, August 4), and <strong>I worry that the hotel isn't going to allow me to cancel my non-refundable reservation despite the extenuating circumstances</strong>.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 Under the assumption that I <em>will get my money back for the original hotel, I booked a new room (Tuesday, August 4) that is within the area I need to be in, so accessible transit is no longer an issue for me. However, the price of the room went up even since yesterday, </em><strong><em>so now the cost of my travel is over $1,500</em></strong><em>...and that's assuming I get the other hotel room refunded.</em>
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 After accounting for the $800 in travel I will be reimbursed for, this is still about $600 more than I expected to pay before leaving the US, and I'll need money to get around when I get there. <strong>But I may never get a chance to meet my friend again</strong>, if he even makes it until October...which is not a certainty.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 I'm asking for donations to help offset the cost of this trip that ended up being so much more expensive than I originally anticipated.
</div>
<div>
 <br>
</div>
<div>
 <strong>As a power wheelchair user on SSDI who desperately wants to meet her dying friend in London, can you help me out? Any amount helps.</strong>
</div>

Douglas Anderson

Help Me Meet My Dying Friend in London

platform

Platform is iOS

Android

Adyen Google Pay Development Audience

$opt_dummy_attribute

English only

Deprecate Stripe Legacy

dyn_template_ids

Adyen V6 Bene Transfer & MyMoney Campaign Organizers - test01

Bene transfer V6 and AdyenV6MyMoney Campaign Organizers - production

OneTrust next-app audience

fundCountryCode

NextDoor Share Option Users

Fundraisers with Reactions feature capability

fundCurrencyCode

US + Non-charity COs Only

locale

fund country is US and user language is English

personId

comms-internal-person-ids

Enhanced Story Experience Users

Suggested Goal Experience Users

user language is English and fund country: US, AU, DK, FI, IE, NO, SE, CA, GB; 

Poster share - new funds eligible (newest 9/18)

Streaming widgets beta user

paymentProcessor

3DS payment method

user language is English and fundCountry: US, AU, DK, FI, IE, NO, SE, CA, GB; 

currencyCode

Money Box Donation List Prompt Experiment Audience

GoFundMe Employees

ipAddress

Mark Rieth IP Address

Version 9.2.0 and above

Fund is in English speaking country

desktop

Android v12.11.0 and above

Platform is Android

paymentMethodType

checkoutType

Payment method type group to be vaulted on success

admin pr kit prod

EUR Donation Upsell

Share Text generation Skip Fundraiser

(prod) new funds eligible for amp12 (UGC gallery)

fintrac_cad_idv_form_v2 audience

paymentProcessorAccountId

fallback mode accounts

proCampaignId

p2p legacy startfundraising page

AMP24 New Funds Only PROD (DO NOT MODIFY)

countryCode

charityId

UKCharities

Federated Search Internal Testing

route.pathname community

US Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks Feature Audience

Supporter Comments Eligible Funds

International Only

fundId

braze fundraiser group 

Payment Identity Transfers ATO Risk Check (Targeted) - Production

Fundraiser Saved Payment Method Rate Limit Bypass (Production)

leaderboard-partner-id-audience-givepanel

Eligible for Profile Comment Badge

Version 9.2.1 and above

AUD Donation Upsell audience

fundraiserCountryCode is US/EN

Active Fundraiser - Smart Default Cadence

DAF Internal

Vault on success card payment method

Platform is iOS v11.0.0 and above

Desktop users

Person ids

United States (US) users

allow yuno fundraisers for test

Mexico country code

Posters INTL

NPO Profile Opted-In

iOS at or above 12.4.0

non-US recurring donors

Canada Campaign Owner Group

Fundraiser Without Meta Link

Scheduler payment tester gorup

charityCommunityId

Charities allow to be claimed unclaimed (PRD)

Canada (CA) users

UC Tipping v20250115 International

pymk_production_xplr_fe_team

Android at or above 12.2.0

Profile photo entry point audience

smart goals (fundraiser/manage) on test01

Activity Tracking v1 Beta Testing

writePath

Stream Notification

start gfm intl allowed locales

Platform is iOS v11.2.0 and above

NPO upsell education category

unclaimed charities

prod_ach_audience

AI Chatbot Audience

amp13 only new funds (prod) (anyword auto)

UC Flow Enabled (Prod)

Payment Identity Beneficiary Verification - Production

shared notification bell audience

Custom users

ach frontend audience

Android v11.0.0 and above

Users Receiving Payments Paused Notifications

smart goals test01

Manage Coach - US English Organizers Only + new funds only

Team EGG - IP Address list

NPO recommendations prod

Fundraiser Without Instagram Deep Link

Native 11.4.0 and above

UC Tipping v20250107

ai_title_page

anyword

openai

control

manual_entry

userEmail

template_id

userId

fundUrl

isCharityCo

email

appVersion

shouldBucketIntoExperiment

partnerId

isEligibleForProfileCommentBadge

donationCadence

isActiveFundraiser

isPartner

isMobile

npoProfileOptIn

fundIsLinkedWithMeta

hasSessionDonation

categoryGroup

isCampaignOwner

fundHasInstagramDeepLink

Native 11.3.0 and above

Native 11.4.0 and higher

New funds eligible - Video Sharing (PROD)

GB Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks V3 Rollout Audience

Thank you V3 testing whitelist

isRecurringFriendly

Is Recurring Friendly

Excluded funds - Video Sharing

NPO upsell animals category

NPO upsell disaster relief category

Logged In Users

CH Donation Upsell audience

Android v10.6.0 and above

NPO upsell essential needs category

NPO upsell medical category

userCurrencyCode

Localized Currency

NPO upsell cancer category

v11.5.0 and above

testAudience

pathname

Survicate

appVersion is at or above 12.8.0

Non-charity fund

isChallengeFundraiser

challenge-fundraisers

Payment Identity Launch Verification - Production

New funds eligible - Posters v2

CAD Donation Upsell Audience

Braze Email Tester

NPO Profile Opted-Out

iOS App Version

hasKnownDonors

PYMK has donors

iOS v12.3.0 and above

Just $450$ to go! Make an impact.

Help Me Meet My Dying Friend in London

Just $450 to go!
Make an impact.