In His Foot Steps: March 2009

Friday, March 27, 2009

Canadian Dollar Adjustment

(29 Days to go …………) It’s hard to believe Pilgrims, but we are on the count down to Israel. There were many issues we had to deal with in these economic times in order to pull everything together to make this tour happen. I would personally like to thank Lois Barbour of TPI Travel Time and Air Bauer of Dan Tours for all their behind the scenes work, giving in more ways then we will ever know to make this tour come together. I am sure if I could read their minds, they would say “Never Again” as we have had a lot of up’s and downs. At one point the tour was sold out at 55 Pilgrims and our numbers now have settled at 41and that number was arrived at with a lot of changes to the tour. One of the major outstanding issues is the value of the Canadian dollar to the US dollar. In Israel, everything land connected is priced and quoted in US dollars and converted to Canadian dollars. At the time we priced out our tour, the Canadian dollar was at 95 cents to the US dollar. Currently the Canadian dollar is at 72 cents to the US dollar. Thus we were short a lot of money with the Canadian dollar adjustment. On tours like these, there is always a little Canadian dollar adjustment, when all the final numbers are put together, but with this much change in the value of the dollars, I thought at one point that we might have to cancel the tour because the dollar adjustment was just too great a number to have to ask everyone to pay the extra required to make the numbers balance. Now for the Gospel (Good News!). To make this tour possible, all the people connected with this tour, have gone back to their suppliers and they have done their very best with pricing to make sure that the tour was able to go forward. (The bike tour people are still working with their numbers). I now have the final Canadian dollar adjustment number and I can tell you, Praise be to God, God is good! I was expecting with the Canadian dollar drop that we each would have to pay an extra $150.00 dollars to make the tour numbers balance. Too my surprise the number is less that half that, due to everyone working together. The Canadian dollar adjustment that each of us will have to pay came in at $65.00 US dollars. Due to the fast closing departure date of our tour, we are not going to be processing the payment through normal channels, as we have done with your past tour payments. We are asking each of you to bring with you on the tour, the $65.00 US dollars, and we will collect it in Toronto, at the airport, or when we meet up with you in Israel. Be’ahavat Yisrael (with a love for Israel and its people). Ken yehi ratzon (May it be God’s will) Shalom, Shalom.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Our Flight Schedule, Updated March, 25, 2009

This post was updated March, 25, 2009, to reflect a flight schedule change. Departing Toronto, Saturday, April 25th, 2009. Flight # AZ 651, Departing Toronto at 17:10, arriving Rome, April 26th, 2009 at 7:45. Flight # AZ 808, Departing Rome at 10:15, Arriving Tel Aviv at 14:25. Return Flights from Tel Aviv, Monday, May, 4th, 2009. Flight # AZ 809, Departing Tel Aviv at 5:30, arriving Rome at 8:20. Pilgrims on the Rome extension the flights are as follows. Return Flights from Rome, Tuesday, May, 5th, 2009. Flight # AZ 650, Departing Rome at 10:15, arriving Toronto at 14:10.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Question, How Much Money to bring to Israel?

The most commonly used currency in Israel is US dollars. I would recommend you bring all your Israel spending money in US dollars. I would not recommend you go out and by any (NIS) New Israeli Shekels, when you pay for something in US dollars they will give you your change in Shekels, so you will get some of the local currency anyway. You will get used to the local currency very quickly. Currently the exchange rate Is about three shekels = one Canadian dollar, so $10.00 Canadian = 30 Shekels. I am asked often “much money should I bring to Israel” I quote the Brian rule. The Brian Rule: Roughly, guess based on you current spending habits how much you might need, …… then, double it. On past tours everyone is very conservative on spending the first day. Then by day three or four everybody is out of money and looking for a banking machine. Bring a little extra cash (US dollars) with you, if you do not use it, it’s very easy to bring back home with you. The average person will spend between $25.00 to $50.00 US dollars per day on small things, Water, your lunch at noon time and small gifts to bring home to friends. For your bigger gifts that you may purchase for family members, I recommend you use your Master Card or Visa. They can be used everywhere in Israel. Remember we connect through Rome going to Israel and returning, so if you would like to by a coffee or a bottle of water or something to eat you will need Euro’s. Those Pilgrims on the Rome extension. I recommend that you go to your bank and get some Euro’s for Rome. Things are a lot more expensive in Rome then in Israel. The exchange rate today was about $1.68 Canadian for one Euro. I would recommend that you get about 30 Euro’s, which will cost you about $50.00 Canadian. Those Pilgrims not on the Rome extension, I recommend that you go to your local bank and get some Euro’s for connecting through Rome. I would recommend that you get about 15 Euro’s, which will cost you about $25.00 Canadian. Hope this helps ……

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Money Issues while in Israel

Take a moment to address this issue today! Past and current experience has brought forward the following issue. This post will address issues with your banking cards while planning your trip and while on your trip to Israel. We have had peoples cards declined while trying to pay for their tour, because the amount was outside there normal spend habits. The card companies always request you notify them of any changes outside your normal spending trends. The banks today are very quick to respond to what they suspect may be fraud, because they are on the hook for any amounts charged to your account, not done so by you. Therefore they will shut down your cards very quickly, then, they wait to hear from you. When you are planning a trip you need to notify your credit card and debit card companies as to what you are doing. On the back for your credit card and debit card is a customer service number. You need to call that number and notify them of your pending plans, giving them the details, such as dates of travel and country’s of travel, (ie. Italy and Israel). If you do not do this before you go, when you try and access money with you debit card or purchase something with your credit cards, don’t be surprised when your card is declined. Your normal spending patterns and locations are captured by the banking computers, when you suddenly change your normal spending amounts and locations it flags the banking computers and they start declining your transactions, because they assume that you are outside your normal spending patters and they have not received a call from your, telling them that you are on a trip, they assume that someone is using your cards illegally and they shut down your cards until you call complaining or until you notify them. On every tour I have pilgrims who have money problems because they did not call the credit card/debit card customer service number before they left on their tour. It is twice as hard to do it when you are already in Israel, as you are now dealing with an international phone numbers and there is always a delay due to time changes and you will normally have a waiting period (24 to 48 hours) for them to re-activate your cards once they shut them down. I hope this post will help make someone’s trip less stressful by doing a little pre-planning.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Final Payments.

We will be processing final payments for the Israel tour this week. I received the following message from Lois Barbour and our Israel booking agent this morning. We have received the final tax figures for our calculations, and are now ready to accept final payments on the Israel trip. We would like to hear from everyone on this with their method of payment by the end of the week. Please note that we are able to accept final payment amounts either by credit card (with a 2% surcharge for processing), or by check or money order made out to DAN TOURS. Note that if you initially provided either a credit card number, or sufficient payment with your deposit, indicating you wish to have the insurance coverage, that is calculated or eliminated in your final payment. It does not mean that it has already processed on your credit card, but only that the number has been supplied for processing. Note that the credit card payment for insurance coverage will not include the 2% processing fee, and will be processed separately from the final payment on the trip. We will start sending out individual emails with the amount now needed for final payment. Please, if you have not already contacted Lois Barbour to make final payment arrangements, please do so asap. Contact Lois by phone or email. Email, lbarbour@tpi.ca Phone 709-753-9950 Toll Free at 866-433-9950 Thanks in advance for your attention into this matter.

In His Foot Steps