Airline Tickets

It looks like I'm going to go ahead and purchase my airline tickets this week, even though I have yet to receive my travel approval. Our agency has a small group traveling May 24th-June 7th. As long as I get my TA soon (next week is the earliest due to the holiday last week) AND I can get a consulate appointment around that time -- I will travel with that group. So, I started pricing tickets yesterday to get an idea of what they will run. Usually it costs around $1000 round trip to Beijing. Of course I find out that this is the most expensive time of year to travel to China. Many students are heading back for the summer and families are going back after their children are out of school. The tickets were anywhere from $1400 to $2400 for economy tickets and there weren't many seats left (and many of the direct flights were completely full). With my dates being so iffy, I've decided to purchase an adoption fare that won't have any penalties for changing dates. I think this is going to run around $1800, so altogether (with Alana's one way ticket) around $1000 more than I was expecting. So, now we wait for that Travel Approval and hope that I can get the CA that I want.