AFANA Footy BBS

Fellow fans,

Here is AFANA's discounted air travel info to get you to Los Angeles for the AFL exhibition match on 15 January:
(Please read the note at the bottom of this message.** These offers are open to any reader whether or not you are a member of AFANA.)

United Airlines Announced As Official Travel Partner Of AFANA
United Airlines is offering special "meeting" fares for the attendees of the "AFANA / AFL Exhibition" in LA who use the special Meeting Desk to book their reservations. Book early and take advantage of the promotional fares that give you the greatest savings! Earn a 2% discount off the lowest applicable fare. By purchasing your ticket at least 30 days in advance of your scheduled travel you will receive an additional 5% discount. Simply call (or have your travel agent call) 1-800-521-4041 and refer to Meeting ID Number 539TM. Mileage Plus members receive full credit for all miles flown to this meeting. Tickets can be mailed by United, picked up at your local travel agency or United Airlines ticket office. You or your travel agent should call today as seats may be limited. Flights may be booked on United or it's associated airlines (i.e. United, TED, etc.) and most of it's code share partners including US Airways and Air Canada. Call 1-800-521-4041 and reference Meeting ID Number 539TM. Dedicated reservationists are on duty Monday thru Friday 8:00 am to 10:00 pm / Saturday and Sunday 8:00 am to 8:00 pm EST.

Match Tickets
To get your match tickets, you will need to order them thru Ticketmaster. (The promoters have inexplicably declined to make any group sales - so we are sorry we can't do this in a more convenient fashion.) The price is $15 for adults, $10 for children, and $40 for a 4 person family. Go to this link (click on the working link at the bottom of this message):

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0B003B3CE68070E7?artistid=993536&majorcatid=10004&minorcatid=8&brand=australiaweek

AFANA is offering a hotel for all BBS readers. This rate is $40 to $70 less than you will find on other footy sites.

Doubletree Westwood Announced As Official AFANA Hotel
The official AFANA hotel is the Doubletree Westwood, 10740 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90024. To make your reservation, call 1-800-486-3706. Rates are $159/night plus $10/night for more than 2 adults, and 14% local taxes. Ask for the AFANA rate.

We hope to be able to provide ground transportation (at cost) to all events including the match for members staying at the designated hotel. ** We are planning to have a hospitality room at a site to be announced for fans to meet and greet each other and talk footy.

Car Rental Discounts
If you do not wish to use the ground transportation we are arranging or you need a rental car for other reasons:

For Special Car Rental Discounts contact Avis at 1-877-289-2611 (reference Avis Meeting Discount Number K019303) OR Budget at 1-800-214-6092 (reference Budget Meeting Discount Number X914201)

Ancillary Events
AFANA had planned to arrange package sales of the ancillary events for the weekend. It was our hope that by selling at least the footy related events as a package we could also include transportation and save you the frustration of having to make yet more phone calls or go to yet more web links to do this. Unfortunately, we were unable to reach any agreement with the USAFL or other parties over this. If future exhibitions are held we will organize our own events if necessary. For now these are the links to use if you wish to attend any of the other events:

Ausweek (with links to each event and ordering instructions):
http://www.australia-week.com/page/EventsCalendar

USAFL:
Info: http://www.usfooty.com/usfooty/content.aspx?section=laweek

Ordering: http://www.usfooty.com/usfootystore/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=23

Media Coverage
AFANA will be providing extensive reporting on the match and related events provided by a full team of journalists on site for the entire week. Watch this web site for reports linked from our home page and our free newsletters.

Final Notes
Time is short and we urge you to hurry and book soon.

Please direct questions to this thread on the BBS (reply to this message) or to fbtravel (at) afana (dot) com and Michele will get back to you.

If you book a flight, please advise Michele (at the e-mail addy above) of your flight details so we can arrange your pickup etc. from the airport and know which AFANAns are going to be there. ** We can't plan for your transportation needs unless you pass on your details to us. AFANA will have people on site beginning at least 3 days prior to the match.

The official web site of the match organizers is http://www.australia-week.com

See you in LA!

-Rob de Santos
AFANA Chairman

Tickemaster: Purchase Match Tickets At This Link

Okay, well I'm good to go.

Didn't end up using any of the AFANA special offers. I missed the 30-day advance, so I could get cheaper tickets through Southwest. I found a cheaper car rental. I got the same rate as the AFANA rate at the Doubletree through Southwest airlines site.

There is another, cheaper, hotel next door. However, the user reviews I found online scared me away.

I've got my match tickets, and my tickets to the Swans BBQ afterwards.

Talk to me about AFANA ground transport -- is it a better deal than renting a car? One kid and I will arrive Friday afternoon, the wife and other kid on Saturday, and we'll all leave Monday.

Are tickets still available? My brother-in-law is thinking of coming up from San Diego to see us, and an old high school buddy now in LA is thinking about joining us.

   -- RW "KC Swan" Lipp 

> Didn't end up using any of the AFANA special offers. I missed the 30-day advance,
> so I could get cheaper tickets through Southwest. I found a cheaper car rental. I
> got the same rate as the AFANA rate at the Doubletree through Southwest airlines
> site.

It appears that just about everyone found a cheaper hotel or another way to get it. In addition, the hotel irritated me considerably when they began telling callers that all the rooms available under our deal had been booked and insisted on a higher rate, when in fact, there were plenty available. Many AFANAns have ended up at the Century Wilshire, myself included.

> Talk to me about AFANA ground transport -- is it a better deal than renting a car?

Since you are the first inquiry we have had about it, we decided not to offer the service after all. We recommend getting a car however if you want picked up at the airport, we're happy to arrange to have someone do that and get you where you need to go as many others have rental cars already.

> Are tickets still available?

Yes, to the best of our knowledge they are still available.

Looking forward to meeting everyone.

-Rob de Santos
AFANA Chairman

AFANA TV page

> Many AFANAns have ended up
> at the Century Wilshire, myself included.

Hope that works out well for you. That's the hotel where online reviews made me decide to go ahead and book the Doubletree. Now, I know that people only go online and write reviews if they've had a bad experience -- I've never found a hotel to be as bad as reported. Still, since nobody posted an update in here to tell me everybody was staying at the Century...

In fact, given the lack of commentary in here, I was beginning to wonder what kind of response AFANA actually produced. I figured it might just be me and Rob; Lisa told me during a finals chat that she wouldn't be able to make it and Brian is busy covering high school basketball.

> Since you are the first inquiry we have had about it, we decided not to
> offer the service after all. We recommend getting a car

I've got one reserved, so I'll just not cancel it.

> Are tickets still available?

> Yes, to the best of our knowledge they are still available.

Good news there.

> Looking forward to meeting everyone.

Do we have any kind of schedule planned in terms of a hospitality get together? I was thinking about going to the US Footy Pie Night on Friday.

              -- Swannie

> Still, since nobody posted an update in here to tell me
> everybody was staying at the Century...
> In fact, given the lack of commentary in here, I was beginning to wonder what kind
> of response AFANA actually produced.

I apologize for not posting something, I've just been swamped with preparations for our "team" of reporters and personal issues, the holidays, etc. "Everyone" is about 3 people, all part of the official AFANA media team, at the Century.

The surprising thing is that after having had several threads here (running over 20 messages) in the past two years about an exhibition, no one posted anything before you.

> Do we have any kind of schedule planned in terms of a hospitality get together? I
> was thinking about going to the US Footy Pie Night on Friday.

At last check, not one person e-mailed Michele with any info about their plans so we've been left with a quandary about whether to proceed. Apparently no one was interested in a get together. I'll try to post word of an informal get together here in the next 48 hrs. We'll try to avoid a conflict with the USAFL event, particularly since our team of reporters has to cover it.

-Rob de Santos
AFANA Chairman

AFANA TV page