Buying someone a trip

[Eaglesfan27]

My wife is very close to her grandparents, and I've become quite fond of them as well over the years. They were struck very hard by Katrina and have had to have their home essentially rebuilt. Assuming our finances continue to do well, we wanted to buy them a trip to Vegas for Christmas as this is their favorite place to vacation (they are in their mid 70's.)

I've never bought anyone a trip before. I'm wondering how difficult is it to buy plane tickets with a flexible date. How difficult is it to buy plane tickets in someone else's name? We'd like to give them a range of at least a few months that they could go when it would be convenient to them. Also, how difficult is it to get a hotel room with flexible dates? I think both of these things are possible, but I'm hoping someone with more experience can chime in. It's important that we don't just hand them a paper saying we want to do this, as Mrs. Eaglesfan's GF is a very prideful man, and probably would fight hard to turn down the trip.

[Toddiec]

I would think a Travel Agency may be a good way to go. They probably get these kinds of requests all the time.

[CraigSca]

Mrs. Eaglesfan's GF is a very prideful man

I would suggest a travel agency as well - I've never seen the ability to do something like this via Expedia or Orbitz.

As an aside, I did a doubletake on the quote above until I realized you meant "grandfather" instead of the FOFC standard GF = girlfriend :)

[Eaglesfan27]

I figured the very prideful man would clue in on the context ;)

It looks like we need to find a good travel agency :)

[finkenst]

I figured the very prideful man would clue in on the context ;)

It looks like we need to find a good travel agency :)

for some reason i thought you were referring to yourself in a most obscure fashion. :)