They have (half) the money

Last week I officially accepted my accommodation proposal for next February's Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. It wasn't the ideal situation for me, at least financially, but it was the only real option I had without doing a lot of research on rooms in the Anterselva area, something that I didn't have time to do and also, which from reading other pieces, wouldn't have yielded me any better results.

So, on Monday morning, while my laundry was drying in the Wolfeboro laundromat, I made my way to TD Bank, where I spoke with Donna (she and Tammy have facilitated the majority of my Olympic wire transfers) and started the process of getting the first payment for my accommodations to the Milan-Cortina Organizing Committee.

Over the years, this has been an interesting process. For Sochi, they actually accepted the funds in US dollars, which was surprisingly easy given the problems I'd have in the future. For PyeongChang in 2018, I was able to send my funds in South Korean currency without much of a problem. With Tokyo for the Summer Olympics in 2020 (eventually 2021), I sent my funds in Japanese yen and despite the fact that I sent the first payment before the originally scheduled Games in 2020, the funds were all put forward to the actual trip, which happened in 2021.

The biggest problem I had in regards to wire transfers was definitely for Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. Because of the delay of the Tokyo Games, I was dealing with paperwork for two different Olympics at the same time when the Beijing preparations began. The problems began when TD Bank noted that they did not do wire transfers in Chinese yuan. This meant I had to try a different bank. Citizen's Bank was able to make the transfer, so I took money out of my TD Bank Olympic account and started a new account at Citizen's. The nice woman there helped me work through some very tough to understand paperwork and we made the transfer. 

However, it became a much bigger issue, as we ended up having to make the transfer three times because of small little things on the transfer paperwork that we weren't told we had to fill out. Additionally, Citizen's called me multiple times to make sure I wasn't being scammed, since I was making transfers to China after starting my account only days earlier.

Eventually the third time was the charm and they got the money and Paris went back to being a much easier process. And while I've sent the money to Milan-Cortina, I have yet to receive any notification that it went through or didn't go through. I will find out soon enough.

This was, however, the most expensive payment I have sent to an Olympic organizing committee. Half of the accommodations for the three weeks was more than 3,000 US dollars. That did a number on my Olympic account but I have a bit of time before the next payment is due to put more money in the account.


The village of Bormio, which will be one of the Milan-Cortina venues that I likely will not get to see due to the massive travel distances between venues. (AP photo)

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