How can my MC, being a 16 year old, book a hotel and plane tickets a month in advance? I don't know the answer to this for sure, but I assume 16 year olds can't have credit cards without an adult to co sign, which he doesn't have an adult that would do that. Also, this needs to be done without his guardian knowing. How would he go about doing this?
A fake ID and phony credit card, I would imagine. Might be able to get around that for a hotel, but if this is set in modern times, the plane ticket would be a woozy. But then again, who knows? The world is full of morons...
How fast does it have to happen? If he has plenty of time to set it up, stealing his guardian's identity and getting a credit card with mail going to a PO box doesn't seem too hard.
There are hotels that can be booked without a credit card, I used an online booking site for one a couple weeks ago. He'd probably do best booking in his dad's name for two people, then showing up and claiming that Dad was stuck in a meeting. I think that's what Kevin McAllister did, actually , but it might work in the real world for a day or so. Plane tickets? That's gonna take some identity theft or credit card fraud, since 9/11 I'm pretty sure that all cash airfares go straight to Guantanamo Bay airfield.
Do you have to be related to buy a plane ticket for a child? I imagine if a child found the money to book a plane ticket and hotel room, they could easily bribe someone to pretend to be their uncle or something.
If the kid has a bank account then they most likely have a debit card. It will work for both. But if guardian has access to account they will find out. However, at 16 you should be able to open a bank account by yourself these days, especially online. Then after getting the debit card could use the one time pay feature offered by visa/mc to help muddy the search waters. The kid could also join a hostel group and pay for a room at a hostel using cash. Or they may be savvy enough to know to enter a crappy hotel later at night when they won't be asked for id and they pay in cash. If there is not a good reason to book a month in advance, I would say forget that part. Maybe the kid goes to an online service that hooks people together for road trips and on the way talks one of the others into renting them a room for the weekend or whatever.
