After the finagling I had to go through the other day, I realized why travel agents exist. Too bad with the invention of the internet, their jobs have hung in peril. I spent several hours popping back and forth between the 7 tabs I had open on my computer finding the various flight options that would make our trip to CA in a few weeks monetarily feasible. It's such a game. One day fares could be in the upper $300 for round trips and then the next day drop to $180s only to drop and rise again in some unchartable fashion. I feel like I am playing the stock market when I hunt for tickets.
Finally, after hours of searching and planning, I found a discombobulated set of flights that brought our round trip total for the kids and I to $140. This is not including all the lame taxes and security fees and mandatory airport beautifying fees. This means we fly out of Austin (an hour away from our house, but cuts over $100 off each ticket and over 2 hours of travel time) and land in LAX. Those who have flown into there can make their own assessment on the joys or ills of that choice. Then Fernando and I eventually part ways and I fly out of Burbank to Austin.
Yes, the price made this all worth while. In fact, I was so determined to get the price that I called the airlines and made them honor what I was potentially going to purchase. Here is the short run down of that drama.
Like I said, I spent hours figuring out various flights and then it came down to committing to the options I picked. I always have this fear that I am going to accidentally hit the wrong button and end up messing up the whole vacation. I double and triple check everything and still feel queasy when I hit the purchase button. I filled in all of our info and clicked purchase when an error page showed up. I guess I took too long checking things out. No problem. I had the info down cold so I just quickly started again. This time however, the price of each ticket magically went up $20 which changes everything. Now $20's isn't that bad by itself, but times 3 and plus more taxes and possible lay overs. . .it is a big deal.
I tried over and over again. The fare would show up as the $69's on the first page, but when I would try to purchase it, boom tack on $20. I was beyond passive acceptance at this point. I called SWA and explained in my nicest edgy voice what happened. The lady tried to make excuses for why it was happening, but I really didn't care. I wanted my $69 tickets and they were going to give it to me. And they did. Yep, some how, this desperate airline was willing to give up there extra money to make me happy. It was well worth the 20 minutes of holding.
California, here we come!
6 comments:
oh the joys and headaches of internet searching. But don't you worry, Rachelle can fix it. I know she can.
My very first job after high school was at Southwest Airlines. I made reservations, for 2 years! It was a fun job because of the perks, free flights!
We just went through something similar. We had to book Dan flights and a hotel to Philadelphia for a conference he has to go to. We will be reimbursed, but only about $500, so anything over that was out of our pocket. I think once we were done figuring it out we ended up $20-$50 out of our pockets! Pretty good, but it was a headache figuring it out, so I feel for you.
oooh. Thank you for hazarding your sanity to come out and see us. We just can't wait :0)
I finally broke down and bought tickets for me and the kids this summer-we usually fly standby (cheapy) because my mom works for Detla. Well, I played the whole second guessing game over a couple of days and finally made the purchage only to find a better deal a week later out of a more convenient airport! How frustrating! I'm glad you got a good deal. Have fun in CA!
Awesome! Those are great ticket fares, and I hate it happens. Have fun on your trip!
when i get on a plane, sometimes i wonder how much the people sitting around me paid. i assume we all got very different prices.
Post a Comment