kickaha | Holiday travel follies!

ginkgo and I doing the travel thang for holidays this year, and I just want to share with y'all the fun and games what have been getting tickets.

Step 1) Get online
I go to Expedia (dot caaaaaaawm!) and search for flights.

ginkgo is coming back sooner than I am, so I book her first, figuring that since she's flying closer to Xmas, it'll be tougher to get her a flight. Search, search, have heart attack at prices, search, search, aha! Call her, confirm when she wants to fly out. Realize that if I book her, then book me, we can't get seats next to one another. Bugger.

Step 2) Go directly to AA
That's American Air, thankyouverymuch. (The other comes at the end of this insanity.) Hop on their website, do the search fandango, and voila, there are the flights. Great. Make the reserv... I have to log in. Okay, no problem, I'll just... With my AAAdvantage member number. Which I don't have.

Step2b) Archeological dig
Go up to the paper compost heap I call my study, and start digging. Find the manila folder in the filing cabinet marked 'Travel'. Realize it hasn't been updated since 1997. Oops. Flip through several years worth of unfiled papers. (I really should do something about that soon.) After twenty minutes, realize that there is one place that I *know* the number resides... and once again, it's the trusty Newton Messagepad 2000 to the rescue! Turns right on, and voila. I have the magic number.

Step2a) (cont)
Get back online, enter member number to get a fresh password mailed to me, and... wait. And wait. And wait. For the record, it is now a couple hours later, and it still hasn't showed up. Decide this is just borked. Double check flight info, and prices, to give to nice people on phone.

Step 3) Call AA
Get the number *for reservations* off the website. Call. Notice that there is no option for making a reservation at the top of the phone tree. Really. Not at all. You can cancel, update, check or otherwise tweak an *existing* reservation, but nothing about making one. So I select 'tweak'. "There is a $10 charge per ticket for reservations made via an operator. There is no charge for reservations made online." Oh nice. They really don't want people making reservations via phone any more. What the hell. More phone tree fun gets me to a real live boy. I give him my info, what flight numbers I wanted, the whole bit. "Uh, are *sure* you want that flight?" "Uh, yeah, why?" "Because it costs [insert over twice previously quoted amount online here] a ticket." "WHAT?!? I just looked it up online like five minutes ago!" "Well for god's sake, GO GET IT because I can't give you a price anywhere NEAR that. Then call back and we can fix seat assignments."

Step 4) Return to Expedia
(dot cawwwwwwwwm!)
Redo the searches from before, snag the seat for

ginkgo, go to check out, and... yup, I don't have the login info for this site either. *slaps forehead* Do the 'I forgot my password' tango, but this time it takes all of 60seconds to get the thing taken care of. (All password info is now safely ensconced in my keychain. Woot.) Grab her flight, her seats, and... voila. She's booked. Yay! Now for me. Do the search, and it's a sweet sweet hundred bucks less. Yay! Select same departing flight, select correct return flight, and... "We are sorry. We cannot confirm your price or flights on this itinerary. Please try again later."

...

Uh, fuck?

So I try again for a very small amount of 'later'. And again. And again. I redo the whole search from scratch, noting that at least the price hasn't shot up. Same thing. I re-do the search again, and this time it finally works. More shenanigans ensue getting it confirmed, but FINALLY I have the two itineraries, reservation numbers, the whole bit. Yay!

Step 5) Get seat assignments moved
I call AA, and now they are happy to help me with an *EXISTING* reservation. Turns out that

ginkgo got the LAST assigned seat on the flight out. I am on 'assign at gate' list. Which is equivalent to 'we overbooked, and you're the first to get yanked off, jack' list. Yay me. So now we have non-co-located seats on the second leg out, (although we're both aisle, right behind each other, so maybe we can get someone to switch with one of us), but the first leg? No. Clue. Wheeeeeeeee!

I'll keep calling between now and then, to see if anyone cancels and I can get a seat assignment, but jeez.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go call the *other* AA.

Holiday travel follies!

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