Thursday, August 25, 2011

Airlines 2, Lauren 0.

I have decided that the forces in the airline universe are working against me. Really, it could just be life in general...either way, I don't like it. I don't really believe in luck...I believe you create opportunities or your decisions cause you to miss them. But I have been feeling extremely unlucky lately...

Let me explain.

Situation 1:
A few months ago, I found out that Warrior Dash is coming to Tulsa. I have always wanted to do one of these events, and I was so excited! It is scheduled for September 24th, which worked out great, because it would be just a few days after I returned from my internship in California. I waited to sign up because we were in the process of trying to get a group together, and you have to sign up for a particular time...they had waves every 30 minutes starting at 11am.

My good friend Sarah lives in Panama City, FL, and I have been looking for a good opportunity to go visit her. She had told me about a relatively new airline that has direct flights from Destin (about an hour from Panama City) to Little Rock (about 2 hours and 45 minutes from my house), sometimes for really cheap!  (I know right now it seems entirely unrelated to Warrior Dash...bear with me...). A couple months ago, I happened to be browsing on the website for Vision Airlines hoping for an opportunity to go see her. I found a flight that left Saturday evening, September 24th, and returned Tuesday evening, September 27th...all for under $200 round trip, including taxes and fees! Something in my head told me that I had something else going on the 24th, but I couldn't for the life of me think of what it was at the time...so I somehow convinced myself that  I was thinking of September 21st, when I am going to the Taylor Swift concert in Tulsa. I decided September 24th was free (I really should get better about putting stuff down in my calendar...), and booked my flight!

Soon after I realized that Warrior Dash was the same day as my flight. At first, I thought I could still manage to make both...if I did the 11am wave for the Warrior Dash in Tulsa, I thought I could still make the 4.5 hour drive to Little Rock by 6pm to check in for my flight. It's only about 3.23 miles, so I thought, "Heck, I'll be finished in 35 minutes!"...but then my sister brought me back to reality when she reminded me that I had to consider the fact that it was not only 3.23 miles...it was 3.23 miles through a crazy obstacle course. It would probably end up taking me at least 3 hours to complete. This left me roughly 4 hours to shower and drive to Little Rock. Yeah, not happening. So I was bummed, but I accepted the fact that I could not do Warrior Dash; at least I was going to the beach and to visit my good friend Sarah, who also happens to be my hair stylist, and I am in dire need of a haircut.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from the airline stating that there had been a schedule change to my flight, and that I needed to call and find out my new itinerary. I called, and they had pushed my outgoing flight back to 8:30pm. Initially, I got really excited, because this meant I could still do Warrior Dash! I went back and checked...and the 11:00 wave was full. Not only that, but they had also added a 10:00 and 10:30 wave...also full. Bummer. The 1:00 wave was the earliest one available, and back in the same boat I started in...I couldn't swing it. Even more bummed, I went on content with the fact that I was still going to the beach and to visit my good friend Sarah.

Yesterday morning, I got super excited when I realized that I was exactly 1 month from my trip to Florida! I even posted on Facebook about it. Sarah was excited too. Then, just a mere two hours later, I receive the email of death. I get the same email from the airline that I did a couple weeks ago. I call. I wait on hold forever for them to actually answer my phone call in the order it was received. Finally, a man answers, and gives me the awful news: My flight to Florida has been cancelled. Apparently the airline cancelled all of the flights on that route after September 15th. Now I want to cry. My sister and friends signed up for the 1:00 wave for Warrior Dash, which is now full. So now, I have no vacation to Florida to see my good friend Sarah, AND I have no friends to do Warrior Dash with. At least the airline is refunding my money...other than that, I am having trouble seeing the good in this situation...

Situation 2:
I booked our rooms for our wedding-moon stay in Cozumel in May 2012 back in May of this year. Airfare was not available yet, so I didn't book that at the same time. When it did finally come out in late June/early July (I can't remember exactly), it was $476 per person. Considering I had just flown to Cancun last summer and the tickets were only $298 per person, I had a hard time spending that much on our flights. I thought, "Surely they will go down between now and May." I had actually read something online that said airfare is generally at it's lowest point approximately 6 months before travel. So I had been watching airfare prices like crazy lately, just waiting for it to go down. I had come to terms with the fact that airfare is simply much more expensive that it was a year ago, and decided that if it dropped below $450 per person, I would go ahead and make my purchase. About 3 weeks ago, the cost of our plane tickets went up to $513 per person. I wanted to kick myself. I even looked up random dates, anywhere from now until April, to see if there was a particular time that airfare was cheaper. Nope. $513 was actually the cheapest airfare to Cozumel for the next 9 months. I was so mad at myself that I didn't buy it earlier...it would've saved us $37 per person, or $74 total. When you're paying for a wedding on your own, $74 can make a big difference somewhere else...

So I decided to bite the bullet and pay the $513 for the stupid airfare in case it went up again. I bought my plane ticket 2 days ago from Continental. I checked the prices today, and found one on American for $474...it was over $600 two days ago. REALLY??!

I guess I just need to not look at the prices, ever again.

So now I have my overpriced plane ticket to Cozumel, and no plane ticket to Florida. I also don't get to do Warrior Dash, because I can't find anyone to do it with me that's not already signed up for a wave that's full.

Okay, I'm done complaining. Now I'm just going to go pout :(

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