the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

Always buy plane tickets well in advance. Two months ahead of time is good (particularly for international travel). 

But who does that?! Am I right? 

So. Mich and I are headed to San Marcos for the weekend to see friends. I broke the first rule of buying airline tickets by not purchasing them until Saturday morning for this Friday. That gave me, oh, six days' lead time between purchase and departure date. Really. You'd think I'd know better by now, but no. 

So I'd already paid more than I should have. I think it came to an extra $150 per person. I told myself that I was paying the stupid fee and should learn from my mistake. Don't sweat it. Life moves on, y'know? It's just money.

Well...today, I went to work without a care in the world. I was to take my Physical Fitness Test at 1300 hours, and otherwise did lesson prep and had a short meeting with our department head halfway through the morning. Life was good. 

I got to the gym and grabbed my gym bag, only to realize that I didn't have my running shoes. :roll:

Lovely. I am one of the physical training leaders for our department, so I popped around to talk to the technical sergeant who runs the program in the gym to ask if I could take my test sans shoes. (I can't do the run or walk right now, anyway. Remember the torn calf? Yeah.) My lack of shoes wouldn't interfere with my test; I'd just be a teensy bit out of uniform. He said ok. 

*whew*

So I popped down to the locker room, changed into my Air Force-y workout gear, and went to stretch. I took my phone and checked my email. There on the top was an email from CheapOAir that said, "Your flight leaves in 1 day!"

Wot?

I opened the email. It congratulated me for selecting alternate travel dates to reduce my fare. But I didn't. CheapOAir did that for me.

Don't you hate that? It seems to me that the alternate travel dates (with subsequently cheaper fares) should be offered in another tab where you have to specifically check a box to have them offered. Then, if you do select a flight with alternate travel dates, it should have--I don't know--a flashing red banner that double-checks that that is what you really want to do before it lets you purchase the tickets. 

I was pretty angry. So angry, in fact, that I aced my PT test. Then, as soon as possible, I contacted CheapOAir customer service to see if anything could be done about my problem. 

I felt angry and aggressive and generally like being a holy bitch. What's more, I felt justified. The damn ticket service had tricked me, and it looked like I was about to pay a huge stupid fee. The email stressed that I'd bought NONREFUNDABLE tickets and the airline didn't have to offer me squat (only, they said it a bit less concisely). I could be forced to completely scrap the first set of tickets and end up paying for two more round trip tickets, more expensive than the first set. 

In my fleeting moments of reason, I realized that no matter how the website was set up, the error had ultimately been mine. I took a long while to breathe in and out and think it through, then I picked up the phone.

I didn't have high hopes. I told myself that being stupid (or not being careful enough) can sometimes be pretty pricey. In the long run, though, I was going to pay whatever was necessary to get the problem corrected. It occurred to me, also, that if I were the poor bastard on the other end, I really wouldn't want anyone taking out their anger on me, particularly for their own stupidity. 

I got what I think was an Indian. He couldn't approximate an American accent, or even a British one. I thought, "Oh right. CheapOAir. This makes sense." I braced myself for a string of pointless questions and ultimate lack of service. (I've had a lot of bad experiences with Level One Help Desks located in developing countries, as you can see.) 

He was polite and professional, said "please" and "thank you" a lot, and offered to either buy back my tickets (so I could purchase fresh ones myownself, more carefully this time) or to change my tickets for the days I'd originally asked for. The exchange would cost me $316, the flights he offered were non-stop (the first ones weren't), and they had better departure times. I snatched that deal up like it was the last super Christmas deal at Walmart on Black Friday. 

*whew*

But only after triple-checking the airports and dates of the replacement tickets. Natch. 

d