Gentle Spiders,
Sometime in mid-April, I'm planning to go to northern California for a week - to see my son, to see a primary-school friend who's coming to visit her nephew (currently beavering at a PHD at Berkeley), to discuss the further developments of Rosa Libre/Rosalibre with Cathy Belleville... A thoroughly enchanting plan in every respect (I don't shift butt *easily* <g>)...
Last time I went to CA (March '03), my son found me a good (cheap) flight, did the booking and paid for the ticket - all on Internet - all *I* had to do was to write a check to pay him back. This time, I thought that, despite my age, there was room to grow - I was encouraged in that line of thinking by my recent driving derring-do's (Ithaca nad back <g>) - and asked him to teach me how to do it for myself (additionally, if *I* pay for the ticket, with *my* Visa, I get bonus miles. I've heard that, more and more. they're harder to convert to anything useful, but...)
He steered me to Travelocity - an online business devoted to finding you the cheapest possible flights - and told me how to navigate it. I took 3 days to familiarise myself with it; being 'puter-illierate, I don't always notice everything at a single glance and, being 55, I'm no longer able to think of all the possible "angles" all at once, the way I was 20-30 yrs ago...
The following is the message I sent him tonight, after the 3-night Travelocity-watch...
Remember how I said - a couple of days ago - that I could come to CA (San Jose turned out to be cheaper than SF, actually) for $304? Even at convenient times. Well...!
Having confirmed with you that an 8:45 flight out from SJ was OK, and that the price was on the "extremly good" end of things, yesterday I decided to go ahead and actually sign up (create an account) with Travelocity... Dear me, how *very* "interesting"... :)
Checking out the very same route and date/stop-number requirements *as a member*, I got the same round-trip price on fewer flights than the night before and two nights before (those two nights' readings were identical). But the outbound flight I was interested in was still included (if no longer on the specified "primary" date), so I "continued"... Rude awaking; the return flight choice, would now cost $736 for the round trip... the only returns available for the $304 were ones with *several* stops (even though I was only interested in one-stop routes), one of which required an overnight layover (dare say they offer a hotel accomodation to tie into the package, and collect a fee <g>)
Tsk, tsk... :) It *may* be a coincident but, having grown up in a communist environment - where we *knew* we were being screwed at every turn, and learnt to expect it - I'm somewhat "Miss Marplish" (suspicious), and strongly smell a "switch and bait" tactic.
Today, there were *no* flights under $340 being offered, with nothing under $380 on the primary date. Trying to sign up for "watch for cheapest tickets on a favourite route" (I was gonna sign up for both Roanoke/San Jose and Roanoke/Denver for later) produced no screen (other than a blank, with "transfering data" at the bottom) in 5 minutes, so I cut it off; in 5 minutes, I can get to the travel agent (if it weren't night time) :)
Obviously, Travelocity engages in the war of nerves... We'll see. If I don't get anything half decent from them again before March 15, I'm gonna go back to the local travel agent, and let her do the arranging. If I'm gonna get screwed *anyway*, I'd rather let the local people make their buck than some Grasso-like CEOs at Travelocity.
Love, Mama
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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