Flight plans

I have my Vegas trip booked for December. Will be staying with a friend at New York New York at a good rate. I have always wanted to stay there as I do like the casino even though they do not have a poker room. But a short trip over the bridge gets me to the MGM room which is among the best on the Strip. Now I have just under 4 months to get through before I can devolve into the simplest form of man.

Booking the flight was an experience. I started checking flight costs a couple weeks back. I could have had Midwest at about $180 but wasn’t positive of my plans. With a new boss taking his time on the vacation requests I couldn’t take the slight chance I wouldn’t be given the days off. Not a big deal. This week I had see the flight jumped to $221. Ok, I can handle that. An airline I like and trust is worth the extra twenty dollars when compared to the other options.

But yesterday the cost was now $241. WTF? After some searching I found Airtran at $188 total. The flight times were comparable as well. Well, for $60 less I can still get a direct flight and have more booze money to spend. I like booze money so I can’t pass that up.

I monkey around on the Airtran website and am about to book when I notice the other charges. They want me to pay $6 to choose a seat? Huh? For another $12 bucks I don’t have to play seat roulette.

At this point I decide to check Travelocity to see what they would offer. The are touting their “no booking fees” promotion so maybe I can find a deal there. Well, no I can’t. I then go to Priceline to see what they can do. I am able to find the same flights as on Airtran at the same price plus I can pick my seats right away. I then wait for something notice to tell me it is going to be extra but that doesn’t happen. So by buying on Priceline, I was able to get a better deal than going direct on Airtran’s own site. Am I the only one that thinks that is odd?

Not sure what is going on this weekend for myself. I am looking forward to watching the Cowboys game tonight. Even though it is just preseason football and basically meaniningless it is always interesting to see how the starting team performs. With the Cowboys expected to match the Titans starting lineup and play them for at least a half, it is a taste of real season football. Plus with the new stadium being featured, it is should be a fun night. Toss in heckling Packer fans and I may start a bar room brawl! Ok, no fights but I will have some fun.