Booking trips…

Here in Hawaii we’ve always had high gas prices compared to other places. I recall that in the early 70’s when my family moved to Milwaukee during the height of the “73 oil crisis” the price of gas got up to the same price we’d already been paying in Honolulu, or so it seemed.
I’ve been back in Honolulu for 25 years and have yet to own a car. But I feel the crunch when it comes to airline fares. You see, just to visit my mom I have to fly to another island.
What’s the point of all this? I’ve been booking trips.
The first is, not coincidentally, a trip to visit my folks on Father’s Day weekend. That trip is costing me about 30% more than the same flight (Honolulu-Hilo) did back in April when I visited. Sigh.
Next up is a trip to Mexico DF. Which reminds me, I love TripAdvisor. It helped me pick my hotel for this trip and what a deal it is. I’ll have more on that later.
This trip was actually a bargain. If you’ll recall I went to Alaska back in March. Alaska Airlines flies non-stop from Honolulu to Anchorage and that’s how I booked my flight. A couple of weeks before my trip they called and said they’d overbooked my return. I was welcome to stay on the flight, but if I took a different flight they’d give me a free round trip ticket from Honolulu to anywhere they fly. They fly to Mexcio. 🙂
I had to book the ticket at the airport instead of online because I had to physically present the certificate they sent me which meant I had to “pay” the added cost of doing business with a live human being. I checked the price of the flights I’d need to take online and it came to about $1500. When I went to the airport with my certificate the same flights cost $1900.
Mind you, I only paid $60 in taxes for the flight, but I was shocked that there would have been a $400 difference based on where I booked my flight.
Finally, and back to the price of fuel, I booked a flight to Oakland CA for a conference next March. I’m actually flying in and out of SFO (where I always get the soup at the San Francisco Soup Company). Why book so early?
Well I had just enough United Airlines miles to get the trip for free (well $5 actually). From Hawaii that is 35,000 miles. I was afraid, perhaps wrongly, that if the price of fuel keeps rising, United (and, to be fair, other airlines) might raise the mileage requirement for an award ticket. Since I’m going anyway, no point in waiting.
On the whole I think I’ve done rather well during this fuel crisis. Combined my flights to Mexico and Oakand are costing me less than visiting my folks for a weekend on an island that’s about half an hour away by air. Go figure. 🙂
Aloha!