Slymiles

I previously wrote about my frustrations in trying the cash in Skymiles. My theory is that 100,000 of them really equates to a little less than a yard, so I can almost never benefit.

I’m planning a trip to Alaska this summer and steeled myself to go through the futile but necessary exercise again. Sure enough, transaction denied! Could I hear them snickering through the computer screen?

A thought occurred. Did I have enough for one way? And, if so, would the cost of a one-way ticket combined with the cash charge associated with the Skymiles ticket be less than purchasing a round trip? One would assume so, but I am dealing with the airlines here.

I set up a grid to see which leg would cost the least in an outright purchase and with what city of origin. Cincinnati has earned a reputation for gouging.

The first thing that becomes apparent is that there are no good times when Alaska is in the equation. Departures and/or arrivals are at ungodly hours. However, using Expedia, I arrived at one I could live with and it showed availability.

Before committing to that, I had to make sure that the Skymiles would pan out on the other leg by working through that process. Miracle of miracles, it granted the ticket. Now all I had to do was purchase the other leg through Expedia and that should be a walk in the park.

Should be. I clicked my choice and immediately got the new price message. WTF? If you know the price changed, why isn’t it showing? The new price was double the original and could screw up my calculations.

Nothing I could do about that so I moved to choice number two. It was the same price but the timing wasn’t as good. Or, was less bad, more appropriately. I could live with it.

Expedia couldn’t. I clicked on that and got the price change message, again doubling. I am starting to get a bit peeved.

I go down the list of options until I hit one that retains its published cost. True, it departs in the wee hours (at least there will be daylight up there) and arrives shortly after the grandchildren go on Social Security, but at least it’s cheap.

You can never beat the airlines.