Flights of Curiousity

[bjarvis]

I began shopping this morning for flights to the IAGSDC convention in Anaheim at the end of June, with a prior side trip to Portland, OR, for a family reunion, and I'm rather intrigued by the results.

The plan is to fly from the greater DC area --I'm about equidistant between BWI, DCA and IAD so I'm not particular about the departure point-- to PDX for a few days, then on to LAX and flying from LAX directly back to DC. If there are direct flights from LAX to either BWI or IAD, neither Cheaptickets.com, Travelocity nor Orbitz knows of them: all flights seem to have a stopover or plane change before coming to DC. Go figure.

The quest continues...

Comments

[fuzzygruf.livejournal.com]

Seeing your post, I just went to check out some airfares for convention. I have some voucher on Alaska Airlines, so I just went to see prices. I checked from San Francisco to SNA. One of the itineraries routes me from San Francisco up to Portland, OR, then down to SNA with one stop in OAKLAND. OMFG!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there's some twisted logic to it... more than just a scheduler on crack or a company that hates having customers. If there is logic in there somewhere though, I can't see it.

[rlegters.livejournal.com]

I found a similar routing last time we flew to DC. From Seattle, it was non-stop to BWI, then up to LaGuardia, then back to Dulles. If we just flew the exact same flight and got off in Baltimore, it was $100 more expensive.

Just bizarre.

[urbear]

Why so reluctant to connect? Geez, you'd think you were a New Yorker. I fly almost every week and about 75% of my flights involve a connection; it's no big deal.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I don't much care about direct flights to the west coast but since the return trip will be a red-eye, I'd rather sleep continuously for 5-6 hours than sleep for 90 minutes, wake up, change planes, worry about luggage, drift off to sleep for another 90 minutes & land. At least Kent would be less bitchy.

[urbear]

Well, maybe you can find something that connects near one end or the other... one very long leg and one short one. That's always worked for me when I'm forced to take red-eyes (which I generally avoid).

[rlegters.livejournal.com]

Odd. I just found 6 or 7 nonstops a day on United and American, and a couple on Alaska, using Expedia.com. I wonder why the other sites aren't seeing these?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Got me beat. I wouldn't be surprised if the mish-mash of airline & portal sight alliances has a lot to do with it.

There are some airlines which don't use any traditional ticketing portals like Travelocity or Expedia. While they could have cheaper fares or better timed flights to get where we want to go, I have no idea how to find them.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to get confused on what I have and haven't booked for trips coming up, and I always have to check my trip folders to see what's done...WHEN I think about it. I had to double check to see if I had booked my flight to Philly in 2 weeks. Gawd.

Danny reminded me today that we haven't booked our flight to LAX yet...and I haven't booked my flight to San Antonio for myself for Nationals yet, for the week before.

I'm sure there are handy directions somewhere on how to get FROM LAX to Anaheim, but I haven't gotten that far yet...

And if it's any comfort, not much goes direct ANYWHERE from Albuquerque...just to places I never go.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

It's called Alzheimer's, hon. Even *I* knew you had booked your Philly flight. :-)

At the moment, we're planning to take Amtrak from LAX to Anaheim. LA's Union Station is on the subway line and there's a comp shuttle from LAX to the subway. We did this routine to get to San Diego for that convention as it was vastly cheaper than flying to SD directly.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

So many callers count on their spouses to be secretary, travel agent, and bookkeeper. I wonder what that would be like!

Not a chance in the world with Danny, tho!

[kent4str.livejournal.com]

It's pretty nice, actually...

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

He's a consultant... he'll do anything if the price is right. :-)

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

"And if it's any comfort, not much goes direct ANYWHERE from Albuquerque...just to places I never go."

Lubbock and Amarillo are even worse. Trust me.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

Is that where you are? ;-)

Amarillo is a mere 4 hours east of here, so we just hop in the car when we want to visit friends there...

Lubbock is...err. Lubbock. I had an invitation to move there in 1985, when the company I worked for here was bought out by a larger company there. I respectfully declined.

West Texas is just so...so...what is it exactly?

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

Dunno. I'm 12 miles over the border into New Mexico. Portales.

On the other hand, a recent trip to Lubbock resulted in "Kinky Friedman for Governor" bumper sticker sightings, giving us an excuse (with a toddler present) to yell "Kinky!" at random moments.

We live in rural eastern New Mexico. We are easily amused.