Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest...next what-Dumbestest??

The excitement of meeting my friends always arouses a certain nervous energy within me. The moment my friends here in the US decide to meet or plan to have an outing, I'm always enthusiastic and there's this sudden flow of activity within me to look for the cheapest flight deals. When I was a relative newcomer to the US, I used to rely upon my friends to get my bookings done, but soon I came to know of the different web-sites where one could search for cheap travel deals. There's so many of them here - Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline, Sidestep, Cheap-tickets - to name just a few.

Well, I dont want to talk about which among the above mentioned is the best or my preferred one or whatever, what I want to talk about is my stupidity in booking the tickets.

DUMB

Some 4 months back, my friend TK (the cute guy from the testimonial post) was going to India for his engagement. He had relocated from Dallas to Baltimore and was going back to Dallas to meet his other friends and his roomie (our common friend - guy no: 2 in the testimonial post) before his India trip. He informed me about his trip and decided - impromptu - that I'll go to Dallas as well. So I looked up one of the above sites to search for flight deals to go from San Diego to Dallas.

TK was going to Dallas on a weekend and so I tried to search for all travel combinations for that weekend so as to get the best price. I searched for Fri-eve departure and Sun-night return; Fri-eve departure and Mon-morn return; Sat-morn departure and Sun-night return; Sat-morn departure and Mon-morn return. Suddenly I found a deal for some 350 or so USD (significantly cheaper than the price I was shown earlier) and just jumped at it and booked it.

I was pretty excited about it and immediately told my friends that I would also be coming to Dallas to meet them. I took a print-out of the confirmation and just looked at my itinerary. My jaw dropped on looking at the printout. I was cursing myself on being such an imbecile - a dumb idiotic fool. In trying out all combinations, I had forgotten to change one of the options for the return flight and my currently scheduled return flight was somehow for Saturday evening instead of Sunday evening.

"OH..F***! How can I be so careless??" - that was the first thought to cross my mind. I immediately called up US-Airways and explained them about the goof-up. They said that they can change the return flight to one-day later, but that would cost me. I told them that I'm willing to pay whatever. The cust-service rep. told me to hold while she searched for availability and computed the new fare. I had no choice. I waited...anxious and eager to know "Kitne Phatke Lagenge" (how many DOs I'd have to shell out). She came back probably after having a mini-meal or so it seemed because of the long time I had to hold the call. She said the ticket can be changed and that it would cost me 150 USD. I agreed to it and got the return ticket rescheduled.

DUMBER

A couple of months back, I was in Kansas City. It was a lousy place and I didnt have very many friends there. I was feeling lonely and homesick and during that time Guy-2 (from the testimonial post) was moving out of Dallas. So I thought I'll go and visit him one last time in Dallas. At first I thought I could probably drive down to Dallas. The distance between Kansas City and Dallas is around 580 miles and it would have taken me about 8 hours. I looked out for rental cars and having found a good deal with HERTZ, I tried to work out the economics. I arrived at a certain figure, but out of sheer curiousity I just started to search for some good flight deals and luckily for me I found a pretty cheap one. About 250 bucks to-and-fro. I just jumped at it.

This time around I ensured that I booked the proper flights, I checked for date and timings and everything seemed okay. I was set to fly out on Friday in the evening from Kansas City and reach Dallas the same night. My return was scheduled for Sunday in the evening at 5:00 or so and I was supposed to reach Kansas City back at around 7'ish. My onward journey went without any incident and the flight landed at Dallas-FW airport on time. My friend came and picked me up and we had a gala time.

Soon it was Sunday and it was time for me to go. My friend dropped me off at Dallas-FW airport at around 04:00 pm and I went to the ticket-desk to get the boarding pass. The lady at the counter checked my ticket and she said - "Mr. GanapathiKrishnan, you are at the wrong airport." I was surprised and I asked her whether this airport is Dallas-FW airport. She said - "Yes its Dallas Ft.Worth, but your return flight is from Dallas-Lovefield." - and showed me the airport code. I saw that and I realized that Dallas Ft.Worth is DFW and Dallas-Lovefield is DAL and my return flight is from DAL.

I called up my friend, who by now had nearly reached his house and told him about this problem. He just doubled his way back to DFW airport and picked me up from the American Airlines terminal. I jumped into the car and we set off to DAL. The distance from DFW to DAL is about 15 miles and since its closer to downtown and further away from the freeway, it takes about 30 minutes or so to reach there. I had reached DFW 1 hour before my flight departure and now I had to reach DAL rather fast.

That evening, my friend broke all traffic rules possible except for jumping a red and we reached DAL at 04:35. I was quite sure that I'll miss my flight and my worst fears were confirmed. The lady at the checkin counter refused to give me a boarding pass saying that I was too late for the flight. Thankfully there was a second flight about 2 hours later from the same airport for Kansas City and I paid 25 bucks to get a boarding pass for that flight.


DUMBEST

Last weekend, my friends planned for a get-together to meet at my friend KCHJ's house. (To know more about KCHJ, read my testimonial post). As usual this was decided just a week before and I - being excited to meet up with my friends again - booked my flight tickets. This time too - after having tried out a number of combinations - I settled for a ticket that would leave from San Diego on Friday in the evening, reach Milwaukee at night on Friday. My return flight would leave on Sunday at around 05:30 pm and would reach San Diego at around 11:00 pm.

I got a deal (if I could call it that) for 400 USD and although it was a bit pricey, I was elated that I would be meeting my friends again. The whole of previous week, I was very much looking forward to my trip. I reached there on Friday and was treated to amazing food cooked by KCHJ's wife and talked a lot about old times. The whole of Saturday was spent just lazing around in his house, watching "path-breaking" movies and playing with his 7 month old baby.

Come Sunday it was time for all of us to leave and KCHJ dropped us off at the airport at around 04:40 pm. I went to the Delta Airlines boarding pass kiosk and entered the ticket number mentioned in my printout, but the kiosk was not able to find my ticket booking. I then went to the ticket-desk and asked the attendant to help me out. He too tried to get the boarding pass at the kiosk, but in vain. He then proceeded to the ticket counter and search for my ticket confirmation in his computer, but he was still not able to find my reservation.

Time was running out for me and out of frustration, I asked the attendant to give me the printout, I had given to him. I looked at it closely and realized the folly. I had done it again! Instead of 7th October, I had booked the return ticket for the 4th of November (also a Sunday). At the time of booking, I had forgotten to verify the return date and had just checked the day. OH...NO...NOT AGAIN!!

The attendant told me to talk to the Delta Airlines helpdesk to get my ticket reissued and he would hold the flight so that I could board it. I rushed to the helpline. I waited for nearly 15 minutes for someone to come and help me reissue my ticket. Finally, somebody came-on and I explained the problem to her. She told me the worst possible news. I had a 1-stop flight and my stopover was at Atlanta. She told me that there was availability from Milwaukee to Atlanta, but there was no availability from Atlanta to San Diego.

I was so angry and frustrated at myself that I could beat myself to death. It was the 3rd time, it happened. Finally after having given all the possible options, I took the most convenient of all - to fly out on the 8th of October, i.e. Monday. I would be reaching San Diego at 12:15 pm, but then there was no other choice. There was no availability whatsoever for the 7th in any of the flights. There was a ticket available with United Airlines for the 8th but that would've cost me 800 USD. There was another ticket available with Midwest for LA (about 1 hour drive from San Diego) also for the 8th and that would've cost me 450 USD.

Finally I settled for the Monday ticket with Delta and I was setback by a cool 250 USD.

Even as I'm writing this post, I am reliving those tense moments in each of the above incidents and at the same time wondering whether I'll ever learn from these happenings, considering that i've undergone 3 similar ones.