Well, it's now official. We're going
over twice in 2020.
I think I've mentioned in here before
about how Loraine & I were pondering heading to Europe twice next
year. The first would be to see another spring soccer game in
Germany, and with the exception of getting the tickets to the game
itself (something you can't do until six weeks or so before the
match) everything's all booked and ready to go. Then we were also
considering going back to France for the first time in four years,
during our usual late summer window. And we've now bought the
tickets for that.
Just not the way we thought.
At one time, we had been thinking about
using frequent flier miles to get over to Paris. After all, we both
have a lot of them built up from all these trips we've been taking,
and we figured that this would be an economical way of going to
Europe twice in a year. However, while you can fly anywhere in the
US for a mere pittance (as far as miles go), and you can go to other
places in Europe without needing hundreds of thousands of miles, you
can't do that to go to Paris.
Just let me say this—if you ever
wanna use frequent flier miles to go to Paris (at least on American)
make sure you have 200,000 or so.
Here's the funny thing about it—we
both have around 150,000 miles (give or take a few for me, because
I've already used some). American's website said I could buy enough
extra miles to allow me to use them for a flight to Paris, but to
purchase the 40,000 I need would cost around $2,000. Or I could just
pay $1,300 for a regular ticket and not use any miles at all.
You can probably guess which option I
chose.
I did have to laugh, though. I mean,
really? It costs more to buy a few frequent flier miles than it does
to just buy an actual airline ticket? It's almost like, you know,
they don't want you to use the miles you've accumulated. And even
when you do, you get weird things like this. I could use some of my
miles to get a ticket from Marquette from Chicago. Or I could use
fewer miles to fly from Marquette to Chicago and then on to
Washington DC, to Savannah, or to Melbourne Beach, Florida (just to
name three examples). Yup...it actually costs less (in terms of
miles) to fly FARTHER away from Chicago than just to Chicago itself.
Tell me how that makes ANY sort of
sense at all.
But that's neither here nor there.
Airlines are stupid. I think we've established that over the years.
And if you ever want to fly into Paris, even if you're not staying
there, be prepared to shell out a premium no matter what you're using
to pay. It's not logical, but that's the way it is. All that
matters is that we are now set for two trips to Europe next year.
And we've discovered that we each have enough miles saved for two or
three flights to various locations around the US, should we so
desire. After all, we have the miles. We might as well use them,
right?
Now, if I could just get my boss to
give me an extra week or two of vacation. And find someone to get
all my work done for me. And someone to pay for all the extras like hotels and food. And...and...
Okay. So there are still a few kinks
left to be worked out. I'll keep you updated on that.
8-)
No comments:
Post a Comment