Heads up

I'm trying to get packed for my trip to SF/Tahoe and let's just say it's going slowly. I was smart enough to do laundry last night but packing for a city where it might be raining or nice, and skiing where it might be warmish or real warmish isn't easy.

In order to procrastinate more, I'll tell the story of the best airline ticket deal ever...

In January, prior to my voucher expiring, I booked a trip to visit Missy for $350. A bit spendy, but with a $300 voucher not so bad. Then, a month ago I checked on seat selections and saw that my return flight had changed and I was landing almost 3 hours later in Mpls. Not ok since I'm headed to work after the red eye.

I go on Orbitz to look for what other return flight I'll ask American to switch me to and realized that if I took the red eye landing Tues AM instead of Mon AM the ticket was currently only $200. Wowsers.

I called American and asked if they could switch me to the evening flight (technically the same day just 23 hours later) and then if they'd refund the difference in price. They couldn't do that, however since they changed the flight and the landing time was so different, they could cancel that flight for no charge if I'd like.

I had them to cancel my original flight, refund me with a voucher, and then I purchased the $200 flight and took an extra day off of work. Within about 2 hours I made this all happen and saved $150. I was quite proud of myself :)

Lesson from this: If they change your flight time by over an hour, see if buying a different flight and asking for a refund makes sense!