I cannot believe the awful air fares & blackout dates

[ghostjmf]

I have 2 free flights due, 1 each from a diff airline. Both are effectively blacked out for the dates I want to travel this spring (1 weekend, 1 week). The airline person (I always talk to people rather than believing the internet, because real human people will tell you about extra flights if there are any) at one airline tried valiantly but to no avail. The airline person on another airline gave me an extension on my pass, so I can use it later this summer. The airline person on airline #1 gave me a pointer to points.com where I can supposedly extend my pass's life by 18 months for no charge; well, I clicked on this option & am waiting to see if my pass gets extended (& 10 free! woo woo points!) or not. I am sure that whatever happens, I will be innundated with e-mail by points.com.

If that doesn't work, I can always try to buy a magazine from them without eating up those valueable points. On that airline, its frequent flier miles, not a pass.

So I then tried to book these flights "the normal way", meaning I pay; aaaargh have the prices gone up & the options gone down. One of them I'll just bite the bullet & book already, but the other, because it involves "multi-city" as the sites say, is nothing less than horrific. I will probably be gluing together flights from 2 diff airlines for less than the "multicity" on any one airline, but this still has me arriving too late or staying over & taking an extra day off, having no direct flight even between cities where I previously have had no trouble getting direct flights, etc, etc.

Boy, those 6:00am flights are certainly popular with airlines. Unfortunately, the subway around here doesn't start running 'til 5:30am.

And even if the "limo" in my home city is being driven by the "relative who never sleeps", that doesn't mean I can get by without any sleep.

Oh well.

I have checked out the "shuttle to/from Manchester NH" option. Even it doesn't have hours that match my flights & the Boston subway's last train. However, the place it drops you off is not only closer to my house than the airport (3 miles instead of 6), I bet taxis from there don't have the obligatory $40.00 + tip charge they do from the airport. I hope.

Yes, they really do charge you $40.00 (+ tip!) to go 6 miles. Really, really do.

[Bob Juch]

If you're flying at the end of March, you're running into Spring Break.

I'm flying the last full week of February and will pay under $300 from New York to San Diego.

[ghostjmf]

I'm apparently flying during 2 different spring breaks. 3rd week in March, which I already knew about from previous years, when its been hard, but never before this hard. And 4th week in April, which is apparently also a spring break, at least according to the airline companies.