The devil is in the details

I am the dumbest person in the world

As you may know, I currently live in Boston and my parents live in upstate New York, vaguely in the Syracuse area. This year I was a little behind in making my Thanksgiving plans. I started looking at making reservations for various forms of travel during the week of November 1st and all of my options were much more expensive than I was expecting. Plane tickets were extremely expensive, train tickets were more than I wanted to pay (the train between Boston and Syracuse is rather bad, so I tend to shy away from that choice), there was some issue with the bus (scheduling maybe? I don't remember). Anyway, I ended up deciding to rent a car and drive the 5-6 hours home, largely because the car rental would cost about $300 less than my other option (flying).

A fundamental issue with this plan is that I am the worst driver in the entire world. I'm not sure that I can fully describe just how terrible I am, but suffice it to say that I was never particularly good at it in the first place, and then I have gotten progressively worse while not driving in college and graduate school. My parents were obviously uncertain about my ability to drive home, and my 14 year old little sister commented to me last night: "Bree, please be extremely careful coming home. I would really like you to come home intact and I am afraid of you driving." It is really not like her to say things like that. I will admit, I myself was not thrilled about the prospect of driving but it really seemed like the only feasible option. I was excited that I would be able to have flexible plans (I could just do my experiment on Tuesday without worrying about the time and leave whenever I was ready) and that I wouldn't have to be very strict about packing...I could just throw things in the car. (I am also the world's worst packer.)

Today I went online to actually reserve the car. I decided to look quickly at a couple of sites where I could make flight reservations, just to see how bad the flights were and if there were any last-minute deals (which I certainly didn't expect). Not only did I go to expedia, but I also visited some airline-specific sites. One such site had a large banner ad inviting people to sign up for their frequent flyer club. This ad reminded me that I was a member of said club, so I logged in to see whether I could get a discount.

When I logged into my account, I was greeted with a message reminding me that I had earned one free-round trip ticket and was about one trip away from earning another. Don't let these miles go to waste, they reminded me! They expire in June!

D'oh. I now have plane tickets to go home on Tuesday night and return to Boston on Sunday morning. They cost a grant total of $10 in fees. I guess flying around to all of those weddings and wedding-related functions this summer paid off after all. Let's hope that the Dulles curse doesn't reappear. (See the May and June archives if you don't know about the Dulles curse) My family is entirely relieved.

Aaaack!!!! Now I have to pack a suitcase!!

posted by Immunegirl @ 3:22 PM