Tuesday, April 27, 2010

One Trip Booked – TechEd 2010

Tia thinks I’m crazy to book early, but I like to have a choice of flights, and I like to get things off my plate. I heard back from someone about TechEd today, so I decided to just book the trip. One less thing for me to worry about.

SQL Saturday #22 in Pensacola is the weekend before, and I am speaking there first. A few of the Red Gate people are flying to New Orleans and driving to Pensacola.

That sounds like work, so I booked two one-way flights. I arrive around 2pm in Pensacola on Friday, will speak Sat and then catch a ride back with some Red Gate people to New Orleans where I’ll spend Sun night, Mon, and Tues meeting with people before coming home early on Wed.

No sessions for me, just touching base with authors and saying hi at TechEd, so it should be a light week with the chance for me to get some work done.

I did have a fun 15 minutes wasted on the phone. I had to cancel two trips earlier this year, so I wanted to use my credit. Apparently United doesn’t issue “credit.” What they do is allow you to rebook the flight, charging you $150. However you can’t use the website to rebook the ticket. Instead you have to call an agent.

And oh yeah, they charge you $25 for the agent.

So I call, we get my account up, and 10 minutes later he says that I can rebook one flight. OK, I agree to do that. He gets my info, goes through things, and then says it’s $150 + $25 for $175 and I have $168 credit. Am I ready to book?

Holding my temper in check, I then ask can he waive the agent fee, but apparently he’s a dim bulb, reading from a script or not allowed to deviate. We go around a few times, me using logic, him passing the time reading from his script. I ask can I book two one-ways with this ticket, and get credit from my other flight. No, he can’t handle that, but his grasp of the English language isn’t great, so I hang up.

Book through Expedia, get my itinerary on my phone, just easier.

Good thing I went for a run afterwards.

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