Las Vegas or Bust

I was online today booking some flights to Las Vegas for Rick's little sister's wedding.

It was easy enough. Rick was going the standard method, paying for his fare, while I was flying for free, using some of those miles I earned in 2006 flying back and forth to CA. I began the task of booking by first booking Rick's flights and putting them on hold... then starting all over and booking my own flights, using my AAdvantage Miles. I have enough to fly me to Las Vegas about eight different times. I just need to go once, though. Yep, once is enough.

So online I go. I book Rick's reservation and put it on hold. Then I head over to my own reservation and try to reserve the same flights.

No can do. The same return flight isn't available for freebie flyers like me.

Back I go to alter Rick's flights. I cancel his first reservation and I find a different return flight that will work and reserve that one for Rick. Then I head over to MY reservation to try to match things up. But, huh? The new flight that I just booked for Rick suddenly isn't available for me... but the first one now is.

Back I go to Rick's reservation and I cancel that new one... and rebook the old one. Then I head back to MY reservation and try to book the same flights as Rick.

But something strange has happened... And I don't get it. Suddenly the very first flight... the one that I just booked for Rick... is GONE. I can't book it for me!

Back I go to Rick's reservation... cancel the current one, rebook the second one... and heck, it doesn't matter if you're following this or not. Suffice it to say that everytime I booked a flight for Rick, it disappeared from the list of flights available for me. And if I found one for me, well, it disappeared from Rick's list. It was a vicious cycle!!

And it was enough to drive someone who's already half crazy, crazy.

Then I figured it out. Rick and I were fighting over the one and only seat left on each of those flights.

Neither of us won. So I gave up and shut the computer off for the evening. I couldn't stand the mind games that it was playing with me.

Maybe I'll just walk to Vegas. Yeah, that'll show 'em.