flights booked

so, today i tried making some airline reservations (vegas!). we have vouchers for some free flights. unfortunately, this means that i actually have to call the airline and deal with thir system rather than book online. i had found the flights online, so i knew what i wanted. i called the first time, and it goes somewhat smoothly. i'm not really fond of automatic phone systems, and i did have to do a few repeats. eventually, since i was using vouchers, it kicked us over to a nice gentleman whose accent seemed to tell me that he wasn't in my neighborhood. this was fine, most of these guys do a really good job, and have it worked out so the average english speaker can understand them. and, i didn't have any problems. well, that is, until they tried to tell me that i couldn't use my voucher for the return flight i wanted. so, i canceled, and went back to the internet.

after reviewing, i realized i was going to have to call in again, so i did. different guy, same situation. although, now i knew i didn't have as many options. it seemed to be going smoothly until the guy tried to tell me that i needed to stay over a sunday. at this point we had to disagree because my vouchers clearly state that i must only stay over a saturday. which i am. so, he worked hard to get it entered, and then i had to be placed on hold. but, when he came back, it was all worked out. tickets booked. of course, by the time that it was all said and done i was on the fone for about 40 minutes. and, most of that was either working with the automated system or on hold.

now, one thing i find stupid about this whole situation is that we still have to pay taxes on the flight. retarded. especially because the taxes for the two tickets comes to about 1/6 of what the cost would have been. now, that's not too bad, but the tickets were free right? shouldn't free include the whole price? i guess they're really mostly free tickets.

ah yeah, the other sucky thing is that we leave to come home @ 8 am. what a crappy time to fly out. our flight in is good, we arrive @ our destination @ 4 in the afternoon on thursday. but, having to depart sunday morning @ 8? that stinks. that means we need to be @ airport around 6. not exactly the way i want to end my weekend. oh well. at least we'll be home with plenty of recovery time on sunday before heading back into the work week.

UPDATE: so, despite making a booking, when i went to the airport (had to do before midnight tomorrow to turn in ticket voucher) i ended up standing around for 35 min. they pulled up the reservation but weren't able to redeem the coupons. the counter people were pretty useless. and, by this i mean that they couldn't figure out the issue, couldn't fix the problem, and eventually gave up and called their customer service. and, they had to wait for quite a while on the phone. eventually, the counter person and the person on the phone figured out that the person i booked with this morning gave me a flight that i wasn't eligible for (had a stop over). so, i had to cancel my flight. not good. this may mean we're driving. which i don't mind so much, but heather really doesn't like it. other options: come back monday. this most likely won't work because it would likely mean that i miss the first day of class for my next term. not really a good option. and, i'm not sure if we'd be able to extend our reservation. stupid plane company. so, we'll see where this goes.