Hotwire

I arrived back in town late last Wednesday night, and I tell you, sometimes when I start on a plane journey, my mind goes into auto-pilot mode (as it were), and I just forget where my layover is. All I’m doing is making sure I get to the correct gate. On my outbound flight to the west coast I stopped in Dallas; coming back, I flew through Chicago. A guy in the row in front of me said to the person next to him, “I think I see Wrigley Field!” and I thought to myself, “Wait, aren’t we in Dallas?” I was so disoriented for a second.

Anyway, just as a travel note, I did want to mention that I used Hotwire for the first time. Had I bought my ticket earlier than I eventually did, I might’ve gotten a reasonable fare using Expedia, Orbitz, or the airlines’ sites; however, by the time I did get around to it (a bit under two weeks before departure), regular fares were pretty steep. I decided to go with Hotwire, where the fare wasn’t cheap, but still I saved a bundle over the usual suspects.

Hotwire quotes you various fares upfront, but as you may know, the catch is that like Priceline, you don’t know exactly which airline or flight times you’re going to get before you purchase your ticket. I ended up with late-ish flight times that I might not have picked had I the choice. Usually I enjoy having control over every aspect of my travel planning, but because my schedule was pretty flexible for this particular trip, the Let’s Make a Deal-ness of it all was a condition that I didn’t mind.