Beating the System

Matt and I wanted to take our last trip before the baby (and before I'm too nervous to be in a random SE Asian city when I'm super pregnant). We asked our bosses, and we got 3.5 days off in July.

Matt was toying with the idea of staying for a few extra days to go diving, and I feel sufficiently guilty taking (four months, paid) maternity leave after only working for ten months that I feel like a knife goes into my stomach each time I ask for leave, so I wasn't willing to ask for a full week off. Because of these considerations, though, we didn't book the S$400 flights we saw to go to Lombok. We waited. I hate that - I always think that the price will go up - and Matt has Analysis Paralysis, so he is always happier to wait.

Finally, yesterday, Matt decided that he would only take the five day trip with me and skip out on the diving. We were ready to book.

We went to the Silk Air site to book the flights, and yup, it was still $400. Matt gave me the "told you so" smile. We went back to the first page to plug in "2" tickets, and when we went to purchase them, they were $950. WHAT?! Now I gave him the "told you so" look (no smile). We came up with a great plan. We would each get on our computers and get two separate tickets, since obviously if you buy two they're trying to rip you off, right?

We both get on, and I push submit first. When he hit submit, it told him that there are no tickets left at that fare. Sorry. Now it's $950. SHIT! We tried to beat the system, and we definitely didn't. We tried restarting the browser, new browsers, and we were going to try from work, from a different i.p. address to see if that would make a difference. Matt called Silk Air to see if there was anything they could do. "We were trying to beat your system, and we failed. Can you help us?" They did, though. They switched my ticket for free to the next week, and Matt was able to get a ticket for S$500, so we're going to Lombok, and it's not that expensive, but it's not as cheap as it could have been...