You know Kyle, I've learned something today...

Here's an interesting tidbit for those of you, like me, who buy the cheapest, most restricted flights and then cringe every time any changes are made to your flight knowing that you will pay double what you paid for the ticket just to change the flight to a time you want. You don't have to.

So here's what happened. I bought one way tickets on Continental back in March (cheaper than round trip for the length of time we'll be away). Since I bought the tickets in March, they have changed our flights three separate times. Well, last night we hit rock bottom with the changes. What had begun as a 3pm departure, 8 pm arrival into San Diego, had morphed into a 6pm departure, 10:30pm arrival with a 30 minute connection in Houston.

Ricardo was on the case. He called Continental and got the line I expected: You can change the flights for $75/person. Since the tickets only cost $125/person, that seemed a bad choice. So Ricardo came up with the ultimate line, one I think I will use forever: I understand that the ticket I bought was non-refundable. But this is not the ticket I bought. The ticket I bought had different flights.

The Continental guy was stumped and sent Ricardo on to the "Customer Care" line.

In Charlottesville, Sprint telephone used to have a line they referred to as "Customer Escalation." This was where they sent you when you'd become so irate that none of the vanguard would deal with you any more. Sprint doesn't have our local phones here any more. It's now run by Embarq. And they have renamed "Customer Escalation" to "Customer Care."

And so off to "Customer Care" Ricardo went. And when he got off the phone, we had flights leaving at 1pm, with a 2 hour layover (perfect for getting dinner) and arriving at 7pm in San Diego. Oh, and how much did it cost? Nothing. It was done for free.

So why the run around all the time with the airlines? Why the constant line of "We can't do anything for you suck it up and give us more money?" Is it because that's the only way to bail themselves out of the chasm of bankruptcy? It's food for thought.