Hurrah!

When I made my flight reservations for this trip, using my Delta Skymiles, I was was not able to book my return flight beyond a certain date in the future (a date before I had hoped to come back), but I was told that I could change my tickets, once, without penalty, as long as there were seats available on the flights. With this reassurance, I booked my tickets and left the return trip details to be determined at a future date.

One day last week, having decided that I wanted to skip Malaysia and hop over to India for three weeks (seeing as it is so close to Bangladesh...) and feeling a little pressure on the time that I had in Vietnam and Laos (after hearing what a great place it is), I was ready to change my tickets. My original tickets had me flying out of Dhaka, Bangladesh on the 17th of August to Kuala Lumpur, out of Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles on the 31st of August, and out of Los Angeles to Atlanta on the 2nd of September (leaving me only two weeks with Erica and Mark in Bangladesh and no time with Kat and Mike in LA). I hoped to tack on an extra two weeks to my Vietnam/Laos trek, have six weeks to split between Bangladesh and India, leaving me two weeks in LA to lounge on the beach and spend quality time with friends that I don't see near enough. I felt like a big kid in a candy store with limitless freedom. That is, until I was told, by my extremely polite Thai Delta representative, that there were no "awards" seats left on the flight that I wanted on the 16th of September from Kuala Lumpur to L.A. I could be put on the waiting list, in case a seat opened up, but there was nothing available anywhere before or after that date. I was bummed! I knew that if I had to make it work, I could, and one less month of travel wouldn't make my trip any less amazing, but the spoiled child in me still wanted my three weeks in India and my two weeks in L.A. Deciding to let it go for the weekend and enjoy the beach, I did just that.

This morning, I contacted Delta again, only to be told that there were still no seats available, but that I could contact Malaysian Air to see if there was anything they could do.

I contacted and equally friendly Malaysian Air representative, who told me that while there were paying seats available on the flight that I wanted, there were no "awards" seats available. I played with the option of buying a paid seat and just giving up my award seat, but when I mentioned this, she said that there were no special fares available on that leg and I would have to pay full price which was "very expensive." She actually seemed concerned that I would be paying too much money! She asked when was the latest date that I could wait, but I didn't know how long would be too long (when I really would have no options as all the paying seats would be sold as well). Grasping for one last straw, I asked her if there were any awards seats available around the date I wanted (being that my main reason for wanting to be in LA on the 17th of September is to watch the Gators trounce Tennessee...) and to my sheer delight, she responded that a seat had opened up on the flight that I wanted, just two days earlier (leaving Dhaka on the 13th as opposed to the 15th). Hurrah!!

I happily accepted the new seat, thanked her profusely, and sat back relieved, content with the knowledge that, while one day I will have to grow up and get a real job, for now my current state of deciding my life based on whim, and Florida football schedules, remains intact.