Look before you leap!

I pride myself on being able to get a good deal. I know the ins and outs of websites like priceline better than I know the back of my hand. Recently I booked a three star hotel in Washington D.C. for $40 a night (we have family also staying in D.C. at a similar quality hotel for $149/night). So you can see how priceline works well for me. I love priceline. I can't live without priceline.

So I've been trying to weasel a deal so that our trip to Utah will be more than us driving there, waving to our families, hopping in the car and driving back. As such I have been bidding on airfare for Blaine to fly back to Texas to work for a week and then to fly back up to drive home with us (poor Blaine gets to be the pawn in my travel chess game). But really, three kids in the car for 24 hours just to stay in Utah for less than a week? Gag me.

At the end of today's relentless bidding session I placed one final bid. Two hundred bucks to extend my Utah trip for one week. After all I did put back nearly two hundred dollars worth of clothes at Maurice's, so it seemed a small price to pay to be able to bask in Utah's 75 dg weather for an additional week.

When I placed my final bid it came back saying that it would email me the answer, which I thought was weird because normally it lets you know instantly. I chalked it up to the system being sick of my tireless requests ( you can rebid if you add options like "willing to have more than two layovers" and "willing to fly on a non-jet aircraft" what the? What kind of trick is this? Are they sending you in the back of a sky diving plane or something? Regardless, it's Blaine not me, so I clicked that option. No skin off my back)

I was getting quite impatient so I checked my status again. This time I noticed something. Now...see if you can notice it too... and keep in mind priceline tickets are not refundable. At all. Ever. No exceptions.

Name Your Own Price Offer History (most recent offer on top)

	departing	returning	departure airports	arrival airports	bid
	06/X/2009	06/X/2009	Austin - Bergstrom Intl (AUS)	Salt Lake City Intl (SLC)	$200

	departing	returning	departure airports	arrival airports	bid
	06/X/2009	06/X/2009	Austin - Bergstrom Intl (AUS)	Salt Lake City Intl (SLC)	$185

What a stinkin' lot of good it would do me to have a round trip airline ticket for Blaine to fly to Utah from Austin when we are already in Utah.

I nearly died of heart failure right then.

Luckily after several minutes I called and my offer had been declined.

I have never been so happily rejected!