Going To Chicago (Never get airline vouchers).

So I'm going to Chicago this weekend to see Ina, Mike, Beth, Spencer and hopefully McVety.  Maybe Sabah?  Anyway, I voluntarily bumped myself from a US Airways flight last year in order to get a free round-trip voucher to anywhere in the continental USA and Canada.  My original plans for the voucher fell through, but now I have to use it by May 8.  I forgot to use it at Christmastime, which would have been ideal; then again, it probably wouldn't have applied.  Instead, I decided to use it for my Chicago trip. 

Naturally, all the outgoing flights were for stupid times like 8 a.m.  Since I'm not willing to take Friday off, I decided to just buy a one-way ticket on Southwest.  It was worth it to not miss a day of work.  Then I decided to use the voucher for my return flight and get at least some use out of it, even though I could have booked a reutrn for as low as $59 on Southwest.  Why?  Because if I don't use the stupid voucher now, I probably won't be able to use it within the next month unless I took a vacation day.  Even better: I have to go to the airport within 3 days to confim the voucher reservation...good thing I'm leaving in 3 days.  And here's the best part: none of the flights are direct.  All of them are flights to Philly or some such nonsense, even though it takes maybe 2.5 hours to fly nonstop from here to Chicago.  Bollocks!  I hate US Airways vouchers.

For my Philly peeps, my return flight lands in Philly at 7:10 pm.  My transfer flight takes off from Philly at 8:25.  However, I don't need to fly back to DC; I could always take the train back, or even wait until morning and take the train straight to work.  Just an FYI. 

The moral of the story?  Accepting a voucher means you'd better have a very flexible travel schedule and be willing to go to the airport very early.  Otherwise, it's not worth it. 

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