Yucatan getaway vs. the Super Bowl

01-29-2006

Scheduling trips can be complicated these days.

In early December, I hatched plans for a family getaway to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to see how it was recovering from Hurricane Wilma. Preferring not to travel during crowded, expensive holiday periods, I was hoping to take advantage of two in-service days on the school calendar at the end of January.

Checking possible air connections, I realized that despite US Airway's elimination of direct service between Pittsburgh to Cancun, one carrier, USA 3000, still offers two nonstop flights a week.

Regular readers will know I believe flying nonstop is always preferable to trips that involve connections, especially on quick getaways, and with a base fare of $169 each way, USA 3000's price was better than any of the other air options I came up with.

Its early Sunday morning departure fit our needs, as did the return flight the following Thursday.

However, when I tried to make reservations on its Web site, I could get seats on the Sunday departure, but the Thursday return flight was sold out.

After discussing the situation, we decided it would be OK to stay three extra days and come back on the Sunday evening flight on Feb. 5.

It wasn't until after I had booked the nonrefundable reservations that it occurred to me the day of our return would be Super Bowl Sunday. To make matters worse, we'd actually be in the air during the big game.

At the time, the Steelers had lost their third straight game, getting thrashed by the Bengals at home, and their chances of making it to Detroit seemed remote.

I was hesitant to tempt fate, knowing that if they did somehow succeed, our trip would be bittersweet, to say the least. On the other hand, I didn't want to forfeit the money for the air tickets I had committed to.

USA 3000 doesn't offer refunds on tickets once purchased, but it does allow changes of date and destination for a fee of $35 per flight, as long as the new trip occurs within a year.

This is more liberal than the change policies on most other carriers, and it gave us the option of postponing our Mexico trip or going somewhere else served by USA 3000. But the dates were ideal.

It was difficult to see when we'd have another opportunity as good, so we decided to wait and see how the situation developed.

After all, if the Steelers weren't going to Detroit, we didn't care as much about seeing the game and might as well take our trip as planned.

Three weeks later, after the Steelers obliterated the Browns in Cleveland, it was time to make a decision. I was figuring that we'd cancel our trip, swallow the $210 in change fees and rebook at some undetermined date and destination.

That's a transaction that can't be done online, but imagine how pleased I was to call USA 3000 and discover that three seats were now available on the Thursday return flight. I snapped them up, having to pay only $105 in fees.

As events have played out, I'm glad I did.

As you're reading this, we'll be on our way to a sunny (we hope) place for four days, but we'll be back in town in plenty of time for the big game next Sunday.

Sometimes, things just work out.

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