A Good Airfare

The Amalfi Coast has been toward the top of our travel list since at least six years ago when I escorted a group of college students to Italy and spent several days in Amalfi (I only got the students to and from the airport in Rome; I was on my own for the rest of two weeks). The next year my wife and I traveled to Italy, mainly because she hadn’t been able to go with me the year before, but we only had ten days there and I (having been three times before) decided that Rome (the Forum, Vatican, Borghese Gallery) and Florence (the Uffizzi, Ponte Vecchio, David) were probably numbers one and two on the list of Italian cities in terms of history and art. But the Amalfi Coast is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, so it’s lingered near the top of our list.

So for the past several months I’ve been monitoring airfares to Rome or Naples, hoping to catch a slip in cost that would give us an advantage. And last week I hit on a rate at least $200 less per ticket on American Airlines (our preferred) than what I had been finding, and we bought it.

Just yesterday, though, American filed for bankruptcy. Curious as to how this might affect our Amalfi trip, I followed all the news stories I could find, and was comforted to learn that the bankruptcy would not disrupt flight schedules or frequent flier miles. But I wondered how airfares might have been affected, so I checked into the American online reservation site and was pleased (though not surprised) to find that the cost of our itinerary had almost doubled, from $1750 to $2500 (two fares plus taxes and fees). 

It’s an interesting pleasure. Part is the satisfaction of having regularly monitored airfares to finally find a decent fare (less actually than when I first went six years ago), and part in seeing that fare balloon up in just the next few days. No doubt I’ll be drilling all of those poor souls around us on the plane about how much their tickets cost. Or perhaps that might not be such a good idea. It might be best to just keep quiet and gloat in silence while I watch the in-flight movie.