I bought a ticket to go to Bangkok in three weeks from Milan for 174 euros (US$229) one way on Blu Express. Major coup. For the sake of my expertise in finding cheap flights, I wish I could say I found it singlehandedly, but an Italian friend told me about it. However, it was also findable if I had followed my three-pronged attack, which will be unveiled very soon.
     There’s always a little tension when it is time to book a ticket since it is a big decision and you can’t change your mind. When I clicked the “Pay” button, I got an error message saying that my card was rejected. I have to call my credit card company every two months to tell them where I might be traveling for exactly this reason, and here I had my card rejected. Like any big company, it takes forever to talk to a live person and yell at them, but I did and it was approved. I hate credit cards more than pickled cabbage.
     But something else happened that gives validation to one of my travel secrets. I had been checking this flight from my friend’s house and the prices were stagnant or slowly rising, but when I checked at my friend’s office, it was the cheaper fare I had seen before. To explain why I wasn’t surprised by this, here is an excerpt from my upcoming website:

…there is “flight price creep” contend with. I’ve always felt like a half-baked conspiracy theorist about this, but I have some vindication with this CNN article. On some airline and travel booking websites, if you search for a flight, search the same flight again later, and again another time, suddenly you see the price creeping up. It is the software on the website prodding you to act and stop being a Looky Loo. To thwart this, you have to use another computer from another IP address or clear the cookies from your computer–whatever it takes for the website to think you are a new user.

Such a cliche photo, but it's pretty cool, isn't it? Parliament across the Danube.