That was way scary

So, we are trying to work out this plan to go to Alaska in August for the wedding of G's baby sister. If you have ever tried to do this, you know it is the very darn best best time of year to go there, and thus the flights are crowded and expensive.

We figured we would be okay to brave that by pulling some frequent flier miles from my in-laws' Alaska Airlines account to pay for two of the tickets.

Well, those Alaska Airlines people really scared me.

They told G's dad that if we were going to pay for flights with frequent flier miles, we would have to leave Sacramento at 7 PM (which would mean leaving our town well before 4 PM and braving nasty traffic on the scary state highway headed north), get to Anchorage at 1 AM, stay in a hotel, and leave for Fairbanks in the morning.

Then, coming home, we would have to leave Fairbanks at 1 AM, fly to Seattle, stay there all day, then come home late late late at night.

All this with at least two little kids, possibly also a baby -- who knows whether we will be able to take Z with us? And school starts the day after we get home. Can you see why my head hurts?

Not to mention, they told him they were going to charge him in the neighborhood of $400 to transfer his frequent flier miles to our account.

Anyway, there's a happy ending.

We found out that if you use the miles to reduce the price of each ticket instead of paying for a whole ticket with miles, you can essentially get on any flight you darn well please.

So we are getting our ideal itinerary for about 70% of the price, instead of a godawful nightmare of an itinerary for 50% of the price. I'll take that.

They can also just spend the miles out of his account instead of making him pay to transfer them. Why do you think they told me that, and not him? I suspect it's because I'm super sweet on the phone. You should have heard my Relief Society voice. It was awesome.

I suspect the in-laws may still chip in a bit, especially since I am saving them 400 buckaroos with my syrupy lovely phone voice. That would be nice. But even if they didn't, I am really excited for this trip.