An Ode To the 24-Hour Cancellation Policy

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

i stayed up late last night booking a cheap fare to south america that i first heard about on twitter (<$400 to Chile and Brazil, though my final routing pushes me to $409ish). i’ve never done one of these too-good-to-be-true deals before, but after having emerged with what i think is a decent itinerary, i have nothing but gratitude for the mandatory 24-hour cancellation policy. in an attempt to ensure i got the deal, i rushed and booked less-than-optimum trips and ended up cancelling twice before i ended up with something that’d let me sleep at night. not that the original routings would have been bad, just not as great.

so yeah, thank you, US Government! (actually, i’ve always liked the 24-hour policy — it saved my butt two years ago on a trip fail due to the Chinese Embassy giving me the wrong passport, but i’ve found that i rely on it more and more lately.)

Cancelled because i wanted to spend some time in Brazil as opposed to the entire week in Chile

Canceled because I found a routing that put me on United metal for one long-haul leg, giving me moar miles. (The one that failed was due to me putting in the wrong credit card security code.) The top one is the one that’s a-OK!

The final routing. Note the Dreamliner segment! (Which forces me to stay overnight in Lima, but oh well. First world problem. [What world is Peru?])