Missed A Good One

I’m a full time professional and my work weeks can be fairly demanding. Meetings, deadlines, and impatience customers are all part of the deal. I feel fortunate to have my career, that I enjoy my work, and that business is good.

Yesterday I had just finished a conversation with a fellow associates and had about 5 minutes before my next meeting. I glanced at my phone while I waited for the Keurig to finish and saw this post from Zach Honig at The Points Guy. There was a deal going on with Delta for round trip business class tickets from San Francisco to South Africa for $2,200. Routings were apparently available with KLM trough Europe and on Delta’s Atlanta to Johannesburg route. Holly smokes! This sounded too good to be true.

Johannesburg South Africa

I grabbed my coffee and ran into use my office computer. It was true. A quick search was showing more availability than the post claimed,all the way through the end of schedule. Essentially any time during the next year you could travel from SFO-JNB-SFO on Delta or KLM business for $2,200. I started thinking about what dates I should put in for a week for Susan and I. Would September or October work? Maybe December? I figured I had 24 hours to cancel the ticket if it didn’t work out and I didn’t believe this one was going last.

KLM Business Class

This particular opportunity looked attractive. I’ve wanted to try KLM’s sleek business class offering for a while and currently Delta’s JNB-ATL route is the third longest non-stop commercial flight in the world. And all of this while earning 150% MQMs. I was debating the finer points between September and October when Jan stuck her head in my office. “Hey, aren’t we meeting with Dave now!” “Ummm, yes” I replied. I forced myself to act like an adult, got up, and joined Jan for our meeting. I said to myself “Let it go.” Three minutes later I was somewhere else.

Later that day when I had a few minutes of downtime I wondered if anything was still available and did a quick search. Nope, gone. It was certainly too good to last.

In summary

Timing was not good on this opportunity, but there will be others. I do think an important rule for our hobby is: If you see a good offer book it immediately, especially if you can cancel.

Carry on.