airlines suck

I'm going to New Zealand! Okay, it's not happening until December, but still, I'm excited. I'm also going to Taipei afterwards, which should be fun; I haven't been in a year and a half already.

I do have to complain about international flight scheduling for a bit, though.

It's much more expensive to book a round-trip fare between two international locations from the US than to book it through a foreign travel agency. This applies even to websites like Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia. I don't understand why.

It's much, much more expensive to book a three-legged itinerary from San Francisco to Auckland to Taipei and back than it is to book two round-trips. I guess this is a known oddity. However, the only decently priced round-trip flight from San Francisco to Taipei arrives at 10:05pm, five minutes after the last flight to Auckland departs. Plus, direct flights from Taipei to Auckland only exist on odd dates, and for some reason, the one-stop flights are much more expensive than the direct flights (there's a first!). Anyway, the upshot of the whole thing is that according to my flight plan, I'm leaving San Francisco and not arriving in Auckland until four days later. Yes, some of that is due to crossing the international date line, but it still sucks.

Also, I'm being forced to choose between getting United frequent flier miles (and regaining my Premier status) and saving five hundred bucks. Bleah.