I should have been a travel agent. Due to several factors, I needed to change travel dates and plans for the rest of August. In one sitting I cancelled five flights and reserved five new/different ones, modified two rental car reservations, all for about the same cost and with better itineraries.

The one glitch I had was when the Alaska Airlines website kicked me out and nullified my changes because I was using their reservation system too quickly – it thought I was a bot. Their automation thought I was bad-guy automation, so it booted me. Ironic. So I had to call a human at the airline to get the changes done. I’m thinking Alaska should change their bot detection threshold.

And the rental car mods were a surprise. Each of them cost less, in one case $100 less, for a simple change in the pickup/dropoff times or dates. My original deals weren’t so good, it seems.