how could this be

I am doing my July, August and September flight bookings. Yes, many
many trips coming up.

Next week, Beijing. The week after is Manila. The week after that is
Regina. Then one week in Boulder, CO, then one week and a little bit
in Boston, MSP. Back to Shanghai by August 17. Two days later, we
are flying to Tianjin. Since we are up there, iron-wife has this
crazy idea of touring 承德（chengde). Here's the Wiki site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C
hengde

At end of August, iron-wife flies overnight to Singapore from Beijing
to teach a course the next day. I bring in the equipment from
Shanghai. "How could it be" was the price of plane tickets these days.

Today, we booked the Shanghai to Beijing for next week. One-way of
RMB 1,220 (CAD 191) enabled us to purchase a Biz class seat with econo
class pricing on China Eastern. Huh? I just got the tickets and the
class code was "PY". Weird. Then, I did some pricing for one-way in
August to fly from Shanghai to Singapore. On Singapore Airline
(direct flight), I got a quote of RMB 4,700 on econo. And on Cathay
(via HKG), the price quoted was RMB 2,400. All taxes in. I just
don't know airline pricing anymore. Before I was such a straight
forward affair.

Last week in MFM, I booked my parents CDN/US trip. Aeroplan quoted a
150,000 + CAD 1,500 for two one-way tickets from YQR to BOS. HUH?
And a one-way from HKG-YVR was CAD 2,200 on Latitude class. Ouch.
And my PVG-YVR on July 25 had a "good" pricing of close to CAD 1,700.
That was a round trip econo two years ago. I had my upgrade voucher
so I guess I got it cheap for doing Business First. Who's getting
hosed here?

I have to make a change to my Delta flight. And I am cringing on the
USD 150.00 that I will have to pay, on my own time without human
interaction with a computer mainframe to change my DEN-BOS to one day
later. Hello? Changing that is not that difficult with computer and
databases. And without an agent! It only takes couple JavaScripts
for the input forms, then couple Update/delete commands to the
database. (I hope anyway with all those old technologies). I have
yet to book my BOS-MSP and then from MSP-PVG ..... AGH....

Couple more trips to come across to the US/CAN this year.