From on top of the world

I am writing this blog post on board the plane from Phoenix back to baltimore. If you are wondering what took me to phoenix in the first place, I was presenting a poster at a infocom workshop which was held in phoenix this year. The conference itself went well, but the events preceding it were a bit painful to say the least. First, as usual i booked my tickets really late, around 3 days before the actual flight. I was using farecast to decide when to buy, and it kept predicting the price would go down. And yes it did, just that it went down on the exact same days that i was not checking, and sky rocketed after the dip. So i ended up riding the market on a high, and managed to buy a reasonably priced ticket, although for normal standards, it was pretty high. Anyways, i would leave baltimore at 8 am, stop over at atlanta and omaha, and finally reach phoenix at 3 in the evening. My conference was the next day, so i had enough time to catch up on missed out sleep and prepare for the session too. Atleast that was the plan. Everything went fine till omaha and Delta took good care of me, till they handed me over to the evil hands of US Airways. I was supposed to fly US Airways on my final leg from omaha to Phoenix after a two and half layover at omaha. My flight from Omaha was scheduled to leave at 225, and thats around when US Airways announced that they found had a mechanical snag and would have to cancel the flight. They were going to accomodate us on other flights out of omaha, atleast that was the claim. So i waited in line at the ticketing counter hopeful of getting to phoenix without much trouble. I finally got to the ticketing agent and asked her my options, and was shocked to hear what was in store.I basically had two options, if you may call them so. Either I fly through Denver and Las Vegas and reach Phoenix around 1 am, or leave the next day at 9 from omaha. The second option was no choice for me. My conference starts at 9, and no way was I in a mood to trust them not to cancel a flight the next day too. So i took the first option and clarified if there was a quicker way to reach Phoenix, either a direct flight fron denver or through houston. The answer from the agent was on the negative. About 8 hours in to the journey, I am already tired and decide to take the flight (operated by United) to denver. I reach denver and figure out that there was actually direct united flight to phoenix, and a couple of seats were still available. However, as I am already checked-in on the Vegas to Phoenix flight (run by US Air), United cant book put me on standby on the earlier flight. The united agent asks me to go to US Air and ask them to confirm me on the direct flight, which she said they can, as it was still undersold. I take a train to the other terminal and finally reach a US Airways counter. Now comes the horrible side of US Airways. I ask the agent to confirm me on the United flight, and she says she cant. All US Air flights had left for the day and she was going home and there is nothing she is going to do. I am mighty pissed now. Not only did they cancel their flight to start with, they put me on an unnecessarily circuitous route to reach phoenix, so that they could hold on to the money for the Vegas to Phoenix leg. Cheapos.Evertyime US Airways is involved, something or the other screws up. I am now convinced they are the most unprofessional of all the airlines out there.