thanks bendachen and whackyjacky for your comments! i ended up buying the airasia flight since it was 50% cheaper than the other options... unfortunately i booked the wrong flight at first (my credit card didn't go through at first, and after redoing it several times, it went through, but the wrong flight!), and had to pay a change fee, even though it was changed only about 10 min later. took me 10 min to figure out how to change it on their website. anyways, hoping the flight doesn't get cancelled, i can deal with delays.