Originally Posted by
LWkitty
Please forgive me if my response seems unsympathetic, but I'm having a great deal of trouble understanding why you are choosing to put yourself in this dilemma. Is this other person truly a friend, or is this someone of influence you are trying to impress and/or curry favor with? The way you describe it, you are doing this person a big favor by driving them to LAX when your flight leaves out of SNA. People take carbs and Uber to LAX from all over the greater Los Angeles area every day. It's really no big deal. Yet you are willing to potentially miss your flight, pay a considerable sum to change your flight and then possibly eat the cost of a theater ticket. All because you are afraid to ask this other person if they can be dropped off earlier at LAX, or take a cab/Uber? Why is that?
It really is a friend. It's someone I want to show a good time but I'm not exactly trying to "impress". I'm single and usually have to travel solo unless I can find another single friend to join me on my travels. This year everyone I knew either had travel conflicts (weddings that were eating up all their vacation time, etc) or for whatever other reason weren't able to make it, so I reached out to and old friend/coworker of mine and asked if she wanted to. Theme parks and travel with someone else is always going to be more fun then traveling alone. I've completely planned the trip and all the events that are important to me and she's been fine with that. She's flying a red eye out (That I booked and suggested) to be able to maximize her vacation time and schedule from work and I'm flying her back. The only big issue she had with flights was she asked if I could find something that didn't have a connection, either at a large airport or long lay over. I'm not certain if connections stress her out, or if she's worried about missing a flight getting lost at a large airport, or if she just hates wasting time in an airport. The AA flight from LAX back to New York is an award flight that (after my AA credit card rebate) was 45k miles, I wouldn't have put her in F except that the biz class seats forced a connection. I'm flying F, and on a much shorter route (just down from WA state) so I kinda feel guilty dumping her into economy (she's fairly tall). So it was cheap cheap economy flight or the F award flight. I figure she'll get a nice kick out of it anyway and as it turns out the lounge/breakfast dining access at LAX might come in handy.
I personally hate Uber/Lyft... I much rather have a "professional" (yes yes, whatever that means) driver vs a gig-economy driver. So I'm leaning away from putting her in that position... to be honest maybe she doesn't care at all, but I would hate if someone that invited me on this trip was then like "Hey, I'm too busy to get you to LAX, I called an Uber for you".
It would be one thing if might flights were honestly too tight and that was the only option, but this is me being opportunistic with my travel plans which might be adding to the guilt of just calling an uber for her. The Cirque show was never part of the original plan, she won't be doing it, it was a complete after thought and just luck that it happens to fall within my travel days. Originally I was just trying to force a long layover in Seattle so I could hit Pike Place market, now I'm stuffing another night into my trip and getting home Sunday (before work Monday morning) instead of Saturday just so I can cram in the show as well...
I'll chat with her and see what her feelings are on taking an uber, but I know personally it makes me feel kinda guilty because it's just that I want to do more.
(Also, I really just should have flown into LAX to begin with, I don't know what I was thinking originally planning SNA and booking my outbound flight already... it was all to avoid LA traffic... but people fly into LAX for a reason, they need the flight options, lol)
(Further proof of the crazy stuff I force on myself with my travels is she's flying in a day after me because of her schedule, I didn't want to give up a day at Disney, so I'll be up at 5am to depart my home city, land at SNA by 11am so I can be at Disney by 1, actually made a 1pm lunch reservation, spend the day at Disney, maybe fit in a little nap at the Disney hotel, and then go pick her up at LAX at 2am! All so the next morning we can hit Disney and spend the whole day there. I probably have some brain problem, I can never make my trips relaxing.... )