I recently forgot to purchase at reservation I had on a 24-hour hold. When I went to make a new reservation to purchase immediately, it was T20 days before the flight starts, however, the price for my basic economy flight went from $718 to $2153. Economy went from $858 to $2295! Incredible price hike and I was kicking myself for not getting the ticket taken care of prior to the T21 day mark.

After search Expedia and Kayak that day and finding similar fares across both platforms for all airlines for my destination, I had an idea to check out what it would cost to use miles. I immediately booked my ticket in J as the round trip was available for a "super" saver fare (SFO-JFK-GIG-JFK-SFO) 120K round trip!! Just for kicks, I searched today and to my surprise, the original fares, T22 days before trip starts, are back. However, the use of miles would be well above 390K.

This doesn't make any sense to me, yet, as now the ten days away. Maybe there was a glitch in the matrix, and I snag a deal with using miles. I looked at my time frame of being there in Rio and noticed that the G20 meeting will be underway when I depart. Maybe all airline jacked up the prices for those inbound for Rio and have now lowered the fares once again.