Lighting a shuck to Texas

My trip to Texas is all booked. I leave here on the 9th of December at 9pm and arrive in Dallas three hours before that :)

Booking the flights was a little bit tricky. I had hoped to use my Airpoints, since I was under the impression that the new Air New Zealand Airpoints Dollars scheme allows you to buy tickets with a combination of Airpoints Dollars and real dollars. The site wouldn't let me. I initially though it was because my trip wasn't a standard return but was a multi-city trip. I spent hours fiddling around with itineraries but couldn't get it to work.

I eventually discovered that I was sadly mistaken about the Airpoints - you need enough Airpoints dollars to pay for the entire ticket and you can't combine it with real dollars. Good thing I finally stumbled on that gem of information buried in the help pages, because if you have to phone them to book for you rather than booking online, they charge you at least $50 per leg.

The tickets that I bought from the AirNZ website eventually cost me less than I was quoted by all the travel agents except Flight Centre. Flight Centre's deals were $4 cheaper, but I would have a 9 hour stopover in Tahiti each way. I'm willing to pay $4 to avoid that length of stopover.

I can see why many people would pay the fee to have the agent book everything though - it is a bit nerve-wracking to enter your credit card details and charge up over $2k of non-refundable tickets. At least if the travel agent cocks up rather than you, you probably won't be out of pocket.

So, my itinerary is as follows:

The first 9 days we will spend checking out various parts of Texas (not too much though, Texas is biiiig). Then we'll spend 8 days in Las Vegas, staying in the pyramid at the Luxor. I'll be sleeping in a pyramid! YAY! (Ahem, ok, sorry, I'm over it now)

My must-see attraction in Vegas is Penn & Teller, which is where we'll be spending the evening on Christmas day. I'd also like to see David Copperfield and either the Chippendales or Australia's Thunder from Down Under.

After Vegas, it's off for 6 days in LA, staying right outside the gates of Disneyland. I plan on heading down to San Diego to visit SeaWorld, as well as checking out various places that I've heard about on TV, like Venice Beach, Rodeo drive and so on.

New Years won't be a huge drunken party, because I have to fly out on the 1st in order to be home on the 3rd to start teaching summer school on the 4th. Maybe. If I still have a job.