Holy crêpe: Paris and the tale of the long layover

Why am I stopping in Paris on my way to Tanzania?

That’s a great question, and the answer offers some insight into how I travel.

I’m headed to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro in early March. It’s an expensive trip that has been a long time coming, so I want everything to go as smoothly as possible.

In reading accounts of people who didn’t successfully summit the mountain, three things repeatedly popped up: The hiker started their trek while still feeling the effects of jet lag, they didn’t have sufficient gear, and/or they physically couldn’t acclimate to the altitude during the climb.

Two of those things are within my control. (Meanwhile, acclimatization seems to be a roll of the dice.)

I usually don’t check luggage, but in this case I have too much gear for a carry-on bag. So for my trip to Tanzania, I’m going slowly. My hope is that this will minimize jet lag, and the handful of extra travel days will serve as a buffer in the event of delays or lost luggage.

I looked at all my options for long layovers, and Paris jumped out for a few reasons: It’s a necessary stop for a future book project; I thought I’d be able to convince my friends to join me; and most importantly, I’ve never been! Though I’ve traveled to France before, I’ve somehow always missed Paris. And while I’m enough of a contrarian that I don’t feel a deep need to visit the city of lights, I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to explore a beautiful place.

I found a great deal on a nonstop flight from LAX to Paris for $400. Then I used United MileagePlus award points to book the rest of my trip, a flight from Paris to Tanzania with a brief stop in Ethiopia.

Usually I like to keep a lot of space for spontaneity when I travel. But because I only have three days in Paris, I created a schedule to make the most of that time. I booked a hotel, scheduled interviews, arranged tours.

The airline, however, had a different plan — and they cancelled my flight. While they did offer to put me on another flight, one was a week earlier, and one arrived too late. So that didn’t work.

Since we’re just over a month out from the trip, new flights on other airlines are about $1,000, plus taxes and fees. Merde!

At this point, I have too much research, work, and money invested in going to Paris, so I can’t skip it. But at that price, I can’t go to Paris.

My simple layover was going to drive me in-seine.

Here’s how I fixed it

First, I did many, many searches for flights, using every trick I know.

Nothing.

Then I moved some points around to my United MileagePlus account and booked an awards flight from Palm Springs to Paris for 30k points + $5. I kept the awards flight I already have from Paris to Tanzania.

For my return, United doesn’t charge a change fee for awards flights, so I rescheduled my Tanzania to Paris flight as a Tanzania to Palm Springs trip, which cost 44k points and $240 (most of that money was for seat selection, a pointless fee I will forever gripe about). It is going to be a terrible, 37-hour travel day — but I don’t need to build any buffers into the return flight, I just need to get home.

So I’m getting for Paris for less money than the flight I originally booked, though I am blowing through a lot of points. But hey, that’s what those are for, right?

I have to admit, right now I feel … triomphe-ant.