So close to buying

I came within inches of buying tickets to Japan last week. One night I decided to take a look at plane tickets and to my surprise there were a few roundtrip flights on Delta Airlines from Denver to Tokyo that were prices at about $860. That’s insane. My airfare to and from London in 2012 was about $950 and my flight to and from Paris in 2015 was about $1,000. I clicked on the flight, convinced that there was some sort of catch or important detail that I was missing. No, it was exactly what was being advertised—an economy class ticket that flew from Denver to LA, and then from LA to Tokyo, with the return flight following the same path. The hours were even reasonable, with the flight having a midday departure from Denver, following by a two hour layover in LA before the overnight flight to Tokyo. I wanted so badly to just buy the tickets right at that moment, but with my future job situation still in flux I couldn’t do it without taking on more risk than I’m comfortable with. A few days later I looked again the same flight was still there, but at a much higher price. The opportunity had come and gone. I was close, so very close.