Extraverted Thinking example

So here's something I enjoy...

Sometimes, when I'm travelling on business, I like to use frequent flyer points to bring my wife with me.

But there's a catch -- my employer has an online travel booking system that only allows certain flights on certain routes, and frequent flyer redemptions are limited to certain flights by the airline. Getting them to match is a challenge, but one I enjoy.

So here's what typically happens... I'll hunker down and open half a dozen browser windows -- one for my employer's travel system, and one each for the frequent flyer redemption page of each airline. And now the fun begins!

First, I book flights through the company system, with a 4-hour travel window. This gives me a list of approved flights, usually with 2 different airlines. Next, I visit each of these airlines' websites and see if there are FF redemption seats to be had on those flights.

Now, all of this has to happen quickly, because the company travel system has a 5-minute timeout. So I need to cross-check very quickly. It's rare that I find a match first time, so I'm usually flipping back and forth, adding dummy hotel bookings to the company system to keep the session alive, while exploring FF seat availability on the airlines' sites.

Often, I find that the only FF seats available are a day earlier or later, so then I have to consider the cost of accommodation. My company will only pay for nights directly related to the work I'm doing -- I'm responsible for any extras.

So if I find a flight match that requires an extra hotel night, I next crank up the different hotel chains frequent stayer programs and see how many points it will cost me to stay that extra night.

Now, all this time, I may have put a "hold" on my paid flight with my employer, as well as the FF redemptions with 2 or 3 airlines. All of these systems have timeouts -- some only a few minutes.

Eventually, I find a combination that works, so I confirm the FF redemption first before confirming the company booking. Why? Because experience has shown that sometimes buying a seat on a flight will take away the availability of FF redemption seats on that same flight.

Once it's all confirmed, I do the finishing touch -- seat allocations. Again, I log on with two separate windows and allocate a window seat for me and an aisle seat for my wife. People tend to avoid the middle seat, so we often end up with 3 seats to ourselves.

Even seat allocation can be problematic. Since I'm a gold or platinum member with all the airlines, they like to give me premium seating. But since my wife's booking is done with FF redemption, it's usually economy with no perks. Sometimes there's an opportunity to use extra points or pay a small fee to upgrade her to match my premium seating, but more often, I have to override the system upgrade for me so I can sit with her.

It's also worth pointing out that Te for an INTJ represents the "Good Parent" archetype, and it's easy to see from this example how I'm "parenting" my wife using this function.