A lesson in travelling...

I haven’t even left NZ yet and already have created myself a headache.
On Friday my boss very kindly pointed out that I was adding an extra journey unnecessarily. 
Okaaay – I’d best check that out!
On previous trips I have left my travel arrangements to a qualified person, especially when they involve multiple legs... but I figured it’s time to be a grown up and do it myself.

First mistake: thinking that a booking in and out of the different ports would be more expensive. In fact, you can use a multistop booking and depending on dates it may or may not be more expensive. It could even be cheaper.
Second mistake: look at a map!  I was thinking that Mumbai was on the western seaboard and the closest to NZ. I didn’t factor in that flights might involve a transit.  And, as I finish in Mumbai I figured that was the best place to enter and leave from.  So I booked flights in and out of Mumbai and added an internal flight from Mumbai to Kolkata (Calcutta).
Matthew put me wise to the fact that as there is a transit stop in Singapore I'm actually travelling across India to Mumbai and then back again to Kolkata to start my trip... duuh!
I did try to fix it. I spend a pleasant 40 minutes or so chatting with a lovely (and extremely helpful) woman from Air New Zealand who investigated things for me. Unfortunately as I leave in 3 days, the available flights are now at the pointy end of the price scale and the fare increase was going to be over $1,000 plus the expected charges for making the change. Ok, that’s too much for me. So I’m sticking with plan A. 
I had thought that I could just change the Singapore/Mumbai leg to Singapore/Kolkata.  Feasible yes, but in practical terms via the Air NZ computer system, not so much.  
So there you have it... a lesson in travelling.  Look at the bloody map!

The route I'm actually taking

What I should be doing