Apparently, I’m going to Abu Dhabi later this month, which is one of the city-states that make up the United Arab Emirates. The most famous Emirate is, of course, its neighbor to the northeast, Dubai, but Abu Dhabi is the actual capital.

Today’s game is “how many connections do I need to make to get there?”, and the loser is probably me. For the record, all three options I’m looking at right now (sadly, only economy) cost about the same:

• On Continental United, flying to Abu Dhabi is an ugly multi-stop process. The first leg is from Houston to DC or New York. Then you fly to Frankfurt, and only to Abu Dhabi. Transit time is 20 to 25 hours, depending. Ick.

• On the same carrier, if I go to Dubai instead and plan on a longish cab ride, I go from IAH to DC and then straight on to Dubai in a long 13-hour stretch. Total transit time is about 18 hours, plus the drive, which I’m told about two hours. It’s probably a wash timewise, but this route means longer sleeps.

• If I book with Air Emirates instead, I can go direct from Houston to Dubai in 15 hours. The actual departure and arrival times are hilarious: Leave IAH at 18:50 on 4/22, land at DXB at 18:45 on 4/23. The rub is that I won’t get any useful frequent filer miles here. ContiUnited miles are still (sort of) useful for personal travel, and a trip to that part of the world means 20K miles.

So yeah, first world problems.