Damn. I was hoping to go to HAL but looks like I'm going to have to bag it. Didn't arrange the air ticket soon enough, too much going on at work, etc. Oh well. There's a crypto conference later in August that I'll try to go to instead. It would be stupid to go to both.
It used to be, that you had to book domestic (U.S.) flights weeks in advance, because airlines like to gouge last- minute business travellers; but international flights didn't have that problem nearly as much. That seems to have changed recently. Sigh.