15,499 times?!

I just watched Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu Season 2: Episode 4 and I found something not right. In this episode, Kyon, Koizumi and Mikuru learn that they have experienced summer 15,499 times after hearing from Yuki and what happens next is a mystery to those who did not read the novel, but even though I knew what was gonna happen, 15,499 times sounded wrong plus the end of episode 4 showed that Kyon have not done anything yet telling us that they are gonna experience summer 15,500 times! That is really, really, really wrong! I went back to Baka-Tsuki and found my answer. For some reason, the anime had them repeating summer 15,500 times but in the novel, it was just 15,498 times. Now what makes me wonder is why did the people behind the anime made it 15,500 times? Are they trying to fill in so that the anime can have 24 episodes as planned? Then why don't they just do as the novel is? Is it because they have planned a season 3 for Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu? Only time will tell. Haih... This is just getting boring. When is the next chapter coming out~? I can't wait to see what happens to Kyon and Sasaki...