Flying the Expensive Skies

Yesterday morning I fired up my computer and went online to book an airline flight. This is a task which used to be handled by professional travel agents, but which can now be done in the comfort of your own home with a few strokes of the keyboard. Of course, cutting the travel agent out of the loop deprives you of having someone to complain to when weird things happen as you book your travel...

I went to United Airlines website and quickly found the flight I was looking for: nonstop from Washington, DC to Las Vegas, Nevada, leaving DC early on Thursday morning and returning early enough on Sunday evening to allow me a good night's sleep before going back to work on Monday. I duly selected the combination of flights, which cost about $520...not too bad, I thought, for a round trip at the times I wanted. I pushed the "purchase tickets" button with my mouse, the website churned for a moment, and then up popped a new window which said:

"The fare you have selected is no longer available for this flight. The new fare is $556.30. Do you want to continue?"

Within the space of about ten seconds, the price of my flight went up by about $36.00.

Now, at this point I would have asked a travel agent what the $#%! was going on. After all, I wasn't booking through Orbitz or Travelocity or some other third-party travel website...this was the site of the airline itself. One would think they'd know up front that a particular fare wasn't available and quote you the correct price, without doing the old bait-and-switch.

Now, $36 isn't a huge amount of money, but it would buy me a nice meal at an average restaurant, subway fare to and from work for about a week, a nice dress shirt, or 144 pulls on a 25-cent slot machine in Las Vegas. And it only took United Airlines less than ten seconds to steal that money away from me by charging me a larger fare than the one they quoted when I selected the flight.

I'll never understand in a million years how airline pricing works. I know that no two people on the same flight have paid the same amount for their tickets. But I don't think it's fair that an airline is able to charge you more for your ticket than the price quoted when you chose your flight if you're actually using their own website.

Okay, no deep message for today. I just needed the opportunity to vent about one of life's little annoyances. I'm going to Las Vegas whether I have to pay the extra $36 or not...but I won't enjoy the trip as much as I might have, because there will always be this little voice in the back of my mind to remind me that my little vacation began with a minor, matter-of-fact screwing by the airline.

But maybe it will all work out. Maybe I'll win enough money in Vegas to buy the airline, and then I can find and fire the guy who designed the online bait-and-switch booking system.

As fantasies go, I guess that's a safe one.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo