Sigh.

[tahnan]

Imagine a game store where you walked in with a game still in plastic wrapping and a receipt and said, "I'm sorry, this isn't actually what I wanted. Can I exchange it?" and they said "Sure, and since what you wanted is the same price, no problem. $100, please."

Now imagine an airline where you call up with an unused ticket and a receipt and say, "I'm sorry, this isn't actually what I wanted. Can I exchange it?" and they said "Sure, and since what you wanted is the same price, no problem. $100, please."

I hate the airlines. I mean I really, really hate the airlines. As a community. Made so much worse by the fact that they're unavoidable for most travel.

Comments

[cazique.livejournal.com]

As a formerly frequent traveler, I have to defend the practice at least conceptually, largely for the reasons you indicate. A few other comments:

- A shrink-wrapped game isn't the same as a seat on an air flight. A seat on an airline flight is a 100% perishable unit of inventory in a high-fixed-cost business: once a flight goes out with a seat empty, the airline can never get any money for it again - it's gone. No matter what kind of change you're initiating to your confirmed reservation, you've taken their inventory off the market for part of the limited time it can be sold. Arguably, a better comparison for the airline seat in the above example is an unopened shrink-wrapped bar of cheese.

- Most airlines, I believe, give you some grace period, from a couple of hours to a couple of days.

- Whenever you buy an airline ticket, you're making a trade-off - specifically, flexibility for money. You are free to spend more money for the privilege of transfering some or all of the cancellation/change risk from yourself to the airline.

I did a little research on one randomly-chosen flight - specifically, American Airlines flight 1523, leaving LaGuardia for Miami on Tuesday 4/3/07 at 3:59 PM, returning on Friday 4/6 at 1:55 PM on flight 2086. For these flights, the lowest price of a ticket you can currently buy is $268. This ticket is non-refundable and non-changeable and would incur a $100 change fee to change. A "K" class ticket (for those FF geeks among you) costs $598 round-trip, but I believe is refundable without a change fee. Among others, there's also a fare called a "K-up," $748 round trip, that is technically a coach fare, but gets you a first-class seat, with some notable restrictions. A regular first-class seat, fully refundable, costs $2058.

If you change the dates, this is a real-world example. I'm planning a conference for May 1-3 in Fort Lauderdale, of which I'm also a participant. However, my wife is due to give birth on April 25th, so it's unclear whether I'll be able to go. Should I buy the cheapest fare now, knowing that if I don't get to use it I'll wipe out 1/3 to 1/2 with the change fee? Should I buy a refundable ticket now, given that I won't know till probably within a week beforehand whether I'll be able to make it, and I'll want to be able to exchange it with no $ loss to the company? (Haven't decided this yet, incidentally)

-- to be continued --

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

But playing $330 dollars for flexability seems somewhat exorbitant. As does a $100 fee for a $50 ticket; restocking is a point, but if the ticket itself is only $50, what's the justification for charging me $100 if I change it (as opposed to, I don't know, 10% of the cost of the ticket)?

[cazique.livejournal.com]

For everything involving numbers, I'm going to lump that under "capitalism," with a lateral reference to "big fat pain in the ass." If people are willing to pay it, then...

Also - you wouldn't change a $50 ticket with a $100 change fee, of course, you'd just buy another one. That's another key point that I didn't mention - the price of air travel, these days, is extremely low. I know it might not seem that way, but if you compare prices 30, 20 or (I believe) even 10 years ago, in real, inflation-adjusted dollars the price has gone way down. I know you don't give a crap when you can't find a ticket from PHL to anywhere for under $350, but prices have gone significantly down.