The Nightmare of Buying Tickets Online
Recently I was unfortunate enough to find myself trying to buy airline tickets online. As usual, it was an awful experience. This time happened to be the worst ever though, it was terrible.
Priceline gave me some excellent prices, so I tried to buy. Error error error, sorry, too bad. I went back and tried again. The offer I just tried was now gone, but several others of the same price were there.
I went through this same procedure about 4 times, finally with the last one I got a different error message. I was emailed a customer support number, so I called it to find out that the last deal didn’t go through either. Sorry, tough luck, we just put those really cheap prices up there to mess with your head.
Poozer slackers.
Then I went Sidestep (I’m not giving any of these outfits the dignity of a link) where I found some more smokin’ deals. Now near as I can figure, Sidestep finds you a deal then forwards you to the airline or the site with the deal and you buy it there. So I clicked through the dirt-cheap tickets they told me I could get, only to find that the price was $111 more than Sidestep said it was.
Not impressed. What a bunch of raging incompetence and deception.
5 Responses
March 26th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
It makes ya wonder how much longer folks will actually put up with such obstacles to commercial passenger flight, huh. I’m done with it already.
But your story is not unlike the process of contacting our elected leaders. (Unless you offer a substantial contribution along with it.)
March 26th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
That’s why you should use Golden Rule Travel.
March 26th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I have purchased tickets online more than once and haven’t had the mess that you have. :) Sorry. I was even able to pick my own seats, and it actually worked! I think we used expedia, or something like that.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Hi Tom–congrats on the baby on the way–our computer was down and I just caught up on all the news!! Bro Doug came to run some new plumbing in our soon to be remodeled bathroom and stayed for dinner–was great catching up w/ him again!
March 31st, 2007 at 12:39 am
I purchased at least 70 tickets last year. All online and a good amount of them from Sidestep. I’ve never had a problem!