Startup Lessons, Courtesy of United Airlines’ Crappy Customer Service

Well, in their mind, he's an evil guy that's trying to game the pricing system that they broke by allowing it to be cheaper to buy a round-trip than to buy one half of that round trip.

So if they let him keep his return flight, they wouldn't really be preventing anyone from doing that.

It is worth remembering how airlines price tickets:

Pricing is not based on how much it costs the airline to get you to your destination (i.e. distance and fuel). Airlines long ago figured out how to extract the most money for various flights based on where they fit in the big picture of WHY someone is traveling.

This is why a round trip that includes a Saturday stay over is usually cheaper than a round trip leaving on Monday and returning Wednesday. Airlines know the second traveling is most likely a business person and willing to pay more.

I was recently planning two trips. I needed to go to Las Vegas on one trip and to Atlanta on another (both from Virginia). On the same day, the Las Vegas trip was twice as expensive as the round trip to Atlanta and back, EVEN THOUGH, the Las Vegas flight had a layover in Atlanta. Could I have just booked a flight to Las Vegas when I wanted to go to Atlanta and just not gotten on my second flight? I could, but then the airline would cancel my return trip. They would say its because they assume I never made it to my final destination and didn't need my return flights, but really, it is because they want to prevent this sort of thing.

Airline prices are not logical (to us). They are based on extracting the most amount of money from a schedule.

(of course, this doesn't excuse crappy treatment, but, just so we're all clear...)

I'm curious if he's ever flown much before. Missing the first leg of a discount coach r/t canceling the entire reservation has been standard since at least 1980. Yes, their online systems should be better at explaining what happens once you've missed a flight, but fundamentally the web apps for airlines are dirty hacks layered on top of mainframe systems, and don't handle exceptions particularly well.

Airline pricing is incredibly complex because...it is a complex product. It's a perishable product, and they are trying to price discriminate multiple classes of people, dealing with competitors, etc. It is very common to have the case he considers rare (XXX-YYY-XXX costing >2x what YYY-XXX-YYY costs -- especially international, where different currencies, taxes, etc. apply). XXX-YYY often costs 4-8x the cost of XXX-YYY-XXX or YYY-XXX-YYY r/t, too.

There are certain routes which are run as "air shuttles" -- you can buy a ticket, and then walk on and get on any available flight. SIN-KUL, IAD-NYC, etc. Some airlines have very simple routing and fares (Southwest, for instance) and can more easily be used for flexible travel. First Class or Full Fare Coach tickets are also used by businesses or other travelers who demand extreme flexibility -- the $170 r/t SFO-LAX-SFO was a discounted coach fare where price discrimination in terms of restrictive terms applies.

Additionally, airlines are highly regulated, some by international treaty (read the back of a ticket jacket sometime).

As for "not screwing a major customer over", a frequent flyer would be 1K or GS and worth $50k+/yr to the airline, and would probably have been able to easily get his ticket changed. Yes, price discrimination and market segmentation sucks when you lose the game, but it maximizes revenue for the carrier.

Btw, the "hacker news" of "airline hacking" is flyertalk.com. There are people who craft amazing itineraries and maximize frequent flyer points in ways which seem absurd (scheduling 4 r/t back to back flights across the US to Hawaii just to get miles, or flying SFO - Taipei - LAX for the cost of SFO-LAX to get huge extra miles).

I disagree.

First, I'm very surprised that you were not aware of the policy that if you don't take the first part of an itinerary, you won't be able to catch up half-way. I guess it's something everyone learns very quickly.

Second, your proposal that United should fix their prices is disingenuous. They would if it didn't mean bankruptcy for them. The reason they do that is that most of their income comes from business travelers who can expense expensive tickets in economy class. The way to detect a business traveler versus a tourist is whether they spend the Saturday at their destination. The business traveler flys on a Tuesday and return the next day or so, never stays over. So they get charged 3X more.

If United just "fixed" their prices, it would be a complete collapse. A handful of airlines have chosen the "per-segment" price approach (Southwest, JetBlue, Virgin).

So recognize the cool hack for what it is: Saturday night stay equals deep discount.

They should be happy. He paid for the ticket and they get a weight savings which should help with the fuel costs.