101–110 of 191 posts
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People buy first class tickets just for the lounges? Usually, you can just pay $30 or so for a day pass to a lounge.
$30 for a day pass to a first class lounge? I can't believe that at all. Can you show me which airports and lounges offer that because I'm going to take them up on it.
This is a great piece, definitely, but the question I have, do you - Americans - consider $500 a fair/reasonable amount of money to pay for a plane ticket? (I even had to lookup the average salary in the USA) I'm from Europe myself, and it usually costs us anywhere from $40 to $150 to travel anywhere in Europe, though the prices do go up if you want to go to a place such as China, Thailand, or even India. But then ag…
Prices are much lower for closer distances - it's not at all unusual to be able pick up ~$150 round trips for shorter routes.
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To be fair, they're not forcing anyone into anything. As much as I loathe handing over my money to airlines - an experience I sometimes have to face three times a month - they are a for-profit commercial enterprise with no requirements for how they operate beyond government-imposed ones. Want something legitimate to complain about when thinking of flying the friendly skies? Think about the airlines whining about the…
There should be a government imposed minimum seat pitch. The current distance between the back of one seat and the front of another is too small for the top 10% in terms of height of the population, disabled people, and older people. Then airlines cannot use "competition" to argue why they should make seats smaller and smaller, as all competition would have to adapt also. I don't care if they're a private business. T…
People like you have been saying this for a long time. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of airline customers have been saying, much more loudly, much more consistently and with money rather than words (i.e., in how they book and what fares they book) that all considerations other than the number of dollars in the ticket price are null and any and all devaluations, reductions or after-the-fact fees are accepted and encouraged if they bring the initial dollar amount of the ticket lower.
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In the US, you can. In less enlightened countries, that's not the case. Of course, for a 2-hour domestic flight, the lounge is just a perk rather than a necessity.
> In less enlightened countries, that's not the case. Less enlightened? Wow, I don't even know what to say to that. Even if you're just referring to their louge policy that's a pretty strange turn of phrase, but I doubt that was the implication.
Corollary: this implies that booking flights which are the cheapest/most inconvenient will likely end you up in a less populated plane. Double win! This is another reason to be wary of ubiquitous tracking for marketing purposes. Say I want to fly from Kent to New York via London. I book my expensive transatlantic flight and once that is secured, book my domestic flight. But if Big Data is watching my actions, what is…
> But if Big Data is watching my actions... Switch the order in which you book the flights. Since we assume separate bookings and sequential booking order this puts lower risk into your first purchase, and also Big Data then has all transatlantic flights from London to choose from to hike your price.
In the states, the more I deal with cellular companies and airlines, the more I hate them. It's not just me: it's a common opinion. One prominent business magazine had a cover a few years back titled something like "The companies we all hate" Consumers like to purchase things in atomic units and simple terms. If I go to the grocery store, there's a bushel of apples. The sign says "Granny Smith apples: $1" I can confi…
This doesn't take away from your point at all, but I just wanted to point out that: > I can confidently pick up an apple, walk to the register, and expect to pay a dollar. This is true in most of the world, but not in the US, where you don't know what you're paying until you reach the checkout counter.
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Well, you can weigh the apple yourself on the scales that occur all throughout the produce section... but yeah, I'd be surprised to see a flat rate for fruit by species no matter the size. Fruit is sold by weight, not count, in China too.
That wasn't their point. In most of the world if a product's price tag says X then you pay exactly X at the register (e.g. £2 sandwich costs exactly £2 in cash, you hand then exactly £2 and leave). In the US that is not the case. Almost everything has a "hidden fee." You go buy a $2 sandwich but pay $2 + 6% ($2.12), if you get food in a restaurant you pay $price + 15-20%, an advertised $30/month cell phone plan is ac…
There is a big problem with trying to game the system with the airlines: The pricing is done using control theory. In fact, they have the most mature application of control theory to pricing out there, probably by virtue of being to first to apply it in that way. Practically, that means that you can only game the system if nobody else knows how. If you are the only one that knows how, the algorithms probably can't de…
I've always thought it was ridiculous that people would go to a site like Expedia or Kayak, type in a date and destination, and just hope that they get the cheapest fare. As this article explains so well, prices are fluctuating constantly and the chances that you'll be lucky enough to be searching for the flight at the optimal time are close to nil. Most flight search engines now let you set up alerts to track prices…
Two questions:
1. Why is it an App and not a website? 2. As you noted in your other comment, it would be best if you can have my credit card on file and buy tickets on my behalf automatically.
Southwest, as far as I can tell, doesn't change rates once they've published. Three rate tiers, optional early check-in to get a better boarding order position, and free baggage. The most striking difference is that, in general, the flight attendants are happy . They smile. They joke around. Sometimes they sing songs. I was on a flight a few months ago where the entire plane played a game because it was someone's bir…
I'm not 100% sure it is "legal", but I had the pleasure of flying on southwest with them half-singing half-joking throughout the mandatory safety stuff.. it was a pretty hilarious change of pace. Unfortunately, Southwest, though fairly cheap for where I go, has 2 stops minimum no matter what where as everywhere else can make it 1 stop