When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical? • Hacker News Board

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#81

Post by jegutman » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 7:50 PM UTC

dmalvarado wrote: post #78

jegutman wrote: post #39

LOL, is this "native advertising" and is it for the airlines or the companies helping you buy cheap tickets? Airlines are in my experience among the least ethically run businesses: * They will cancel a flight at the last minute stranding passengers because it was "undersold". * They will delay flights for reasons that have no accountability to consumers. * They pass on 100% of the risk of flights being on time to con…

To your last point, I have suspected this for a while. The mere fact that you care where you're seated is a signal that you're willing to pay for the change. Airlines are going the way of ISPs. Monopolies that just don't care how annoyed they make you.

Well, unlike ISPs they don't really make any money. They have many unnecessary regulatory burdens as well. I will say some of the regulation they face is from their actions. Industries that find it incapable to do the right thing in the absence of regulation are often the ones that end up the most heavily regulated and it doesn't really solve the problem either.

As for the seat. It's not about caring about your seat, because the seats on the flight that sticks out in my mind were pretty much indistinguishable. It was a 2x2 plane and there were like dozens of "empty" seats to choose from even though the flight was over-sold by one person. I refused to pay and then ended up being the one getting bumped (although in this case it worked out in my favor since I got bumped to the next morning and got paid 4x my fare). They do not make it obvious when you're purchasing that you do not have a seat either, they just "skip" that stage and don't give you one. Very misleading.

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#82

Post by jegutman » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 8:01 PM UTC

jegutman wrote: post #39

LOL, is this "native advertising" and is it for the airlines or the companies helping you buy cheap tickets? Airlines are in my experience among the least ethically run businesses: * They will cancel a flight at the last minute stranding passengers because it was "undersold". * They will delay flights for reasons that have no accountability to consumers. * They pass on 100% of the risk of flights being on time to con…

This has been brewing in my mind so adding a few more:

* Canceling the return flight if you miss your fight out, even if it was an un-intentional miss.

* (not all airlines) Charging more that the cost of a round-trip ticket for a one-way ticket.

* Making it intentionally difficult to report a problem: Hiding customer service phone numbers, having 1500 character limits on the web forms and no e-mail customer service (to reply to a reply you have to go back to the web form).

* Having lines to check bags that take over an hour to sort through (I avoid checking bags, but not everybody I travel with does).

* Trying to sell bonus miles (correct me if I'm wrong, but these seem like they're always bad value).

* Trying to sell trip insurance (this in particular seems as overpriced as "additional insurance" at a car-rental place).

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#83

Post by ZenoArrow » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 8:51 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #75

ZenoArrow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free market capitalists argue that what we have now is not a free market. IP rights wouldn't exist in a free market system, for example. It's probably best to find another term to describe the market you see working, as 'free market' is what free market capitalists argue for. I don't know what a better term would be, but I'm sure that economists would've thought of one.

But what would exist in this ideal "free" market? IMO, without contract law and courts that enforce it and persecute fraud, you can't have a functional market (free or unfree). Also, without some laws that monopolize violence, the market would be much more, well, violent (you might think of that as "free", but I don't think that kind of freedom is beneficial to the society) - we can see that in numerous places on Ear…

I'm not advocating for free market economics, I'm only passing on information about what it means. The Wikipedia page is a fairly decent introduction:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#84

Post by hsod » Tue, Nov 24, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

I disagree with everything in this article. The assumption is that Americans should be scalped for airline tickets because, they're American and rich and deserve it. To take cheap tickets away from people in poorer countries by paying in Rupees or whatever is 'unethical'. Well, airlines are a for-profit business. They don't choose their rates out of some public-service motivation. They charge what they think they can…

I have no opinion on this particular case, but I strongly disagree with the broader point you're making (which seems to be that commerce exists outside of the realm of ethics and that 'anything goes').

If a shopkeeper is distracted, you should not be able to steal candy bars with a clear conscience, even if you believe the price of those candy bars to be unethical.

Dealing with unethical people does not relieve you of your duty to behave unethically. And commerce is just another facet of social interaction.

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#85

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 4:16 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #79

TeMPOraL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative price means they pay you to do something, not to take the money and then not do it. Doing otherwise is, well, unethical ;). I doubt that negatively priced legs come from product abundance. It's most likely optimization - e.g. if they can get more people going A->B->C then they can merge them with B->C passengers group and fly them together on a bigger, more fuel-efficient plane, etc. Anyway, we're already pa…

Negative price means they're paying you to take the product. They're not paying you to do something unless doing that something is the product. In the case of negative-priced airline tickets, they are not paying you to ride an airplane. They're paying you to take a ticket. That ticket then gives you an option to ride an airplane. Ticket use is not mandatory, not even ethically. If it were somehow advantageous for the…

> They're paying you to take a ticket. That ticket then gives you an option to ride an airplane. Ticket use is not mandatory, not even ethically.

Fair enough, though I still feel there's an ethical problem with creating waste / disutility.

> I don't understand your optimization comment.

I was thinking about something like this: there are people who want to travel from B to C, but not enough to warrant a new route (or increase in service on that route). So the company figures, if they can get more people to travel from A to C by offering a cheaper ticket, they can bundle them together at B and now there's enough people on B->C route that it makes sense to fly it (more often). I'm also assuming that B acts as a hub - it makes no sense to have direct route between every city due to combinatorial explosion. So here, the cheaper A->B->C ticket exists to attract new people willing to go from A to C.

I guess you're right if you only look at the money made directly on tickets. I don't know if, and how often, airlines get subsidies based on the amount of people they move around but if they do, then having planes flying half-empty may be a loss for them. But personally, I don't consider the money earned by the airline as the most important variable. What matters more is, IMO, the amount of passengers being transported. More people getting to fly = better.

> I also don't understand your "flying privately" comment.

I don't know what's the usual short phrase to refer to people like tourists, who travel in their personal capacity - for leisure, to study abroad, to visit their family, etc. - as opposed to business travellers, who travel to make money, and whose tickets are often paid by their company.

A lot of price discrimination is designed around getting the business customers to subsidize the "casual" ones. My point was, as casual flyers, we wouldn't be able to afford the ticket if it was priced fairly. Pricing discrimination in airlines generally works in favour of ordinary people.

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#86

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #70

TeMPOraL wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hidden city ticketing doesn't waste the airline's fuel. They'd burn just as much fuel if you used all segments you purchased. The same amount of fuel is being burned, but one less person is getting transported to their destination. I see a pretty clear-cut example of waste here. > It's not generally considered unethical to, say, buy a bottle of wine just to dump it out. Why would the same thing be unethical when it…

> But imagine if you bought one of the last few bottles in the shop, and then went and dumped it on the ground. It's totally legal, but I don't think many would argue it's good conduct. OTOH, wine shops don't generally offer deals where it is cheaper to by two bottles of wine than one by itself, and prohibit you from reselling (or even giving away) the bottle of wine you don't want. If they did, lots of people would…

> and prohibit you from reselling (or even giving away) the bottle of wine you don't want.

I think the airlines, as opposed to wine sellers, have a good reason for having tickets to be non-transferable - seats on a plane are a scarce resource. Compare with a similar area where access to a scarce resource is transferable - cultural events like sports games, concerts, etc. What happens there is that there's a whole industry of people who buy out all the tickets and then resell them at higher price, often hoarding until last minute to justify the markup. This kind of antisocial behaviour is quite common and a big problem.

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#87

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

hsod wrote: post #84

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

I disagree with everything in this article. The assumption is that Americans should be scalped for airline tickets because, they're American and rich and deserve it. To take cheap tickets away from people in poorer countries by paying in Rupees or whatever is 'unethical'. Well, airlines are a for-profit business. They don't choose their rates out of some public-service motivation. They charge what they think they can…

I have no opinion on this particular case, but I strongly disagree with the broader point you're making (which seems to be that commerce exists outside of the realm of ethics and that 'anything goes'). If a shopkeeper is distracted, you should not be able to steal candy bars with a clear conscience, even if you believe the price of those candy bars to be unethical . Dealing with unethical people does not relieve you…

That was not anything like the direction we were going with this discussion. I call Red Herring.

Paying the posted price for merchandise is always fair in Business. Some PC fool comes along with "it was posted below the other price, low down for people in wheelchairs to see. You are stealing from the unfortunate!" and I will call out the idiot.

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#88

Post by mikeash » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #85

mikeash wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative price means they're paying you to take the product. They're not paying you to do something unless doing that something is the product. In the case of negative-priced airline tickets, they are not paying you to ride an airplane. They're paying you to take a ticket. That ticket then gives you an option to ride an airplane. Ticket use is not mandatory, not even ethically. If it were somehow advantageous for the…

> They're paying you to take a ticket. That ticket then gives you an option to ride an airplane. Ticket use is not mandatory, not even ethically. Fair enough, though I still feel there's an ethical problem with creating waste / disutility. > I don't understand your optimization comment. I was thinking about something like this: there are people who want to travel from B to C, but not enough to warrant a new route (or…

Let's say you want to fly from A->B. You research prices, and you find two options. There's a direct flight from A->B that costs $400, or you can take an indirect flight through distant hub C that costs $200. Is it unethical or wasteful to choose A->C->B for $200? I think all of us would do this without a second thought, aside from willingly paying more in exchange for less hassle.

Compare to hidden city ticketing. Instead of buying A->C->B, you buy A->B->C for $200 and then stop at B. It's no more wasteful than buying A->C->B, it's just more comfortable for you. In fact, it's slightly less wasteful, because there's a possibility that the airline could give your empty B->C seat to a standby passenger.

Assuming you don't have an ethical problem with the A->C->B hub flight, why would you have a problem with the A->B(->C) hidden city ticketing flight because of waste or disutility (or indeed anything else)?

I have no problem with price discrimination. But there are good and bad ways to do price discrimination. For example, one common method for flight discrimination is to charge less for tickets purchased farther in advance. Casual travelers typically book their travel well in advance, whereas business and other travelers willing to pay more typically book their travel shortly before they fly. This is just smart business, and it ensures that people who really need it can fly when they need to, but people who are more price sensitive can still travel. And you can't really game this system.

Then you have airlines trying stupid tricks like charging negative prices for certain legs. This is just wasteful and stupid. Why should I feel in any way obligated to support this sort of price discrimination? They are welcome to try such nonsense, of course, but their customers are likewise welcome to take advantage of it. It is not our responsibility to make their pricing scheme work. They're the ones who need to figure out workable pricing schemes.

Re: When is a ‘travel hack’ unethical?

#89

Post by mikeash » Wed, Nov 25, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #86

dragonwriter wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But imagine if you bought one of the last few bottles in the shop, and then went and dumped it on the ground. It's totally legal, but I don't think many would argue it's good conduct. OTOH, wine shops don't generally offer deals where it is cheaper to by two bottles of wine than one by itself, and prohibit you from reselling (or even giving away) the bottle of wine you don't want. If they did, lots of people would…

> and prohibit you from reselling (or even giving away) the bottle of wine you don't want. I think the airlines, as opposed to wine sellers, have a good reason for having tickets to be non-transferable - seats on a plane are a scarce resource. Compare with a similar area where access to a scarce resource is transferable - cultural events like sports games, concerts, etc. What happens there is that there's a whole ind…

In what way are airline seats scarce but wine is not?

Stuff like concerts is subject to scalping because the tickets get sold at below market value to avoid pissing people off. A concert venue may well sell out a popular show at $5,000 per ticket, but they won't charge that much because people will be angry. There is nothing like that going on in the airline (or wine) world.