Hopefully you managed to through the tome that is Part I. A frustrating experience to be sure. As promised, here is my experience with American Airlines a short time later.
My Experience with American Airlines (and Hotwire)
So I had my twenty year high school reunion in Miami and I need tickets to Miami for my wife and me. I do my normal searching between Travelocity (my favorite site), Expedia, Hotwire and others. I generally search these comparison sites first and then see if I can beat those prices with the airlines themselves or something like Priceline. After a good hour of searching (hey, it can be fun to find a bargain!), I determine that Hotwire offers the best deal for my requirements, which are namely a direct flight at the lowest possible flight. A new requirement for this trip was that it couldn’t be on United. I do check with American to see if they can beat that price and they can’t. They can match it, but Hotwire makes it easy so I give my business to them. I book the trip and I’m good to go. Like most travel sites, Hotwire offers a really nice experience. I can’t imagine booking a trip can be made much easier.
I get my confirmation email and that is when I discover I have a problem. Despite choosing the dates and verifying them on the confirmation screen, the dates booked were wrong. They were off by one week. Now I know there is a 99% chance that it was me who made the mistake. And I know it is going to cost me, because, well, it’s the airline industry. And from this point forward I’ve identified 3 more problems with the airline industry.
Problem #1: The airlines penalize you for working with their partners
My experience begins with a call to Hotwire. I explain the situation and tell them that I need to fix the dates. The first guy is friendly and helpful. He doesn’t apologize (which I don’t expect him to do), but he does empathize and, hey, that’s something. He looks at my booking to determine what can be done, but ultimately comes to the conclusion that my tickets are non-refundable and that to change them would be to incur American’s $150 per ticket change fee. He also informs me that only American can waive that fee. Well, I guess that makes sense. This guy gives me the number for American and suggests I give them a call. Seems reasonable; thanks for the help.
I give American a call and explain the situation to the agent. She confirms that I’m calling the same day as the tickets were purchased and I tell her yes. I booked these less than an hour ago. She says, “No problem, we can waive the change fees as long as it is under 24 hours.” And I’m happy. She asks me to hold while she takes care of it. No problem.
Problem. She comes back on and says that they can’t waive the fees because I purchased the tickets through Hotwire and not directly with American. Huh? So you penalize people for working with partners? I ask to speak to a supervisor and she happily complies. All in all, she was pleasant and helpful.
Now the supervisor comes on and is pretty much combative from the beginning. I should have check the dates more carefully. I should have booked the tickets directly with American. Why did I use Hotwire. Its not their problem if I use a 3rd party. Wow. I’m actually a little stunned at this point. How do you respond to a company that tells you that you shouldn’t use their officially sanctioned partners? She says at this point only Hotwire can waive the fees. I tell her that their position is that only American can do that and she again throws the partner under the bus. “Nope, they’re wrong. You’re Hotwire’s customer.” She doesn’t seem amused when I point out that American is actually the company whose airplane I’ll be on.
Back to Hotwire. I tell the next agent what’s going on and that I’d like to speak to a supervisor about this. He passes me through. Right away the tone is negative. What is it with supervisors? It was my mistake and why should they do anything for me. Their policy is clearly posted, etc., etc. I acknowledge all of that, but tell them of American’s policy of waiving the change fee in the first 24 hours. I tell her that if I would have booked directly with American, I wouldn’t be having a problem right now. Basically, I’m being penalized for using Hotwire. All I want from her is to use her channel partner connections to either waive the fees or ask American to do it because they would do it for their direct customers. She refuses! She won’t help me. She won’t inquire anywhere. She won’t do anything. And to add insult to injury, she accuses me of not understanding business.
Wow.
My last question is simply, why would I use Hotwire again? Aside from how you’re treating me right now, what is the advantage of booking through Hotwire? I only see downside. I can get the same price and a better change situation if I book directly with the airlines. Her answer, “we have great deals on hotels.” Interesting since I’m not booking a hotel. But whatever, time to move on. I’m stuck with these tickets and I either have to change them or buy new ones.
Fascinating that neither company seemed appreciative of my business and neither really seemed concerned about keeping me as a customer. They both just wanted to get me off the phone as fast as possible. They’re “customer service” reps are probably bonused on how fast they turn calls over.
Problem #2: Change fees are exorbitant
If I’m going to change my existing tickets, I’m going to have to pay $150 per ticket. Let’s examine that little fact for a minute. $150 per ticket! For what? To have a call center operator either (based on how their computer system works) create a new itinerary and cancel the old one or just change the existing itinerary. I’ve done this before and it never takes more than 15 minutes. Never.
If that holds this time, that would mean that I’m paying American $1,200 per hour ($300 x 2 tickets x 4 fifteen minute periods in an hour) to change two tickets. I guess that is good work if you can get it. My question is no longer how can I change the tickets, but whether they’ll hire me as a customer service rep at $600 an hour (hey, I’m willing to split it with them 50/50!).
It seems they are trying to force fit one policy on all situations. I’m not sure how much sense that makes. Maybe there should be different policies based on different situations, like when the tickets were booked and when you try to change them. Maybe they should just allow reps to use common sense? Crazy, I know.
So what is the reason for this policy? What is the reason for non-refundable tickets? Well that is pretty simple. Airline seats are fixed resources. If a plane takes off without a passenger in a seat, that is revenue that can never be recovered. It is gone for good. Also, the seats are based on supply and demand. The fewer seats that are available on a plane, the more expensive they are. If you buy far enough in advance, almost all of the seats on a plane are available and this is usually the cheapest time to purchase them.
Of course, there is also the artificial time limits put in place, just to make sure business flyers are paying more, but that is a different story.
Based on this business situation, airlines have to do all they can to make sure they are maximizing their resources. By giving non-fundable tickets, they are insuring that they are getting paid for these scarce resources and maximizing their revenues by charging the next buyers more. It also allows them to plan ahead, like which size planes they need for each route, etc. Travelers get a better deal for giving the airlines certainty. You can imagine how much money airlines would lose if all tickets were refundable and people canceled at the last minute. The airlines would have a hard time reselling the seats on short notice.
While acknowledging all of that, how does changing a ticket on the same day it was purchased effect that formula? The answer is, of course, not at all unless it is the day of the flight.
Bottom line, the airlines are treating their customers poorly because they need to extract every last dime out of them possible. $150 change fees aren’t fair and I suspect most airline employees know this. But they’ve got you the same way that you can only buy food inside a stadium (not bring it in with you), the way banks are increasingly fee driven (switching costs as expressed in convenience is high) or any other pseudo monopoly situation. Simply put, you’re stuck.
Problem #3: The airlines own computer systems don’t know the cheapest way to fix a mistake
I still need tickets though, so back to the research. What is the cheapest way to fix this? I’m not at all happy with what’s occurred to this point, so I wait a couple of days. Nothing major, just don’t want to yell at the first person I call when they had nothing to do with my frustrations. I go back online and find the cheapest ticket on Travelocity, again through American. Not thrilled with this, but the next cheapest ticket was over $25 more per ticket. Not a big deal, but it adds up. Plus, it was roughly similar to what I paid before. I call up American to see if changing my existing tickets will be cheaper. Based on what Travelocity is quoting me, it is going to be close. I tell the American rep the situation and ask her to tell me which way is cheapest. She gives me a price that is over $200 higher than Travelocity is quoting me. I tell her that I’m looking at a much cheaper price buying new tickets and she says I’m wrong. She can’t see that price in her system and Travelocity must be wrong.
I book the tickets on Tavelocity. Amazing. American’s own computer system can’t sell you tickets that their partners can. It can’t figure out which is the cheapest way for someone to get from one point to another. It seems to me this is their business, except for the fact that they’re looking to charge as much as possible in every case. Even if this is their view, wouldn’t it be in their best interest to match the Travelocity price because they’d get to keep it all as opposed to giving a booking fee to Travelocity? I guess it is no wonder that the travel sites seem to be doing well. Which brings me to…
Bonus Problem: American is now charging to check bags
A couple of weeks go by and it is time for my reunion. My wife and I pack our bags and head to the airport only to discover that American is now charging $15 for the first checked bag per passenger and $25 for the second. Wonderful. At least one airline has now taken something that used to be included in the cost and is now charging passengers extra. Once confronted with this, I thought I had remembered reading about it somewhere, but I had completely forgotten about it.
This wouldn’t be so bad if all the airlines did it and all charged the same price, but my issue is that is now much more difficult to compare prices to see where you’re really getting the better deal. In my situation, another airline would have been cheaper. That was an additional $60 for my trip ($15 x 2 bags x 2 legs of trip).
The only reason to do this is to be able to advertise lower fairs that are not really apples to apples comparisons. It is deceptive and they know it.
So you’ve read parts I & II and my only recommendation is this. Recently my best experiences have been on Southwest and Frontier. They don’t seem to nickel and dime you, they have better amenities and in general they seem more helpful. When possible, fly with them. To some extent, they attempt to be simpler and maybe that is the secret for the airline industry moving forward.
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