Here's an idea where an Expedia-challenger could offer a real benefit.

[brooksmoses]

In what I wouldn't be surprised to find is a response to companies like Expedia and Travelocity and such listing long lists of flights ordered by base price, thereby encouraging travelers to choose the cheapest one, airlines are charging for more and more incidentals. The latest indignity is that chinders reports that US Airways charged her for a glass of water. (Well, okay, a bottle. But that was as close as was available.)

(I am increasingly glad that I am using up all my US Airways frequent-flyer miles shortly, and will have no more reason to care if they go under. I was going to say "will have no more reason to preferentially fly on their airline", but that went away when they started a milage-sharing agreement with United so I didn't have to fly on their airline to try to get miles faster than they upped the amounts one needed to redeem to get a ticket. But that's a separate rant.)

In any case, the charges for these incidentals vary from airline to airline, and in the case of checked luggage can be pretty significant. Similarly, the charges for wireless internet service in hotels is a significant incidentals charge.

Thus, what I would really like is to have a set of checkboxes in my travel flight-finder or hotel-finder that lets me check boxes for incidentals like "dinner" or "drink" or "two checked bags" or "internet service", and have it then calculate the prices of the flights or hotel stays with all of those incidentals figured in. So that, if I want to pick the flight that's $15 cheaper, I know it will actually be $15 cheaper rather than $37 more expensive once I check my bags and buy a glass of water.

Comments

[worthyadvisor.livejournal.com]

They charged for water!? (I hate travelling US Airways, and avoid them as much as possible. Delta, too, for that matter. The only one I like at the moment is Southwest.)

[rosefox]

Even Delta gives you water and soda for free.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i love virgin america. they are generally as cheap as or cheaper than southwest, and they have actual legroom in economy class (i'm 5'11, it matters to me!). plus i believe they give you your first checkin bag free.

[snippy]

I used to fly United whenever I came to the Bay Area to visit Aahz, because the terminal in Portland is the closest to the check-in area, and the security I like to go through. But my last trip United had in place the $25 each way fee for the *first* checked bag! I'm never flying United again.

[brooksmoses]

Wow, yeah -- I knew that some airlines (Delta and American) were charging $15 for the first bag, but I hadn't realized United had upped that to $25. That seems pretty excessive.

I'm surprised, though -- would you choose not to fly United even if they happen to offer a rate that's more than $50 cheaper than other options that don't charge to check a bag? (Or, more than $20 cheaper than the other options, for others that charge $15 each way to check a bag?)

[snippy]

Eventually I'd be willing to fly them for a total price lower than other airlines, but as of now, prices are similar (within $20) excluding the additional fees tacked on *at the airport*.

Right now I'm protesting (wrote a letter and everything) because checking a bag saves congestion getting on and off the plane, thus improving on-time numbers, and because as a temporarily disabled person, I can't lift my bag into the overhead bin, so I have to check it. I'm being dinged $50 for being disabled. (Sure, some kind person or a steward would do it, but the principle is the same.)

[brooksmoses]

That makes sense -- and you raise a good point about this being discriminatory towards disabled people. Unfortunately, though, it seems that the only thing that makes United different from the other major U.S. carriers on this is that it's a $25 fee instead of a $15 one. (Virgin America, Jet Blue, and Southwest still don't charge, but they're also not major airlines and have relatively limited coverage and routes.)

I wonder whether United has some sort of process for accomodation of disabled people so as to be able to argue that this isn't discrimination. I wonder if it would be effective protest to insist on using it.

I also am tempted to note to the relevant carriers that, seeing as how they are feeling it's appropriate to do whatever they can within the limits of the contract to cost me money, I feel no qualms about doing the same to them -- and thus, given that they (or, at least, some of them) do not have a weight limit on carry-on bags, I will make a policy of filling mine with bricks as a form of protest before each flight.

[snippy]

Alaska Airlines doesn't charge for the first checked bag. It goes where I want to go (SFO). I'm flying Alaska for the foreseeable future.

[brooksmoses]

Yeah.

If I had credible options like that for most of the places I ended up flying, I'd take them. And I'm sort of glad I ended up with flights on Virgin America instead of United for the next small trip I'm taking, even though I expect not to be checking luggage.

It occurs to me that, if you're in a letter-writing mood, it might be worth sending a letter to Alaska telling them this.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

I will make a policy of filling mine with bricks as a form of protest before each flight

Does this differ significantly from your standard practice?

[brooksmoses]

*snork*

Usually I do it because I want the bricks on the other side of the country. So it's different.

(And I haven't actually shipped bricks. Yet.)

[artan]

The postal service at one point had a 2" thick 8x11ish envelope that boldly exclaimed "Any weight, anywhere in the US, First class only $x", which wasn't that much. I strongly considered buying a roll of lead, hammering it to fit the envelope and mailing it to unsuspecting people in Hawaii.

I did not only because the package, being lined with lead and thus impervious to x-rays, would panic any of their bomb-detecting people and I really didn't want to get arrested.

[shandrew.livejournal.com]

Flat-rate, no weight limit envelopes and boxes are still sold by the usps (https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductCategoryDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10152&categoryId=13354&parent_category_rn=11820&top_category=).

It's usually not as good of a deal as the media mail rates for shipping books, though it's fun to imagine the envelopes as a very cheap way of shipping iridium.

I don't mind the baggage charges so much, except for the lack of information...consumers should be informed before they click on "BUY" that new baggage charges are in effect, but most just find out the first time they're at the airport. That does nobody any good, and generates a lot of ill will towards the airline. I also wonder about collusion...how is it that all of the large airlines ended up with almost the same fee structure? Ah well, they'll all end up as a couple big airlines soon anyway.

[keshwyn]

As a regular traveler, I can say without a doubt that United and US Air are currently in a race to the *bottom* of the customer service list. I have never heard a good thing about either of them, nor have I had a good experience flying them any time in the past 8 years.

[brooksmoses]

Yeah. I do have one good thing about United -- personally, I'm very fond of their use of one of the channels of the audio system to broadcast the radio chatter that the pilots are listening to, so I consider that a particular bonus service. (I find it rather calming -- and it was particularly so right after 2001, to have advance warning before the plane suddenly turned or suchlike -- and I definitely like having a sense of knowing where the plane is and of making progress on a long cross-country flight. The radio handoffs to Salt Lake and Oakland Centers make far better landmarks than visual things, especially since I know where they are. And it's good for the sense of cooped-up-ness, to have some connection to the outside world in the background.)

And I've had a fair number of uneventful flights on both of them in the past several years.

But that's about all I can point to as "good things".

[tendyl.livejournal.com]

Have you considered writing to those ticket sales companies with this idea? It's a damned good one!

[cobalt-00.livejournal.com]

It's sad to read through the comments - I've always been happiest with United, and I thought that when this all started to happen that they WEREN'T charging for checked baggage. At the time, Air Canada was, which bolstered my claim that I would nevereverever fly with them again. The bastards (and that is definitely another rant). But United has always been cheaper, went to the airports that I wanted, and had better customer service.
Now... I guess I'm kinda glad that I don't really fly anywhere. Not that driving has been much cheaper, but occasionally I wonder.
My next flight is for Thanksgiving and it's with American... I hope they don't charge for water.

[brooksmoses]

American wasn't charging for water as of earlier this week when they took me to Austin and back, in any case. The planes were looking a bit dingy, but that's about the only complaint I had.