I'll take "Sticking it to United" for $49 | Hacker News Reader

I'll take "Sticking it to United" for $49

thisisgoingtobebig.com

42 pointsdangoldin27 comments

Airlines do not sell seats. They sell "inventory" which is not particularly correlated to seat availability.

The most likely scenario is that someone will miss the flight before this guys' and that person will now be able to get on this flight as a standby passenger. The OP is just screwing himself out of $49 because he doesn't know how airlines manage inventory.

What's more likely is that either the seat will be empty if the flight was not full, or if it was full, one more person will make it to their destination on time.

This is a known issue with United's pricing system, and something you should be aware with when you buy from them. It's bitten me a couple of times, both in cases where a family member had just died or was about to die, and so I'm not inclined to be charitable.

Most recently, I had an issue where I was scheduled to fly home for Thanksgiving, but my father's condition worsened suddenly a week before then (he'd been in the hospital for about a month before) and the nurses informed me he wasn't going to make it until then. I looked into moving up my flight by a week - it was significantly more expensive than just buying a new ticket. I also looked into buying a one-way ticket: it was also more expensive than buying a roundtrip with a random end date. So I just bought a completely new round-trip ticket, ate the cost of the old one, and didn't show up for it.

Fine, whatever, I had the money and didn't feel like fighting. But maybe this is why I frequently end up with an empty seat next to me on United, even when the plane is supposedly booked solid. (Hey, I'm also fine with that, but it seems like from a purely business perspective, the airline would want to sell that seat to somebody else...)

It's interesting to contrast this with Southwest, which will give you a credit for the cost of the flight if you reschedule anytime within the next year. Southwest in general does a very good job of minimizing perverse incentives on the part of passengers and flight attendants, and their bottom line seems to reflect that.

In reality, since airlines love to overbook flights, they probably sold it anyway.

Exactly, the airline probably sold that same seat to someone at the last minute for $500 already, knowing they can bump someone who paid $199 and showed up late to the gate, comp them $300 in vouchers, and break even on the whole deal.

True, which is why he should also complete his check-in online so that it looks like he is confirmed on thhe flight, at least until the last 10 minutes when they realize he is a no show.

I recently wanted a Zurich -> San Francisco -> Buenos Aires -> Zurich ticket. This was either not possible or unreasonably priced so I ended up with two independent tickets, one for the Zurich -> SF round trip and another with a SF -> BA round trip. Well the BA -> SF return stopped in NYC one day and SF -> Zurich stopped there the next day and I didn't see much point flying across the country on consecutive days, so I tried to cancel those legs of my ticket (buying the ticket without these superfluous legs would have cost $2000 more than what I bought). Cancelling the first cross-country flight was going to cost around $200 so instead I just walked out of the airport in NYC after clearing customs.

I tried to cancel the second, but Continental told me that I couldn't cancel part of the trip and would have to rebook with no credit from my existing ticket (a 1-way NYC -> ZRH would be $2700, compare to a round trip at $600). Fortunately, the NYC -> ZRH leg was operated by Lufthansa which apparently doesn't talk very closely with Continental because they didn't blink an eye when I showed up at the airport after "missing" the Continental flight from SF. Had Continental been operating the last leg, they would have turned me away and I'd have been stuck buying a new ticket, but still better off than formally cancelling because of not paying the cancellation fee.

I had hoped that ubiquitous online travel indexing would bring some sanity to the airline pricing model, but this does not seem to be happening. I fail to see how having ticketed passengers that don't plan to fly, financially rewarding passengers for being deceptive about which flights they will board, and incentivising mixed-carrier tickets for the flexibility they lend is helpful to their bottom line.

You bought a non-refundable ticket. Be happy they are even giving you $49.

Exactly, if you buy "a non-refundable ticket" you can't complain even if they don't refund any of it.

This is not an airline user forum. It's an entrepreneurship forum. The point is not to discuss his rights and opportunities as a consumer. The point is to learn something about customer service and the business tradeoffs of different refund policies.

That's not what the author was doing though. He could have written suggesting how they ought to improve their business, but no, he wrote complaining about how they had done exactly what he knew they would do when he bought the ticket.

Isn't he dismissing the risk that the airline won't be able to sell the ticket within the next 48 hours? The potential for the airline to make $400 is there, but the expected revenue is below that.

Careful, since who knows what rule of back to back/throwaway ticketing you could be breaking by buying a ticket and not flying. The airlines probably would claim that this is illegal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_booking_ploys

What are they gonna do, arrest you and force you to get on the flight?

Probably not, but they still have some leverage... from wikipedia: "airlines may respond by confiscating tickets, cancelling frequent flier status and billing travel agents for the fare difference."

It's not illegal, I've had Virgin America actually tell me to just not show up when I was canceling a flight once because the cancelation fee was more expensive than my ticket. Essentially, I had to pay them $20 or something to cancel my flight or just not show up.

From the linked page:

> However, even though booking ploys might be a breach of contract and against airline rules, the illegality of such endeavours has been disputed by legal experts

"airline rules" and illegality are quite different.

I won't be showing up for my Sunday night flight, and this blog post is costing you up to $450 in revenues, while only costing me $49

no, it cost you $199.

No. The initial cost is a sunk cost that he has paid regardless of whether or not he takes the flight. He's already certain that he's not taking the flight, so he has only the options: [ ] Get Refund [x] Attempt to make a point

The first pays out $49; the second $0. The opportunity cost of the second in relation to the first is $49, not $199.

The questionable part of that is the $450 he claims to be costing the airline.

The opportunity cost faced by the blogger is entirely irrelevant to United though. They've gained a real $199 in revenue from him which is all their records will show; he's sacrificing a potential $49 rebate to convince himself he's depriving them of a hypothetical $450 from a most-likely-nonexistant last minute customer.

Y'all are missing another part of his value proposition - he spends, or fails to get back, $49 and in return gets something to blog about and a lot of hits.

Think there is a phrase for this -- "cutting off my nose to spite my face".

Sure, airlines are evil, but they're not this dumb about optimization of Revenue per Available Seat Mile. I'd guess this seat got filled just fine.

I said this on their thread, but I'll share it here too.

United treat's you like crap if you aren't a frequent flier.

United treat's you pretty reasonably if you are.

If you assume that the vast-majority of non-frequent fliers book solely on price, then you should skimp as much on customer service as possible, and throw no amenities (e.g. food, checked baggage) in at the base ticket price.

All of the sudden what the big airlines are doing seems rational.

If you assume that the vast-majority of non-frequent fliers book solely on price

Is that a fair assumption? I know a lot of non-frequent fliers who only fly SouthWest or Singapore, etc... These places seem to do well and have good reputations. And for people that don't travel as much, confidence in the airline often means something.

I don't actually know the data, but I wouldn't be surprised if United fared really poorly among those who don't fly often. I don't fly much, but I know enough to avoid them and Continental like the plague.

I don’t mind the downvotes -- I have to share this tangentially relevant bit because it’s so great: United Breaks Guitars http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/ubg/. Another example of customer hostility ending up costing the company.

Fantastic blog post, by the way.

He can do what he wants to do for free.

See "same day standby" and "confirmed standby": http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileage-plus/955496-un...

What about adding the traveler's insurance for an extra $50-$100 and getting 80% of your trip refunded?

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