Guest Blogger: Mike Burns (or, why do I do this to myself?)
My friend Mike Burns had something to say, and he wondered if martyholman.com was the place he could share his thoughts on the subject. Since Burns is too busy making things happen to blog, I figured this would be a great forum for his concerns. So, meet Mike Burns:
“Am I the only one that gets screwed by airline companies?
It seems every time I book a flight, I pay on average 30% more than anyone else
I ever talk to. Everyone tells me about really cheap flights, but they never
seem to fly to or from cities I need. So I try to book a normalish flight, and
end up paying through the nose, only to find out that had I waited two weeks or
something, I could have saved 30-50%. Case in point:
My sister planned to get married in November of 2009, and told me in December of
2008, so I thought I’d get a really good deal by booking right away. So I paid
€560. Not bad considering the last flight I booked to the US for €750. My
friend recently visited from Boston and flew to Frankfurt, essentially the same
flight path I take, and paid US$400. So I looked into these new prices, and
found that after 6 months, my flight was now down to €360. So I instantly
tried to cancel and re-book. But then I found out about the €150 cancellation
fee, which means in the end, I only save €50 on what looks like a €200 savings.
On top of that, it takes up to 6 weeks to get the money back, and in the
meantime, I need to re-book the flight. So I have to wait till the end of the
month to re-book when I get a new credit limit (Germany’s credit card system is
strange, to say the least. You get a credit each month, but at the end of each
month, whatever you paid with the credit card is taken from your bank account
automatically.)
Edited with love by Marty Holman
Related posts:
Half of this is psychological, I think. Whenever you say “I just spent X on a flight to Y” Nobody who speaks up is likely to say, “Wow, I paid twice as much.” There’s this half-bragging thing that goes on. So by definition the only people who speak up are the people who got it cheaper than you.
good point Jeff.
Try flying 4 kids around with you Mike. Talk about getting screwed.
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