United Airlines

almost never fly anyone but Delta. I love Delta. But for a trip Patti and I are taking in July to Salt Lake City, Delta wanted too much money for airfare. Originally I was going to use miles, but normal miles could not be used, so I would have to use special miles which were like double normal first class miles to fly in the bathroom. So I opted out.

I decided to monitor the travel sites, like Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, daily for fares. Up until this morning, the news was not good. So this morning I saw a flight from BOS to SLC on United at a really good price. Great. I don't trust those sites, so I went to the United website to get the same airfare there and book it. Bad idea.

First, when I put in the exact same criteria that I used at Travelocity, it came up with the same exact price, which was 314 per ticket round trip. Reasonable I thought. But when I clicked on the itinerary that I wanted, the next screen said that the fare went UP in the fraction of a second and now it was almost double, to around 590. Per ticket. What the hell is going on?

So I went back and checked on another itinerary. Same crap. Fare doubled. It happened to all four options United Airlines gave me. It was bait and switch at its best. Those bastards.

So I logged out of the site, waited about half hour, and went back. Sure enough, I got the 314 price, but when I selected the itinerary, the fare jumped up again. UGHHHH.

So I made the mistake of calling United's call center. Big mistake. The first person I got could not remember the dates that I gave her a few seconds earlier. She could not get the cities correct. Language barrier. It was a painful and excruciatingly long conversation that ended up with me saying "this is not working out, I am going to hang up now."

I tried the site again and same thing. So I, determined now to beat the system, called the call center back. Mistake number two.

This time, the guy on the other end got the dates and cities correct, and quoted me the higher price. At least no bate and switch. But when I started to ask him why the website would give me an initial quote, he quickly interrupted me, cut ME off, the nerve, and said that the website cannot be relied upon for prices. No one cuts Dave off when he is complaining. No one. GREAT!! Good thing United Airlines technology is current with its online offering.

So I hung up on the guy. Last thing I wanted was a lecture.

I ended up booking through Travelocity which gave me the lower price. Wish me luck, first time I did something like that.

Thought I'd share.