Cars and Boston Cremes

Friday, July 14, 2006

Airline Rant

A while ago I read several really great airline rants on Tiffany's blog (known to the rest of the world as Your Highness) and lucky me, I've had such a great experience recently, that I feel qualified to write one of my own.

Qantas says they can get me to Adelaide for $301. Yay. I put in the dates and things and press "Search". Wow, look at that. Darwin to Adelaide via Sydney is $666. That's a great number for a return flight, too bad it's one-way.
I call them. She says she can't get me on a flight for the day I want. Well then why am I looking at my computer which is telling me that they can not only get me on it, but also relieve me of some of lots of my hard-earned cash? Oh wait, she can get me on the flight. Even on the day I want. And I get to fly business. For $301? Oh no, for $1200. Twelve hundreed bucks? I don't think so. She could get me a cheaper seat? Next September. Gee, thanks but no thanks.

VirginBlue made no initial promises, which is good, as the best they can do is $585 via Brisbane or Melbourne.

To fly Qantas from Darwin to Alice Springs is the low, low price of $266. Cool. Unfortunately, Alice to Adelaide is $497. And, if you are totally desperate and stranded in Alice Springs and all the other seats are booked, they can offer you Alice to Adelaide via Melbourne and Sydney - yes, in that order - for just $1800. They do realise you could fly around the world for that amount of money right? Forget Adelaide babe, let's go to Hawaii.

I decide on Virgin, even though the crazy cheerful zany people on my flight will probably cause me to lose my lunch. Hang on, I don't get any. Never mind.
So, the flight is $587. Wasn't it $585? Well, since I used a credit card to pay for it (how do they want me to pay for it? Large denomination bills which I hand to them out of a bag with a big dollar sign on it?) they're charging me $1.82. Taxes is $53.64. And the flight is $460.91.* All these 'random' numbers add up a perfectly round $587.00. A perfectly large number.

What if I go via Peru? Would that be better for you?

I hear it costs almost nothing to go to Singapore these days. Maybe Darwin to Adelaide on Singapore Airlines would be a better option. No really.

*Actually, the petrol bill is $400.00 of that, the flight only cost $60.91.