I had one of the most profoundly unsatisfying experiences with United Airlines and Orbitz yesterday.

See, when I booked my flight home to Oregon, I booked it all the way to Redmond. Then, several days later, I decided I would rather fly to Portland, stay a couple days, and then drive down to Bend with some friends.

One would think that all this would require is notifying the airline that I would like to have my bag taken off the plane in Portland, and that they are free to go ahead and sell that seat to someone else. But OH NO! Not that easy. If I want to stay in Portland, I have to PAY THEM an extra $350! Can you even fucking believe that shit?

The reasoning behind it is even more retarded. See, what they do, is instead of canceling just that particular flight off of my itinerary, THEY REBOOK THE ENTIRE TRIP, at whatever price is the current going rate. Well, it turns out the current going rate is $250 more than it was when I first booked, and then they charge a $100 change fee on top of that.

I already PAID for the entire fare, all the way to Redmond, all I want is to NOT fly on part of it. They can keep my money for that leg of the flight, and resell the seat to someone else that they are screwing. But no. It costs $350 to not fly on that flight that I already paid for.

Now, here’s the real kicker. Right now, I can book a flight from Redmond, back to Portland on the 22nd, which departs out of Redmond 1 hour after I arrive, for $94! WHAT THE FUCK!?!?

I’m simply dumbfounded, and well, hateful.

So my plan as it stands right now is to go to the airport on the 22nd, and while checking in explain to the nice ticket person my situation. If they tell me it costs me $350 to change it, I’ll just tell them I want a one way ticket from Redmond to Portland that departs as close to my arrival time in Redmond as possible. I’ll then lead the ticket person right along the convoluted illogical path I’ve been on for the last day. And if I get lucky, they’ll take pity on me and give me a break and just let me not fly from Portland to Redmond in the first place. I know they can do it…the ticket counter people have all the power. If it doesn’t work in Hartford, I’ll try again when I’m in Chicago. If it doesn’t work there, I’ll make a last ditch effort in Portland, and if it still doesn’t work, I’ll go ahead and buy the ticket from Redmond back to Portland, and fly back and forth, drinking their free micro brew and fuming with rage.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 10:02 am and is filed under Life, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.