Traveling and Funerals

Let's get one thing straight: all you deceitful people out there are making it tough for honest people (here, read: Me) trying to make the most out of compassionate people; or, you large corporations are compassion-less jerks that deserve to have something horrible happen to you so that you can see how expensive and complicated it can be to travel at a moment's notice.

This morning I woke to find that, after 90 amazing years, my Grandmother passed away. I was faced with a choice: travel home for the funeral, having only been in Aberystwyth for a week; or, stay in Aberystwyth. It really didn't take long to make that decision: go home. My Grandma was one of the most important people in my life, and nothing short of a personal goodbye would let me sleep comfortably. If nothing else, I owe her for reading this blog so steadily.

After a quick pow-wow with my Mom, I went right to the United website to book a flight. I wanted to book a Compassion Fare, since this was not a whimsical trip. Having flown United previously (see earlier blogs), I knew that a roundtrip ticket to Chicago should cost a certain amount. When I logged in to see that price was more than DOUBLE what I had paid not even two months ago (because the time between my flight and my booking was less than a day), I was livid. With the number of empty seats on the last flight, you would think that United would be keen to sell a Sunday flight. The prices on the screen were certainly prohibitive against last-minute travel.

So I tried to call someone to ask if I could get a better price, considering the circumstances. The United International Customer Service line is nothing short of the most annoying thing on the planet. There are no number options, and the interface is entirely audible. After navigating through the menus, I was told to say "Customer Relations" for customer relations. When I did so, I was told to go back to the website to leave a comment or complaint, and that was that. No option to talk to a person. So I tried to book a flight, thinking that certainly would drop me at a booking agent. Evidently not. An automated service offered to book me a return flight for $500, and I got excited. I went back to the website to book that flight and could not find it. This seemed odd to me, but I figured I would call again. After again going through all the menus ("Reservations"..."No"..."No"....etc.), I got to the automated booking agent and tried to get that $500 ticket price. Nothing doing. Evidently it was a phantom price.

By this point I was getting quite frustrated, and was cutting that automated machine short so that I could get through this process faster. The machine kept getting my responses confused until I was eventually transferred to a real person. This person quoted me a price at $300 more than the internet, which I guess was a booking fee. I told him that I was needed to get back for a funeral, and he said the most he could save me was %10.

Again, I wonder why the ticket is so much more now. I get that last minute purchases generally tend to cost more because the company is capitolizing off of the desperateness of people who fail to plan. But I didn't plan for my Grandma to die, and I felt pretty annoyed that United was trying to capitalize off my grief-driven need to get home.

I hung up and started looking for a cheap fare through the discount sites. After all, according to the commercials, these sites are making money off the desperate need of airlines to sell their seats. None of these sites were offering anything much better. I found a Swiss Air flight with a lay-over in Zurich for just about double what I paid for a direct flight to Chicago a month previous.

This flight is going to leave tomorrow at 8:40 AM for Zurich. This means that I needed a hotel room for night, as no trains get to Birmingham by 7:00 AM at the latest (the first train would get to the airport just as the flight was leaving). That's another 45 GBP at the cheapest hotel around the airport (which does allow me to walk, but still...). Here again, the hotel knows that I need this, so they know they can charge what they need to: 45 for the room, 5 for breakfast, 3 for this WiFi usage. Everything has a price tag. I haven't checked the shower yet, but if it was coin operated, I wouldn't be surprised.

All in all, I find this to be very annoying. It might be that my emotions are rubbed raw by the loss of a very important family member, or that I am really starting to turn into the dirty-hippie that I always and openly mock, but I am starting to wonder about this whole capitalism thing. It might be better to base our monetary interactions on compassion for our fellow man, and not the Almighty Dollar. That would require all of us to be a little more honest with one another, but really that can't hurt in the end.