The airlines continue to plague us with confusing and ever-elusive airfares. This humorous conversation sheds light on my everyday frustration.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
If airlines were in the business of selling paint, the conversation would go like this:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cHi. How much is your paint?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cWell, sir, that all depends.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cDepends on what?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cActually, a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cHow about giving me an average price?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cWow, that\u2019s too hard a question. The lowest price is $9 a gallon, and we have 150 different prices up to $200 a gallon.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference in the paint?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cOh, there isn\u2019t any difference, it\u2019s all the same paint.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cWell, then, I\u2019d like some of that $9 paint.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cWell, first I need to ask you a few questions. When do you intend to use it?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cI want to paint tomorrow, on my day off.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cSir, the paint for tomorrow is the $200 paint.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cWhat? When would I have to paint in order to get $9 paint?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cThat would be in three weeks, but you will also have to agree to start painting before Friday of that week and continue painting until at least Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding!\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cSir, we don\u2019t kid around here. Of course, I\u2019ll have to check to see if we have any of that paint available before I can sell it to you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cWhat do you mean, check to see if you can sell it to me? You have shelves full of that stuff; I can see it right there.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cJust because you can see it doesn\u2019t mean that we have it. It may be the same paint, but we sell only a certain number of gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by the way, the price just went up to $12.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cYou mean the price went up while we were talking?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cYes sir. You see, we change prices and rules thousands of times a day, and since you haven\u2019t actually walked out of the store with your paint yet, we just decided to change. Unless you want the same thing to happen again, I would suggest you get on with your purchase. How many gallons do you want?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly. Maybe five gallons. Maybe I should buy six gallons just to make sure I have enough.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cOh, no sir, you can\u2019t do that. If you buy the paint and then don\u2019t use it, you will be liable for penalties and possible confiscation of the paint you already have.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk: \u201cThat\u2019s right. We can sell you enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom, hall, and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do the other bedroom, you will be in violation of our tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cBut what does it matter to you whether I use all of the paint? I already paid you for it!\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk: \u201cSir, there\u2019s no point in getting upset; that\u2019s just the way it is. We make plans based upon the idea that you will use all of the paint, and when you don\u2019t, it just causes us all sorts of problems.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cThis is crazy! I suppose something terrible will happen if I don\u2019t keep painting until Sunday, right?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk:\u00a0\u201cYes sir, it will.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Customer: \u201cWell, that does it! I am going somewhere else to buy paint!\u201d<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
Clerk: \u201cThat won\u2019t do you any good, sir. We all have the same rules. You might as well just buy it here, while the price is now $13.50 \u2026 Thanks for flying \u2013 I mean painting \u2013 with our airline!\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The airlines continue to plague us with confusing and ever-elusive airfares. This humorous conversation sheds light on my everyday frustration. If airlines were in the business of selling paint, the conversation would go like this: Customer: \u201cHi. How much is your paint?\u201d Clerk:\u00a0\u201cWell, sir, that all depends.\u201d Customer: \u201cDepends on what?\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":698,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions\/698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomtravelllc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}