So last Saturday at 8 pm a buddy of mine gave me a call, and told me that all BA tickets to India are available for $40 + tax = ~$500. My immediate reaction was “WHAAAT! No way!!”. After a quick search of kayak.com, this is what I saw. It was like striking a pot of gold.
Following this, I got a barrage of phone calls telling me to stop thinking and just book. Apparently news had spread amongst the entire Indian student community across all the universities in the US. Last I heard, the news was wildfire in USC, SDSU, GTech, IUB, SUNY-Buffalo, Lamar University, BU.
Take a moment and try to imagine this. Every university boasts a 100+ community of Indian students. I am sure that no student will think twice to book these tickets. No company can sustain such a loss at such ridiculous prices.
So, even when I was booking my tickets, I was sure that a couple of days later I will get a ‘cancellation’ email from BA or Orbitz. So I wasn’t too elated or jumping around and making plans in India. After selecting the prices, I was redirected to Orbitz.com, where I could ‘buy’ the tickets at the quoted price. However, every time one buys a ticket from these secondary sites, the price awaits confirmation from the parent airline.
But I went ahead and booked. $486. LAX – BOM. BA – Emirates. Haha. It was one of the most “WTF! This is ridiculous!” moments.
By night after a bit of researching I was pretty sure that my tickets would not go through. Because BA.com had updated their prices by 7PM ET and orbitz was unable to do so. So, in effect the airline would reject the prices and the entire episode will be over.
Surely enough, I got a cancellation email the very next day. I laughed
What astonishes me, is that people are mooping over their cancellation till date. One week later. A few of them are considering taking BA.com to court. How does that make sense? If BA.com charged you 15,000 for a 1500 ticket, would you be pleased about it? Wouldnt you do everything in your power to fix the error? maybe call up customer service and cuss at them for an hour, till you got you refund back, and also a compensation for ‘mental harrassment?’
People should seriously learn to let go. I am sure, when everyone was booking, everyone was expecting a cancellation. Here is where ethics come into play.
To read more about the fiasco, and BA.com’s reply, click here
What one should read is the comments page. And how cheap can people get over the whole issue. Bunch of them have gotten together and are filing a lawsuit. Yeesh!
To all those who disagree with what I said, Happy crying!
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