Wednesday, November 21, 2001
The airlines need to play an especially ruthless game of chicken with their customers since a seat on Flight 3206 from Miami to Chicago, unlike a washing machine, becomes worthless if it isn’t sold in time. So as every flight gets nearer, the airline is willing to accept less and less at the very time some of its passengers are willing to pay more and more. The infuriating rules about Saturday night stayovers and so on are a crude alternative to administering truth serum and asking, “So how much are you really willing to pay?”
This is an excerpt from Consuming Gets Complicated, a link I discovered on the consistently excellent blog Follow Me Here …. The essay makes a reference to how capitalism equates to a game of chicken between the consumer and the seller. A wealth of information on this type of situation, and how often it occurs in everyday life, can be found by reading Prisoner’s Dilemma by William Poundstone. It’s really a fascinating book and I highly recommend it.
Saturday, October 13, 2001
Can we just talk for a second about how much I hate United Airlines? I would really like to buy a ticket from them. And I want to do it right now. They send me personalized eMails with special discount rates because I’m a “Mileage Plus” member. But y’know what? I can’t. Do you know why I can’t? I can’t because I don’t know my “Mileage Plus” account number. That is just idiotic.
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Wednesday, October 10, 2001
Orbitz is having a Fall Getaway Sale with fares from $68-$178 r/t. There have been all kinds of great deals lately on airfare, but this is definitely the time to be buying tickets …
Thursday, August 9, 2001
Yesterday Leia told us that American Airlines had a big 24-Hour sale at Yahoo!Travel. Starting today Northwest Airlines is having a 48-Hour sale at Orbitz. Maybe on Saturday Delta will have a 72-hour sale at Priceline.com. Or something.
Friday, December 22, 2000
My boss was concerned that my flight might be cancelled because of an airline pilot strike in Atlanta (or something like that). I used the handy Delta Air Lines flight-lookup thingamajiggy and was told that flight 1886 is a-ok. And I learned that I’ll be on a Lockheed TriStar L1011-1. My boss, who is also a pilot, tells me that this is a huge plane. A monstrous plane. A great, big plane. Plus, I get dinner and a movie! (I hope it’s not Bounce.)
Friday, December 22, 2000
