Road Warrior column: Read it quickly before something else changes (Winging It)

Road Warrior column: Read it quickly before something else changes

We've had such a hectic day we're just now getting to posting this morning's Road Warrior column, and guess what? Since we wrote it last Friday, United raised its fee for making a change to a domestic ticket from $100 to $150. We saw scattered news reports on it today, but nothing yet from our usual source, Associated Press. And United has nothing on its Website that's easy to find. We will try to add more information this week. Find today's column here.

Posted by Tom Belden on April 21, 2008 5:27 PM | Permalink

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Comments (1)

Alex Wong:

Try flying the odd route of PHL to SJC (San Jose) or even SFO. I started flying this route in 2002 after relocating here from the San Francisco Bay Area and could write a few paragraphs about the many changes over the years. But I only wanted to highlight these observations:

- The USAir/America West merger was a bust IMHO. I was flying America West because of price and availability (pretty consistent thru Phoenix & Las Vegas) but after the merger, their online systems are still not in-sync. Checking in online is a must and there are still segments where you aren't able to do a seat selection. How many years ago was the merger?! I also used to be able to get a pretty decent fare taking a non-stop to SFO..."decent" these days does not exist; it is cheaper to fly with 1-stop somewhere to SJC.

- The American baggage folks at PHL get kudos from me. My bag has often come out onto the carousel the same time I walk up to it. I think the longest I've had to wait was 10 minutes. On two occasions, the bag was out already!

- American has routes either thru ORD or DAL which helps on choice. United does as well but routes thru LAX and IAD also come up although the stop-over is on the 3.5+ hour range. I tried Delta a few times a couple of years ago and flying thru Atlanta wasn't working for me.

As for stiffing the passenger with additional fees, I'm not sure how else these airlines can stay afloat. Companies sending employees abroad are braced for higher travel costs but I can see the demand from vacationers going down.

Posted by Alex Wong | April 22, 2008 8:15 AM

Posted on April 22, 2008 08:15

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