Why the hell does pretty much every “online airfare search” in English require you to fly out from a US city? Thank you for assuming that because I speak English I live in the United States. The ones that don’t, well they have options for “my dates are flexible”– you know, so you can fly at a time of year that isn’t peak. Except that, again, it only works if you’re flying within the United States. Fantastic, guys. Bang up job of telling me this BEFORE I fill out all this information.
Assholes.
For the record, I want to fly from Sendai to Seoul (which means Incheon airport). Someone had mentioned that roundtrip fares were in the range of 30000 to 40000 yen roundtrip in non-peak season. This is peak season (summer vacation) so I expect prices to jump up about 15000 yen. But the price the travel agent quoted me was downright ridiculous (69000) so I wanted to do some comparisons on my own.
The cheapest airline turns out to be Asiana airlines. Flights out on the days I had selected before (leaving on a Friday) were rather expensive, but if I leave on a Thursday the price drops down to about 52000 yen (slightly more on the US site because of taxes, fees, and conversion; but not much). Great! I dig through the Japanese trying to find the “make reservation” button… and then I see it, in red letters. Translation: “As the online reservation time for this flight has expired, you cannot make a reservation”. What the hell? Expired???! Do you NOT want me to buy your plane tickets? Assholes!
Rummaging through the rest of the site, I finally dug up a reasonable fare that I could actually book; the one leaving on Thursday was notably cheaper. Called the travel guy back up, and he told me if I changed the dates it would indeed be cheaper, but not as cheap as on the site (because of some added “environment and airport fees”). I told him I’d think about it, and then checked the Asiana site again. Sure enough, as soon as I hit “checkout” the extra SIX THOUSAND YEN worth of fees get tacked on. I believe that’s called “bait and switch.” ASSHOLES!
I called back the travel agent and made the booking. Through this whole ordeal, he was not an asshole. So while it was still a bit more than I wanted to pay, I gave him my business.
What a real pain!!!
angry much?
Righteous anger is always acceptable.
Did you consider travelling to Tokyo and flying out of Narita or Haneda? Could be cheaper.
Yeah, I looked. It’s not really any cheaper. With shink tickets plus a train to the airport I think it was the same price (and adds an extra couple hours to my journey).