US Airways Positive Spin on Price Gauging

[WB2YGF]

$15 for the first checked bag + $5 surcharge if you don't pay in advance online!!  Are they on crack?

Just got this email:

Subject: Coming soon! Pay for checked bags online


Checking bags? Pay online. It's worth it!

Save time and money when you check in online. Beginning July 9, 2009, you'll be able to pay for checked bags when you check in online – $15 for your first checked bag and $25 for your second. For customers who choose to pay for checked bags at the airport, there will be an additional $5 service fee, so save a few when you check in online!
 

[W2PFY]

Yes and they were talking about pay toilets too. I would have to give one well known airline credit for innovation, It seems to work like this: While you in the john and after you have finished your business, you have an option for added money of course, to swipe a credit card and your waste will be fired right out of the top of the airplane by rocket into orbit. Then you can point out to all your friends, Look, that's my sH*t up there 

[WB3JOK]

Remember, this is the airline that also started charging $2 for sodas... when no one bought them, and the other airlines didn't follow suit, they reluctantly rescinded it.

They are also granting me "exciting new benefits" by changing my USAir miles Visa to a Mastercard involuntarily (which many merchants in Europe won't accept because the fees are much higher). Not only that, it's happening while I will be in Greece this June and therefore unable to receive, let alone activate, the new card. The old one will be summarily cut off on 23 June, right in the middle of my vacation.

And just to add to the aggravation, I have the Visa card number on all my automatic bill payments - and the new card will have a completely different 16-digit number.

Reminds me of "Cool Hand Luke": "I wish you wouldn't be so good to me, Cap'n".
 

[WB2YGF]

Heh, they were already on my S**T list from my last trip from Las Vegas.  I had to get up at 3AM to catch the flight home.  I had just enough time to catch the flight.  Bad enough, you have to pay for a breakfast "snack".  By the time the stewardess got back to my row, they ran out.  When I complainrd, she said I should have planned ahead and eaten breakfast before boarding.

[W1RKW]

The last US Dareways trip I took was the trip from hell.  I took a business trip a number of years ago, ended up getting stranded and separated from $70K worth of electronic equipment when flying into DC because of night time flight ordinances (the airport shutdown at 9PM).  Passengers are lied to. They say the aircraft has mechanical problems but we find out 2 hours later that they couldn't get a pilot to fly the aircraft.

So I 'm stuck in DC. My equipment is who knows where.  I'm put up in a hotel with a neighbor who hasn't had sex in 10 years and is banging the headboard of the bed up against my wall all night long.  I haven't eaten because the dining room in the hotel was closed.  I get up at 5AM after zero hours of sleep to catch a flight to NYC with no breakfast from the hotel or airline.  Now I'm as cranky as one can get and they tell me there's a delay in my flight to CT. I hit the ceiling.

To make a long story short. I meet up with my equipment in CT and go home and eat and sleep. Complained to the airline which was a waste of time.  Never been on US Dareways again since.

[Jim, W5JO]

Fly Southwest

[WB3JOK]

The last US Dareways trip I took was the trip from hell. 
<snip>
Passengers are lied to.
<snip>
Complained to the airline which was a waste of time. 

I have had several trips on Useless Airways like this. Your comments are perfectly on target. Including the attitude of the stewardesses.

Fly Southwest

If only I could. But when working in Presque Isle (the extreme Northeast) I made about 32 round trips up there... and of course the only airline that goes there is Colgan, a subsidiary of you-know-who.