After spending hours yesterday and today planning a trip, I decide to book it via American Airlines. Their webpage was the easist to use and although the not the cheapest flight there was only one hotel needed for connections and not two. The result being that the overall trip cost and time was less.Ok, time to make the reservation and I should have remebered from before. Since the flight shown was on American Airlines, LAN Peru and Copa/Aerorepublica, American doesn't allow you to make a reservational online and instead says:
Reservations containing one or more flights on airlines other than American Airlines, American Eagle and AmericanConnection must be purchased at time of booking and may not qualify for electronic tickets. Please select Purchase at the bottom of the page.
Now this gets into a stickly situation where they will require these paper tickets to be sent to my office in the United States (half way around the world) as that is where my credit card is billed.
Now the tickets can't possibly arrive by the time the flight is scheduled for. What is the purpose of these paper tickets but to offer frustration?
I just want to make the reservation and then PAY at their local office. Quick, and easy for me, and no hassles for the traveller who obviously won't be travelling with my credit card.
Last time I called reservations the ticket price was much higher. Today, although the 800# for reservations said that there is a $10 fee for make reservations via the telephone, no one actually answers the phone. In my country, the American Airlines office phone goes to voice mail.
So, I can't say how much higher in price the ticket will be making the reservation by phone besides the $10 fee.
Finally, someone answered at the local American Airlines office. The price quoted by aa.com was $704+ $91.10 taxes for a total of $795.10. The American Airlines office quoted $2317 (and I'm not worried whether that was with or without taxes). By my calculation the price for reserving by telephone is about $1522 more than online. I might not be very good at math, but I think that is a whee bit more than $10!
The most important aspect of doing business is providing a viable means for your customer to PAY YOU! I have $800 in my pocket ready to give to American Airlines. All they have to do is let me pay them!
Unfortunate for the investors in American Airlines, my money will be going to their competition this time... and maybe next time!
