I’m shopping at American for flights from SFO to LAX, and they have a variety of non-stops for fifty-nine bucks. But what’s bizarre is that they offer one-stops as well (e.g., through Seattle, or Dallas). And they only charge four hundred bucks for them. How many people buy one? You have to really want the miles, and like riding in airplanes. I wonder if it’s just an artifact of their reservations software, that no one has bothered to fix? Or if they’ve ever actually sold one?
4 thoughts on “A Strange Product”
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if you make the 2nd leg late enough, you could fly into dallas or wherever, go to a meeting then continue on. I had a flight that stopped in amsterdam and I managed to combine a side trip to sign a contract. it only worked because the taxi driver waited for me and brought me right back to the terminal. maybe far-fetched for dallas though.
When I was flying between South Carolina and Florida, it was something like 490 miles, and the airlines still had a 500-leg minimum.
For an extra hour or so’s worth of time, I could fly to Charlotte, and then back south, for $10 or so more, and get 1000 miles instead of the actual amount, which was about 550. You instantly get double mileage. Makes the freebies come faster. Since I was going home for the weekend, I didn’t ever check anything, and I didn’t bring any clothes or anything like that; all i carried was a laptop and a book or two. Eliminates a lot of delays.
Now, $400 vs $59 as well as not getting the extra miles (they stopped the 500-mile-per-segment minimum, IIRC, late last year) doesn’t make sense, except maybe the way Joe suggests.
Maximizing your carbon footprint?
Hmm. I suspect it is an artifact of:
1. Existing flight schedules.
2. Software that looks for possible combinations.
The total price is the sum of the individual leg prices (or based thereon).
I suspect it is NOT a human-intended option. Computer overlord-intended? Quite possibly. Or perhaps Dilbert’s boss intends them, too. But he isn’t human. I don’t think.