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Pamarlast Saturday at 10:01 AM4 repliesview on HN

This is just an oversimplification though. If you had any experience about travel industry (or logistics) you would understand things much better.

Here is an example for you (from logistics): Sending a truck from Berlin to - say - Györ may cost 3 times less than sending the same truck from Györ to Berlin - even on the same exact date.

Is this because shipping companies try to make money out of nothing, for you?


Replies

nothrabannosirlast Saturday at 10:20 AM

A fair comparison would not be the return, but Berlin-Györ being more expensive than Vilnius-Berlin-Györ. Is that common in logistics, in your experience?

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freehorselast Saturday at 12:55 PM

And what is the actual explanation that actually makes sense (apart from profit increase)?

I have booked flights A->B->C and got down at B because that was cheaper than booking A->B only. Not sure where this all makes sense at all.

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xingpedlast Saturday at 10:20 AM

I think that's a misrepresentation though because A to B is not a subset of B to A. Whereas B to C is a subset of A to B to C.

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oleggromovlast Saturday at 11:28 AM

Of course I can understand it from their point of view. But this doesn't make it any more sensible to me as a consumer of their services.

In the aforementioned situation I wasn't trying to exploit the airline, it was a simple mistake that happened and could be easily alleviated. But the rigid processes, precisely the ones where accountability sinks, made it impossible for the humans involved to correct the mistake.

I still stand by the ridiculousness of that. If not the logistics quirks per se, then the fact that this completely unrelated matter dictated the resolution of the situation against common sense and my interest.

What makes this even worse is that presumably the PR department of that very company had to be involved later and they still spent their employees' time and money to compensate me for the mistake that could be corrected for free.