*long-winded consumer story ahead*
Tonight I booked an airline ticket on Aeroplan points, after looking at all the different options for a few days. I have used the site pretty regularly for years, so I’m familiar with the functionality of the reservation screens. Aeroplan has this “compare flights” widget on the sidebar where you can store the flight(s) you’d like to compare as you browse others. Once I was satisfied that I’d shopped around enough, I went to the sidebar where I’d stored my (one) flight preference, reviewed it, and clicked on “book flight”.
I’m very consistent about reviewing flight details before I book, because I generally book nonrefundable tickets and the consequences of making a mistake are costly. Internationally, my itineraries are quite complicated and I have to reserve flights in a particular order with contingency timing built in to make the whole agenda work. By the time I reach a decision I’ve looked at pages and pages of flights and it’s easy to make a mistake because all the info looks similar. Before I put in my credit card information I even open up a new browser window and run the search criteria through one more time to make sure I’ve got exactly what I want. Sometimes I make a cup of tea just for a quick mental break and having the second browser window open means if the website gives me a time-out error at the first window at least I have the second one.
Anal, perhaps? Yes, when it comes to spending money — I want to spend it deliberately, not over a silly mistake!
I went all the way through the booking process — and this is where Air Canada is remiss in not having the flight details showing in a separate frame or on the sidebar where it is always visible during the payment process — and once I reached the final page with the confirmation number and final details I, in my typically anal way, reviewed the details once more and noticed AEROPLAN BOOKED ME ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RETURN FLIGHT.
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