The Bad Web Design cardio workout.

[rivka]

My mother e-mailed to ask precisely when we'll be arriving in Colorado for the family vacation next month. I didn't know offhand, so I pulled up Travelocity to check the reservation I made last May.

There it was, under "saved itineraries" - BWI to DEN. I clicked "select this itinerary" and my eyes immediately jumped to this terrifying sentence: "price not guaranteed until tickets are purchased."

Price not guaranteed? For the vacation I'm taking in less than three weeks? The one I thought I'd bought tickets for months ago? My heart leapt into my throat.

I clicked on a button that offered to update the pricing for me... to well over a thousand dollars. My rental car reservation was nowhere to be found, and I'd made that at a special discount rate as well. Now my heart was pounding.

I clicked back over to the "My Stuff" section of Travelocity in the dumb hope that it would say something about "what to do if you have somehow completely screwed up your travel plans." And there was another section I'd missed before: "Purchased trip/reservation." Listing my purchased trip to Denver, CO.

It turns out that when you book a trip, they add it to the "reservations" section without removing it from "saved itineraries." They simultaneously keep a record of the trip as hypothetical and unpaid-for, and as booked and paid-for. Because sending customers' heart rates through the roof is so good for cardiovascular health.

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, believe me, I was flappable. I almost paid for the tickets again.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Heh, I realised that you had been upset by your wording. But, nonetheless, you recovered from it by the sounds of things fairly quickly. I know people, some of whom are not particularly unstable normally, who would've had a complete meltdown.