I love the interwebs. It is a wonderful invention that has revolutionized the way that we live our lives. For example, it makes it possible for you to hear me rant without having to go through the horrendous experience of interacting with me. Every day I am grateful for the internet's presence if for no other reason than it decreases the amount of people I have to talk to. I can order food without having to repeat my address 15 times to the old Chinese woman taking my order. I can shit talk to anonymous housewives as much as I want as I destroy them in Scrabble. And most importantly, when I want to buy something I only have to click 3 or 4 buttons and it's done. Our lives have become infinitely easier, that is, until you need to book a flight for Thanksgiving.
I was trying to find a way to get to Atlanta so that Nora and I can consume mass quantities of Turducken with my family. The cheapest flights were on Travelocity. Last night I tried to book a flight. Normally this is a 5 minute process. I click through, find a decent deal, proceed to get ready to purchase and then the first warning sign appears. Travelocity automatically signs you up for the "traveler's insurance" bullshit, thus making it $25 more expensive. There is no incident known to man that is actually covered by this scam. If my whole family was murdered by one of the tigers that got lose in Ohio and I had to cancel my flight I wouldn't get my money back, they would pull some made up loophole about how the insurance only covers murders by humans or some nonsense. So, Travelocity hasn't even begun to screw me yet and I'm already seething. After going back and unclicking the insurance nonsense I proceed. Finally I hit the last button and the tickets should be purchased. . .
Nope. Fail. I am told that there is a problem with my credit card number. I check all the numbers, which I have memorized because I love racking up debt, and they are correct. The address is correct. Everything is correct so I try to purchase again. Nope. Won't go through because of a credit card problem. I figure my card is being a jerk, as it is wont to do, and I call the credit card company while Nora attempts to buy her ticket. I finally talk to a woman with a very heavy Indian accent with the name "LaRonda," which is totally rad, and she tells me that there is no problem with my card. The only problem with my card is that Travelocity attempted to charge it 5 TIMES, all of which were approved. 5 times? If it had been twice I would have understood since I attempted to purchase tickets twice, but 5 times? That seems arbitrary. It is around this time that I have decided to find Mr. and Mrs. Travelocity and to pay them a little visit. Of course this isn't possible because: A. There is no Mr. and Mrs. Travelocity. B. If there was they probably live far away and I don't have a car. and C. My beloved internet anonymity has made it so I can't put a face to those who are causing me problems. Curses!
It turns out that while I was contemplating my bloody vengeance that Nora had the exact same crap happen when she tried. DAMNATION. We give up for the night and I return to battle this morning hoping that it was just a glitch. (I know what you are thinking, why not use another site? Because Travelocity was cheaper than anywhere else and I am a notorious tightwad.) Things progressed the same as last night; they tried the insurance scam, I thwarted them, I entered everything in, said a prayer to St Jude, and hit submit. This time my credit card worked but one of the flights was sold out. OK, I can deal with this. It sends me back to chose a flight. All of the outgoing flights are the same so I pick the same one and assume my return flight is the one that was sold out. All of the return flights are the same. So I pick the same one again figuring it was just lying. I'm told one was sold out. Argh. If one of them was sold out why the hell would it still be an option?! Some of this is on me though so I pick different flights each way. Sold out. I pick even more different flights, sold out. EVERYTHING IS SOLD OUT. Why the hell doesn't Travelocity just say that they are sold out instead of listing all these mythical flights that I could be taking?
My original vengeance dream for Mr. and Mrs. Travelocity was similar to the scene in Christmas Vacation, you know, maybe rough them up a little and tell them what assholes they are and then move on. The thoughts going through my head by now are much more similar to Kevin Spacey in Seven, specifically the Lust situation. I was ready to strap on that device and go to town on them. If you've seen the movie you'll get the reference, if you haven't you don't want to know, trust me. Basically I wanted to stab a puppy, I was that furious. I was ready to give up. Travelocity had won. I wasn't going to see my family, I wasn't going to eat my weight in Turducken. I had fought the good fight but fell just short. There was no where else to turn, right?
WRONG! This is the frickin' internet, there are 10,000 sites to buy plane tickets at. So I went to Expedia. I paid $10 more per ticket and it took 4 minutes. It was glorious. No puppies were stabbed.
tl;dr - Travelocity is the worst company in the history of business.
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