Flyer Beware


Our flight to Sardinia was approaching, and I received an email informing me that Meridiana Airlines had no facilities at Da Vinci Airport—I should check in online. I logged on and went through the web check in steps. The little spinning beach ball of death on my laptop turned and turned. Then a message appeared: try later or phone the airport call center to confirm.

A couple hours later I made another attempt, with the same result. “Ah, well,” I told Gauss, “It looks like the website’s down, let’s try again tomorrow.” We turned in for the night and the next morning trotted off to Rome to visit the Coliseum.  When we returned that afternoon, we tried again to check in online. The website was still down.

Gauss called the airline and explained the problem. “I can’t check you in here,” the agent told him, “You’ll have to use the website.”

“But I WAS using the website,” Gauss replied, exasperated, “That’s why I called you!”

“I’m sorry the website isn’t working, it doesn’t work for us either,” she said. “You’ll have to phone the call center.” She gave us a number.

Gauss took out the cell phone we’d charged up in Rome two days before. It had almost 250 minutes of airtime on it. He dialed the number. Less than a minute after connecting, the phone beeped and displayed this message: “No airtime remains.”

What had happened? He had made perhaps five calls on it, one to his parents in the states, and that was included in the price.

“I thought those calls to the States were only about 10 cents a minute,” he said to me. But maybe I was wrong. Can I use yours?”

I had made two calls on my phone, both within Rome, and both lasting less than five minutes. He dialed the number, and again, thirty seconds into the call, my phone beeped. Now mine was out of minutes, too. Luciana offered to use her land line, and was able to connect. “I got a message that this call will cost two euros per minute, even while I am on hold,” she told us, “For a cell phone the price is much more.” After about three minutes, she connected with an agent, who confirmed our flight.

Once we arrived in Sardinia and compared notes with Gauss's cousin, we discovered that this is standard practice for Meridiana, and the reason they always recommend using EasyJet.

We were furious. What kind of racket was this?


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