Boycott AirTran! Boycott AirTran!

Back in December, Eddie and I set our sights on Aruba. Because no one from Air Tran informed us that our flight had been canceled until after we were in Georgia in a rented car on our way to his sister's house after taking a later flight (very helpful), Air Tran granted us two free tickets to anywhere they fly. We chose one of the more expensive trips and a destination that offered paradise.

We looked at the calendar and chose several options over the summer for when we could go. The airline flies to and from Aruba on Saturdays only. We would have to stay a week. We could live with that.

So Eddie called to book a flight. No seats were open. He tried another date. No seats were available. Again and again, he tried to book a flight and they were all booked. Then he asked the woman, what's up?

The woman was honest. She said that the flights aren't full. What happens is that they wait until the last minute to allow people to use vouchers to book seats on a flight in the hopes that people will buy seats instead of getting them for free. So we would have to wait until like the day before to book a flight to Aruba, which means we would have to book a hotel for more money or lose a deposit on a hotel that we could cancel.

So, to be clear: Air Tran fucked up. They gave us "free tickets," also known as vouchers, to make up for it. And now they are limiting the way in which we can use the vouchers.

Basically, it's like saying, I give you these flowers because I fucked up, but you can't show them to anyone else and you need to put them in a yellow vase only and you have to display them on a table no taller than three feet high and only in a room with shag carpeting.

Or

Here's a dollar to make up for my screw up. You can use it to buy yarn, nothing else.

Air. Tran. Sucks.

The siuation left the practical me in shambles. I didn't want to risk losing money on a hotel in such a fashion. Eddie suggested we go somewhere else, but no matter how near or far we go, we're stuck with the same situation. The only place we could go without my worrying is back to Georgia where we can stay with his sister and not have a hotel involved. Plus, I was now paranoid that they would bump us from a flight if paying customers arrived. While being stuck in Aruba for an extra week would be wonderful (as they fly in and out only one day a week), we can't afford a two week stay in paradise. We can't afford a two week stay anywhere. Except for his sister's house, but they have more flights in and out of Georgia, so we wouldn't be stuck for long.




That doesn't make up for it. Air Tran needs to go to its grandmother's house and learn some good old fashioned courtesy.