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DAVID BENTLEY'S WEEKLY COLUMN |
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TOO MANY CHOICES
I don’t travel often. When I do, it’s generally by ferry and/or automobile. So when I recently decided to arrange a trip by plane, you can imagine my surprise and consternation. As computer literate as I am, negotiating the world of electronic airline tickets almost did me in. The task seemed fairly simple: enter departure and return dates, list the cities of origination and destination, tell how many passengers, and then press a button. Unfortunately nothing is as simple as it seems anymore. After entering this information, I was presented with 37 possible flight combinations involving 7 different airlines that would get me to my destination. For my return, there were 43 combinations. These options involved as few as two planes and as many as four with layovers from just over an hour to eight hours. Scrolling up and down the pages of information, I realized that this was going to be more difficult than I expected. So I started over and narrowed the time frame of my departure and return. This brought the list of options down to about 15 possible flight combinations in either direction. Still it was too much for my mind to grasp as I scrolled up and down the web site pages. Finally I printed out all the information and began to eliminate possibilities with a pen. I looked at departure and arrival times, total trip time, number and length of layovers, size of airports, etc. After an hour of scrutiny, I selected departure and return flights that involved only one airline and one transfer each direction. Then I went back online, booked the flights, selected my seats, and surrendered more personal information and money than I had thought would be needed. When the confirmation letter arrived via email, I breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes too much information and too many choices make a job harder than it really needs to be.
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SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008 |
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