Find the hidden option
I was trying to book a flight from Rome (FCO) to Bristol (BRS) yesterday. That's where we'll be at Christmas: my sister lives there. Lovely city, worth a visit.
easyJet flies the route, which is handy. Their advertised fare is €70. Not bad. So 2×€70 is about AU$250. Bearable. Within our budget.
Not so fast, of course. We'll need to upgrade our baggage as easyJet's default allowance is basically a bag of crisps. This is the first screen that you see after adding the base flights to your cart.
That's … not as cheap any more. The middle column is what we need: it's the addition of the 'large cabin bag' I'm looking for. That's another €70 per person.
And we only need one of these upgrades: we can fit our larger stuff in Lucy's bag, and mine fits the 'small under seat cabin bag' constraints. But this screen is all-or-nothing. Two, or none. Double the cost.
AU$500 is no longer bearable. That's wonder-if-we-can-get-the-train-instead money, or the dreaded what-if-we-flew-to-Heathrow-and-caught-the-bus option.1
We started looking at options. And then I thought…
Always look for the trick
These companies employ people whose job it is to design these 'dark patterns'. Be smarter than them.
I selected that leftmost column, 'get light'. No extras. And lo-and-behold, what happens in a handful of screens?
Well he-llo there, an option to add a bag to a single passenger for a mere €42! That's €100 less than what we were initially presented. A massive difference to us.
This sort of thing is really common. But if you see the first option and think, that should be illegal! – well maybe it is. Maybe you just have to find the hidden option. Always look for it.
Footnotes
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Normally I'd love the option of taking the train from Rome through Italy, France, and under the Channel, but the week before Christmas? Nah, let's not mess about. ↩