Free plane ticket? No fare? Not so fast!

This is just a general rant on the airlines. It's not particularly political but this seemed the place to put the message.

I'm getting married in September. The theme, for me, through this whole relationship has been "This Time, I'm Going to Get It Right".

We'd been dating for over 2 years when I planned an elaborate first night on our first long vacation together to propose to her. For the first time in my life, my plans went *flawless*. It was one of the most perfect nights in my life than didn't involve a child being born.

Now, call it karma, call it the Law of Averages, call it whatever you want.. I'm paying for that perfect night.

Susie and I want to take a nice honeymoon. After 20 years of frustration, I was finally able to get a passport last year (illegal adoption so I had no birth records in my name and that's a hassle in a post-9/11 world). I ask Susie about going overseas for the first time in my life and we happen upon some luck and discover an inexpensive route to Europe that allows us to include a stopover in Iceland - where the airline (Icelandair) offers tours - like riding a Viking horse across ancient lava fields before heading to the Blue Lagoon Hot Springs..

As we investigate further, we find cheaper and cheaper options - wondering where it's going to stop. Eventually it looks like we fly into Paris and come home from Dublin as Aer Lingus is running some great fares. Then we discover we can save a FURTHER $300 by flying into London instead of Paris - FOR $490/RT PER PERSON. Well, I always wanted to ride the Eurostar through the Chunnel Doesn't matter which direction.

As we try to decide how many days we want to spend in each city (we were originally doing London to Paris to Scotland and then back to Ireland for the transatlantic hop home), the airfare suddenly jumps to $540. The next day it's down to $538. Then it's $549 and $575 on successive days. What's going on here? Turns out that Aer Lingus decided to implement a $30 fuel surcharge in the past couple of days - because we all know how fuel went up as oil went down... But Orbitz held firm at $575 even though Aer Lingus was up over $600.

Ok, so Susie and I work out our plans last night - scouring the net to discover how to get everywhere we want to go and how much time we can spend in each. Scotland ends up the "odd destination out" as Susie has been there twice and we can't go during the Tattoo so that more time in Ireland, France and England.

I find Eurostar prices to get to Paris. Not bad. Then I look for ways to get from Paris to Dublin.

I find a $0 fare. I swear I am NOT making this up. It's Aer Lingus. But now I've seen the ultimate, short of Ryanair's fees, of "nickel and diming". Here's what I ended up paying about a half hour ago - in Euros...

0 Fare
46.63 Taxes and Charges per person
5 Handling fee per person (and I got an email for a ticket)
15 Bag Fee per person (1 checked bag, 20kg, each)

They 'guaranteed' an exchange rate - since I didn't know what the fees would be on my card - and the total was $199.24 (from 133.26 Euros).

Then came seat selection - optional. I decided to give it a go.

The cheapest seat was 5 Euros. I picked a window and middle seat in Row 2 for 10 Euros (exit rows were 15 Euros but this is only 100 minute flight) - so there's another $30.

All tolled, I paid $229 for two 'free' tickets. I compared that with much of Ryanair's fees - like how they have the same bag fees but a *10*kg weight limit (22 pounds), higher booking fees, even on-line check-in fees. My daughter tells me horror stories of Ryanair but how she learned to "play their games" (she would wear a lot of clothes on the plane so they weren't in her bags).

And the airlines wonder why we'd rather deal with used-car salesmen...