Friday, February 17, 2006

The Robot Voice + And Extra Kilos

I called United Airlines today. I went through like 8 'press 1 for ...' screens. Then I was talking to a robot. It was this very pleasant automated voice hooked up to a computer somewhere that was trying to help me. It was supposed to respond to voice commands, but it didn't understand me. It wasn't even asking me the right yes/no questions! I finally figured out that if I said AGENT, it'd give me a real person.

Of course by this time I've almost forgotten why I called in the first place, but the lady was very nice. I was calling to find out what the excess baggage charges are going to be for this summer. (Just in case I feel like packing more). It isn't very much to go overweight. If my bag weighs more than 23 kilos (50 pounds) and is less than 32 kilos (70 pounds) then I only pay 25 dollars extra. That's a mere 1.25 per pound or 2.30 per kilo.

I think I might just plan on paying 50 dollars at the airport to get the extra 22 kilos (40 pounds). It isn't very much and it'd let me bring more over. I happen to think that my really nice Teflon pot + glass lid is worth the 3.22 USD to bring over. It'd probably cost me 10 times that much to buy it there!

I don't think it's worth it to bring a third bag though. They charge 127 USD for a bag up to 50 pounds. That's double the cost per pound than to just go overweight. So if I have an extra 40 pounds, I'll go overweight rather than pay for an extra suitcase!

If David's airline has a similar policy, I might be able to get some extra space there too. Mwahahahaha! (Ok, I probably don't need that much space... but it makes possible options like bringing some of my spices over that would cost me like 200 or 300 times more to buy there than to buy in bulk here.)

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