I just booked an award ticket for a friend from Dubai to Corpus Christi, Texas on United Airlines. It’s a one-way ticket in economy for 40,000 United miles.
After booking the flight, I came across a pay-wall type of screen which asked me if I would like to upgrade my flight to United BusinessFirst for a whopping $5,199. Mind you that my segment was automatically checked and the “Upgrade Now” button was next to the “No Thanks” button. I’m sure that if I had accidentally clicked “Upgrade Now”, it would charge to my default credit card on file where I had just paid the $40 in award taxes. In small text, it does say that if you click “Upgrade Now”, your credit card will be charged.
I went ahead and priced out a one-way business class ticket from DXB-CRP with the same date and it priced out $3,613 which was $1,586 lower than the up-sell price. With the revenue ticket, I would be paying less and be earning miles to boot!
These types of up-sells just bother me so much. Why do airlines continuously try to do this and trick the consumer into clicking the wrong button?