Member-only story
Lessons in bad UX
How airline websites can use UX design to take your money
My experience with an airline booking site
I recently booked a long trip across several Southeast Asian countries with a friend. I knew the only way to to stay sane over the course of a 3-week backpacking trip was to pre-book all of my flights, so we sat down with our laptops one Saturday afternoon, planned out our entire itinerary, and booked all of our flights within the region. We thought it would only take a couple of hours, but we ended up spending the entire afternoon comparing flight prices across several different airline websites and third party booking sites.
Despite sitting side by side and using the same sites, we kept seeing different prices. What commenced was a fascinating view of hidden traps planted by different websites. Below is an example from VietJet Air:
I logged onto VietJet Air’s website, searched for a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, and saw several options:
I chose an economy flight for only $123.11 — pretty good deal! As soon as I clicked on it, the price on the side bar jumped up to $152.48 when including taxes and fees.
Taxes and fees are a normal part of booking a flight, but it’s usually best practice to show the final price up front. Regardless, I clicked the continue button and went to the next screen, where I was prompted to fill in my information. The price bar on the side assured me that the price had not changed.
I filled in my information and clicked next again, where I saw that my price had suddenly jumped up to $163.35.
