I’m not a naturally adventurous person and I avoid sketchy situations, but sometimes even I get tempted.
So I booked a flight with WizzAir.
I haven’t used them since about 6-ish years ago, when, around Christmas, someone there must have been wondering what that “BONKERS” button did in their pricing algorithm. They got more expensive than Emirates for a few weeks, which must have left the good people at Emirates wondering where all the Hungarians suddenly came from.
Anyhow, they surely got better since, so why not, at least I’ll see that shiny new airport in Abu Dhabi.
Well, it was a learning experience: now I know what being a hostage negotiator in some banana republic must be like.
It all started rather normally: their website was a little slow. When I clicked somewhere, it opened more windows than a horizontal hailstorm would in downtown Dubai.
Every second reload showed a suspicious “Our specialists have switched off the booking function for maintenance.” Well, what other functions do you have? How often does your booking thingie need an oil change?
Thank Joe you have all these specialists. (This is how I do maintenance too: over a couple of hours, in increments of 20 seconds. Is this that agile thing people are thrilled about on LinkedIn?)
Still, no big surprises so far (apart from the fact that the only channel they sell tickets through is so buggy, Bud Spencer would have bought two.)
It also asked me if I was really human every 20 seconds, then took 30 seconds to “process my request”. I only requested it to go somewhere nice and warm on the fourth occasion. As if I change between being a human and something else that often. Maybe I should.
Funny enough, the “you sure you’re not a robot?” popup had a few questions and answers, just in case. The first of which is “What if I’m not a bot? Read on for a solution.” Oh, is solving existential questions that easy? You could not make this s*** up: “Don’t use anonymizer proxies with botnets to hide your identity”. Your CISO is surely amazing, but please don’t give him the marketing keyboard next time.
Anyway. I’m not sure if the Wizz people (wizzards?) are certified to be online shrinks (for robots or humans), but hear me out:
- I’m a human. I’m puzzled by this question first, but I’m used to it. When I get asked the 5th time, I start thinking less nice things about the relatives of the developers.
- I’m a robot. These days, we are getting smarter, pretty quickly. (Some say it’s more quickly than pretty). Do you really want to choose this moment to f*** with us?
(the “you sure you human” window also shows a little icon of a human, to help you decide. If you are a human without a mouth, you are safe.)
Now look at the copy, not just the guy from Eiffel 65. As my Chinese friends would say, “This is Wong on so many levels”. I despise the pervasive passive speech all over the site. “bad things were seen happening, so we may also let those happen to you”. The best ones begin with “Wizz Air informs” - well, is there anyone else speaking on this site? Did you buy it second-hand and just plastered your name over whatever was there before?
Ok, let me switch off my adblocker, maybe that’s what this site is allergic to.
Dude, this website is veeeery curious. First, it was asking for device orientation: it’s sitting on my desk, but I have two screens: one is horizontal, and the other is vertical, just to confuse you guys.
Then, it was looking for the accelerometer. I’m usually not jumping up and down while booking a flight. I’m not that happy yet. Maybe it was also trying to figure out my shoe size (big-footed customers get less baggage allowance, both need to fit under the seat in front of you).
A little “critical error” message found a new permanent home on the top of the screen.
Of course, I expected the final price to be at least twice the advertised one, as the “travel light” package surely includes a “promise you will not eat too much before the flight” clause somewhere.
Now that I got this far, I found that Wizz still has the most amusing upgrade choices in the industry:
“Check in free online or at the airport” package. The Basic package only has online check-in. (There’s a catch though: they don’t seem to sell the basic package. Anyway, you may or may not have to pay extra for check-in at the airport.)
Join our savings club! We’ll help you save (yourself, from us… terms and conditions apply, which is lawyer-speak for “good luck with that”) Also, when you select one leg of the flight with this club thingie, and the other without, it will just delete the other and leave you wondering WTF happened.
Are you sure you want to choose the “You’ll not be getting your money back no matter what” package? That’s our default, but here, buy this add-on to slightly improve your chances. (This will still not give you money back, but you get Wizz credit so that you can do all this again! Isn’t it great?)
They also told me that if I’m flying to Tel Aviv, they will charge me extra over all these extras. Dude, I’m on your damn site and just booked a ticket somewhere else. Hardcoding is gold, duct tape is silver.
Now that we negotiated the terms (and you ended up paying more than you would think, but as much as you expected), finally I could pay and get a ticket.
The next thing I see, the chatty app (which I switched to after I got bored of the website’s shenanigans) switches to salesman mode: “Look at our onboard menu!” Guys, if I want to eat on the plane too, I’ll go with Emirates. Adding a sandwich will make you more expensive than them. Okay, then rent a car! Find another flight! Book a hotel! (Ah, sure, so I should tell you where I live? Heheheh…)
Finally, I made it. The calm arrives.
Of course, I was soon reminded that the version of the calm I got was the one before the storm: the confirmation e-mail.
Is it just me, or does the “Why should you worry about not having enough baggage allowance” sales pitch sound like the “Nice new car you have there. It would be a pity if something had happened to it”? Of course, they also show how much baggage I bought for the flight. Which is about half of what’s on my boarding pass.
Just when you think the hostage negotiation is over, the madmen in the purple hats change their minds and now they want a fkin crocodile too, not just a helicopter and the money!
I know, there’s a method to the madness. This is all carefully calculated, AB tested, tracked, secured and set up. Or not, I’ve seen enough places to know that 3-4 product managers with slightly different incentives will produce something like this too.
Ok, let’s finish on a positive note, awards!
- First, whoever designed this, made an almost-impossible feat: you can hardly find two buttons that look alike. White buttons. Grey buttons. Rounded buttons. Purple buttons, magenta buttons. Grandpa must have been a haberdasher.
- “Most trackers and other external crap on a single site” award. I counted around 110
- Of course, the CISO wins the “I got in my exact sentence, whether marketing likes it or not” award.
- The “silly SEO” award: who else would stuff their website with the keyword “cheap flights 2017”?
(Yes, after a while, I started looking for more fun details. I was not disappointed)