British Airways Pricing Dynamics Deconstructed

Last month, I flew on British Airways to Brussels for a conference. It was a good flight as flights to Europe go and, as we're expecting to make several trips to Europe this year, it had me expecting that we would be flying British Airways frequently this year.

Here are a few of the reasons why I liked the flight:

• It departed and returned to San Jose. It's hard to underestimate how awesome this is. Besides the smaller airport, saving on the hour drive on each end of the trip... priceless.
• The flight was on a new 787. The 787 really is much nicer to fly on.
• British Airways offered "Premium Economy" tickets for a lower price than "Economy". (Their "Premium Economy" class is essentially what Business Class was 15 years ago). 

Anyway, no complaints. Until we got ready to book another flight. Essentially, my wife has a business trip, I'm going to travel with her, and so we need to coordinate our flight while purchasing from two different systems -- her corporate purchasing and me directly. While it should be reasonably easy, you have to remember two important factors when considering a corporate travel portal.

1. It's going to price compare and force you to take either the lowest price -- or something within say $100 of the lowest price it sees. Otherwise, it's out of policy.
2. You may face other limitations and limited choices, so you may not be able to easily mix and match as you might do with a third party tool.

Naturally, the first place that I went to check pricing was the British Airways site. We were playing around with dates, because we still hadn't determined how long we'd stay or the parameters of what we'd do. For a simple search, I tried flying out on Sunday May 14 (for her to arrive in time for her meetings on Tuesday), and flying back on Saturday, May 20. This is what the results looked like:

$366 for Premium Economy?!? Sweet! This is looking promising. So then, I went to look at the return flight.

$2182 for Premium Economy on the return? That seems a bit steep, but it is cheaper than economy. At the same time, you can see in the date tab above that, returning on Sunday looks like it's only $746. So I decided to try changing the return date to Sunday. FYI, you'll notice the check box about changing outbound dates. I'm not exactly sure what functionality that's supposed to provide, but it had no effect on the pricing changes that happened.

When I selected the return date on Sunday, not only did the return date change, but the Outbound pricing changed. Here's the new outbound pricing.

What happened to my $366 Premium Economy seat outbound? Now my options are $366 for regular economy or $648 for Premium Economy? WTF? When I first saw this, I was enraged. Just so you know, here's the return on Sunday.

Now, the return in Economy is $765 and Premium Economy is $963. So, while the total cost of the fare on a Premium Economy seat is lower than it was, it's been undercut by the regular economy seat price. Of course, if you're purchasing through a business portal, you're probably not going to be about to get that lower priced Premium Economy seat because your pricing system will have been undercut by the economy seat.

Just to explore some more dates and pricing dynamics, I decided to try changing the outbound date to Saturday, May 13 (using the interface and keeping the return date on Sunday, the 21st).  Here's the outbound result of that.

And here's the return.

Note the outbound $391 and $698 the return $765 and $963 for economy and premium economy respectively. Now, for the final piece of the experiment with the British Airways interface, I changed the return date back to May 20 (while leaving the outbound date as the 14th). Here's that screen, first with the outbound.

And then with the return.

With these dates, the return on May the 20th is priced at $765 and $963. In other words, while the day you're traveling affect British Airways pricing partially, a more significant factor is how many days you're staying there. It's sort of like the old "Saturday Stay" rate, where if you stayed through Saturday, your fare would be lower. Except, in this case, if you stay long enough for British Airways to consider it not business, your fare may be lower, but you need to fly economy.

So what's the strategy behind this? Why do they price their economy seats artificially high if you choose a short set of dates? Why do they lead with a super-low price on the outbound Premium Economy seat on that business length stay fare? Since I don't work for British Airways marketing or pricing groups, I can't say. However, from our black box testing, I think we can put forth a few theories.

1. Overall, they are anxious to win some business traveler flyers. By offering somewhat competitive rates for a Premium Economy seat versus say, an Economy seat on another international carrier, they hope to win some of those premium seats. As you can see, when you pick fly on their short schedule, you'll end up paying $937 more than what they value the seat for on either end of the extended date range. 
   
2. Why lead with the $366? I think this works as a loss leader to entice you into the rest of their pricing web. If I had to guess, I'd expect that it's sort of like a prime to trick your brain into thinking, "this is not that expensive... and I get Premium Economy."

Based on running our numbers though, I don't think we're going to book on British Airways. Despite my overall positive experience on my previous flight, we can't escape the feeling of "Shenanigans". Besides, as noted, there's no way my wife could select Premium Economy in the her corporate business travel portal when the economy prices are lower. Instead, we're now looking for an airline with a more predictable pricing practice.

The French Laundry Follow-up

I just wanted to take a few minutes to follow up on my post about The French Laundry. They actually reached out to me last week, following my blog post, and I'm sorry that I've been neglectful in not posting a follow-up sooner.

Based on my conversations with them, it sounds like they were planning the transition for two years and that the transition project was complex. In addition to switching systems, they needed to load existing reservations into the system. It sounds like a big pain point was having people calling in constantly, being put on hold, and some other issues along those lines.

Another issue which they didn't explicitly say, but I imagine may have been an issue for them; if they pre-announced their switch to the TockTix system, Open Table may have reacted by dropping their existing service, leaving The French Laundry in a big reservation mess. While we like to imagine business relationships behaving professionally, the reality is that, even in business, these kinds of breaks aren't as clean and unemotional as we'd hope.

It goes without saying that switching a core business system like this is not a decision that the business makes lightly, but the team at The French Laundry clearly hopes that this will help streamline the reservation process and make the restaurant more accessible than it has been in the past.

A special thanks and a hat-tip to the team at The French Laundry for reaching out to us and responding. I do think that businesses that reach out to customers (or potential customers) like that deserve kudos.

On a personal note, we won't be going to The French Laundry for my wife's birthday. While we imagine the experience would would make for a very magical milestone, the memory of a lifetime; in the flurry of all of this, we opted to go to Hawaii. That being said, I'm confident that the guy behind us in line will be positively thrilled with the experience.

TockTix and The French Laundry Reservation We Never Got

As you'll note from previous posts that I've written as well as the food blog that we don't really update much anymore, my wife and I enjoy food and dining. Leading up to her birthday this year, she had one simple idea for what she wanted -- for us to share a dinner at The French Laundry.

The French Laundry holds a special position of royalty in the food pantheon, one of those places we revere and, even as restaurant ratings change and prestige hops from one establishment to the next, it remains a benchmark for once-in-a-lifetime dining. We've never been there, but we've seen glimpses of the food in film and video, tasted approximations in dishes we made from the cookbook.

As one of the world's greatest restaurants, The French Laundry has always been difficult to get reservations at, and that's been true since well before the first time my wife and I went to Napa together in 2006 (before there was OpenTable and smart phones). And over the years, we've made a few casual attempts to get reservations, but never anything to concerted as the actual prospect of getting reservations, combined with a window of opportunity to go, seemed unlikely.

The Plan is Made
Once we decided that we would try to do The French Laundry for my wife's birthday dinner, I needed to prepare the support logistics. After an epic meal with wine pairings, nobody has any business driving, so you need to stay in close proximity to the restaurant, so I booked a hotel in Yountville. And, while the price for the hotel rooms seemed extremely high -- we even considered abandoning the Napa plan and heading for Hawaii -- we decided that it would be worth it. Additionally, since we were already going to be up there, it seemed worthwhile to book reservations at another restaurant on Friday night, the 28th. As we'd always wanted to try Redd (heard great things about it), that was the first place I checked -- and booked a reservation. Finally, my wife requested a couple's massage, so I tracked down a spa in Yountville for that -- and booked at the beginning of March. All that remained was to book our dinner at The French Laundry.

While I don't follow their site and I haven't ever successfully gotten a reservation there, I can say with some confidence that, for the longest time The French Laundry maintained a policy of taking reservations one month to the calendar date before the actual date -- as you'll note from this snapshot grabbed from the WayBack Machine.

This was the case until March 20 of this year. Why? Because while I planned and prepared to go on OpenTable and make a reservation at 12:01 on March 27 -- and I kept checking on The French Laundry website to verify that information; suddenly, on March 20. everything changed. On that day, preceded by one day's notice on their Twitter feed, The French Laundry rolled out a new ticketing system by Tock. And suddenly, reservations were open through June 30.

While this was probably a windfall for some seeking reservations, if you were like me and last visited The French Laundry site on say, March 19, you didn't know anything about it. And, if you were like me, you sat, thinking you were in the non-existent virtual line waiting for the reservation day opening to appear. Perhaps I should have called. Pestered the staff at the restaurant. Ah, hindsight perhaps. But it wasn't until Sunday evening, March 26, when I decided to visit the site again, thinking I would check on the Open Table portal, that I discovered the new ticketing system... and that all of the reservation opportunities were now gone.

Perhaps, I thought, I'm just missing something. Perhaps if I call the restaurant in the morning at 10:00am (as the web site used to say), I can speak with a human. Perhaps they can help me understand what's happening. Maybe they have some tables set aside for something special like my wife's birthday. And, having spent the night wracked with unpleasant French Laundry dreams, I got up, went to work, and called The French Laundry at 10:00am. Of course, the number doesn't do anything now except take you to an electronic message detailing the new reservation system.

#FAIL -- Suprises in Queueing are a Recipe for Customer Frustration
You don't have to be an expert in queue theory to know that people in a queue don't like surprises. Imaging if the window for taking food orders has a long line and then, suddenly, that window closes and another window opens up on the other side of the building. Without careful line management, the odds are unlikely that the people who were nearest the front of the line will find themselves near the front of the line at the new window. And there will be much frustration.

But it doesn't have to be that way. With careful queue management, a business can exert control over the line, manage the changes, and maintain customer satisfaction (like the clerk who comes to get the next person in line). It's not difficult for a business to do this, it's just that customer satisfaction and customer experience must be a consideration for the business.

And that's why, as I wrote on Twitter, it's surprising that The French Laundry would be so haphazard with their roll-out of this new ticketing system. Surely, The French Laundry, the restaurant that lands the plates of diners with such precisely timed synchronization, would be the pinnacle of customer awareness. Sadly, it looks as though all of that careful attention to detail and customer experience only happens in the dining room. It certainly didn't carry over to the roll-out of this ticketing system.

Consider the timeline as I can backdate it from news and communication reports.

• March 19, 2017 -- @_TFL_ announces the new ticketing system on their Twitter feed
• March 20, 2017 -- Local news outlets, SFGate and NBC Bay Area pick up the story
• March 23, 2017 -- Wine Spectator does a piece on the new ticketing system
• March 24, 2017 -- Food and Wine piece notes all reservations through June 30 are booked

Remember, as of March 19, The French Laundry web site still said you need to wait until the calendar day one month ahead. So, when did they decide on this system? It's hard for me to believe that they just found it and decided to activate it on March 19. Wouldn't it have been a bit more customer-friendly to provide some sort of transition -- say 30 days notice -- before rolling out the new ticketing system?

What's up with TockTix?
Fundamentally, the difference between the Open Table system and the TockTix system is that users must essentially purchase their spot at the restaurant -- their experience -- at the time of booking. The strategy behind this, from the restaurant's perspective, is to prevent no-shows.

When I first encountered the Tocktix system on Sunday night, March 26, I had a number of reactions. My initial reaction was, what happened to the old reservations screen? Initially, I thought that perhaps this was the result of the opening of a new window of bookings for April 27th, and I was excited to see a booking time/interface. Of course, that was not the case.

Here's an example (taken today) of the Tocktix interface.

Initially, I think I accidentally tried to make a reservation on March 27 because I actually thought it was just the opening of the calendar month window interface. What I didn't see was that this was further down the screen.

Instead, when I clicked the date, the calendar interface was gone. Same result, sort of, but up until this point, I thought I was making progress. So I clicked on "Add Me to the Wait List."

It was at this moment that I realized that things were unfolding badly for me. I went ahead and added my name to the wait list. At the same time, I was extremely frustrated that I couldn't add anything, no notes or comments, to clarify that this wasn't just any day, that it was my wife's birthday. Sure, I could add us to a wait list a week later, but that day wouldn't be anywhere nearly as important as the first day that I signed up for.

Since that time, I've also realized that there are other issues with the TockTix waiting line system.

1. I can't tell what position in line that I am.
2. I can't drop my listing from the wait list, like if say, we decided to cancel the entire trip to Yountville and go somewhere else.
3. I get no sense of movement or updates from the list. I don't even get an initial confirmation email confirming my place in line. What if all of the other "people" in front of me are ticketing bots?

Needless to say, I my frustration with the entire experience hasn't dissipated.

Prospective Customers and The French Laundry
As a business, The French Laundry doesn't have to care about potential customers in the queue in the same way that some businesses do. As long as they have limited seats and a consistent parade of butts in the seats, and as long as they deliver a premium, desirable experience to them, they don't really need to care about the people in line. If I get frustrated or you get frustrated, who cares. It won't stop the guy behind you from happily filling a seat, given the opportunity. And maybe you're so frustrated that you write a review on Yelp, but you haven't even been there, so your complaints are hollow. In short, even if you say, "they suck," it's pretty unlikely that you're voice will be heard over the din of oohs and ahs from people who have been there. In the end, it doesn't matter. The French Laundry brand will transcend your unhappiness. They don't need you.

For me, this whole experience diminished the brand. Ultimately, that won't matter to you, the next guy in line, or probably anyone considering going to the restaurant.

And so you're probably thinking that, if they called me today and said, we've got a table for you and your wife, I would change my tune. To that, I'd say, you're probably right about going -- we still haven't canceled all of our Yountville plans yet. And at the same time, The French Laundry brand will never hold the same elevated benchmark status for me as it once did. And I think it's unlikely that I ever will go there. I certainly won't pursue reservations or try to get into the line again.

The Getty Images Extortion Letter

So I'm still annoyed about the whole thing with Getty Images. So I happened to do a quick search on "Getty Images Licensing Compliance" and came up with a number of posts addressing "the Getty Images Extortion Letter".

This article, How to Respond to the Getty Images Extortion Letter, is great. It's from the Art Law Journal. It provides a comprehensive explanation of what's going on as well as a template letter for your response. 

Here's another post from a hacker/security site with a more extensive cataloging of Getty Images extortion racket.

My takeaway?
I'm not going use Getty Images any longer and I recommend you avoid using them as well.

Getty Images' Scammy Image Licensing Shakedown

An interesting thing came across my desk at the start of the year. One of my first pieces of email was from a colleague in Germany emailing me in regard to a marketing-related legal problem. It seems that Getty Images had contacted them and claimed that we were using one of their images and that they didn't have any record of us having acquired the license to use it.

To start with, this was rather surprising because in all of the years that I've been using stock photography, I've never actually used Getty for stock images -- unless, perhaps, their images were subcontracted by some other agency. Or, perhaps, one of my vendors might have contracted with them. But personally, no interaction on my part.

Since the correspondence came from Germany, it took me a bit with Google translate to get to the root of the issue. Rather than walk you through the forensic work, let me summarize. Getty was hounding our German office for licensing on:

• An image in a PDF of a brochure that was created in 2001, (Feb/March of 2001 from the metadata in the PDF file).
• The image is basically a minor 1.75" x 2.75" image on the second page of the brochure
• The content is a street in China, shot from traffic
• The brochure was for a subsidiary company that is no longer an active business entity
• The brochure lived on the web because our German web site was very slow in updating their web site
• When the German web site was updated late last year by our Global operations team, the existing assets were migrated to the new site.

Now, you may not remember back to 2001, but as happens I remember this time well. This was back when George W. Bush was just starting his first term following the Supreme Court's Bush v Gore decision to give Presidency to him. This was before 9/11 and the twin towers of the World Trade Center came down. For me, this was several companies prior to my current job. As it turns out, that also holds true for the staff involved in producing this brochure.

Getty Images Scammy Shakedown Behavior
I should point out that the emphasis in the correspondence from Getty was on paying them. Again,
this is from Google Translate, but here's an excerpt from the email:

Please note that this matter is not done with the removal of the image material alone.
   
Even in the case of unintended use, the use of photographic material without a valid license is deemed to be copyright infringement pursuant to § 97 of the Copyright Act and related rights (UrhG). The purpose of this notification is to determine a previously acquired license or to achieve a fair settlement of the matter if no valid license is available.

Please complete the following steps within 14 days of the date of this message:

- If a valid license was obtained before using the artwork, please provide the Getty Images sales order, invoice number, or other license information. If the artwork is recorded on behalf of a third party, e.g. An advertising agency or a web designer, please notify us of the company name and ask the third party to contact us directly to check the existence of a valid license. As an end-user, it is ultimately your responsibility to clarify the facts.

-If you do not have a valid license for use, you will not be able to use the image material in the future
You need to set the current usage immediately
Remove footage from your site. You will also find an offer in the appendix
Compensation for the unlicensed use of the relevant image material. If the amount to be paid is not received within 14 days of receipt of this message, we will take further steps. Please note the information on the transfer in the attached offer. Payment can be made online by using the above URL and the access code.

Please note that we only charge the average license fee for the commercial use of licensed images, which is on your website. Getty Images, additional costs of EUR 300.00 per image have been incurred. We do not currently charge for these costs as we are aware that this unlicensed use of our image material may have been unintentional.

We would also be happy to help you find a consistent solution for the use of image material as soon as the amount has been paid.

As the world's leading provider of digital media, Getty Images strives to protect the interests, intellectual property rights and the livelihoods of photographers, filmmakers and other artists who entrust Getty Images with the licensing of their work. Getty Images hopes for a friendly settlement of the matter and is grateful for your cooperation.

Getty Images is aware that you may be hearing from our company for the first time. On our website (www.gettyimages.com) you can find out more about us and how to license and protect our images. We also provide information on copyright on our website. If you have any questions regarding this letter and the attached FAQs, please contact our Copyright Compliance Team at 0800 000 7228. We are very anxious to help you clarify this issue.

We look forward to hearing from you soon. In all correspondence, please always state the name of your company and the reference number, as indicated on the attached claims for damages. This information will help us to speed up the examination of the matter. Please note that we will initiate further legal action if you do not respond to this letter.

If you have any questions, or if this notification has been mistakenly notified, please contact us at 0800 000 7228 or e-mail us at: copyrightcomplianceDE@gettyimages.com.

My contacts in the industry tells me that part of the driver behind this Getty essentially outsources this licensing validation process like those debt collection agencies and selling debts.

Is it reasonable to expect you to retain proof of a licensing transaction from over 15 years ago?
I would say no. Frankly, I didn't actually think that that brochure was even available outside of an archive of old electronic files that I inherited when I joined the company. At the same time, most companies have document retention policies that would typically specify the destruction of many of these kinds of materials, so having proof of licensing for something this old would surprise me more than the latter.

Further, who's to say that rights to this image are only available through Getty. Is it possible that this image came from some other collection of images? Is Getty playing the -- this is a small enough issue that you won't devote the time and effort to validate the claim and just pay us? This aspect reminds me a lot of another Silicon Valley nightmare, the patent troll.

Based on all of this, I would highly recommend avoiding Getty Images. While the front end of their business may be legitimate, the tail of the beast shows some pretty scammy behavior. As they say, caveat emptor.

For the record, I should note that I have used (and licensed) stock photos from a variety of sources since the early 1990s. I value the stock photos and the work of the photographers that produced the images that communicate in our work.

Apple at CES: Third Parties Try to Bridge Apple Design Flaws

In my browse through the tech blogs this morning, there are several stories about CES and Apple products. At Recode, Ina Fried wrote about how absent Apple products were, not as a featured and displayed products, but as influencers and market drivers. In past years, even though Apple doesn't participate in CES, Apple products provided technology cornerstones that shaped many of the products at the show. This year, apparently, Apple's featured role has been replaced by Amazon's Alexa.

Meanwhile, MacRumors highlighted products that were essentially third party solutions for Apple's recent design mistakes. You know them, you hate them, so here are the latest bandages to overcome your newest Apple product flaws.

First, from iPhone case maker Incipio, comes an iPhone7 case with a headphone jack and a Lightning port. Of course, this post doesn't say whether it includes the ability to start and stop music with the remote button on your earbuds, but hey, it's a start.

Next, from Griffin, there's a magnetic breakaway technology solution to make the USB-C port work sort of like a MagSafe connector. You've kind of got to see this one to believe it. While I have to give them kudos for trying, I couldn't see myself buying something like this and it goes to show you just how elegant the original Apple solution really is. To me, the part that drove this home was posted in the Macrumors comments. "What annoys me even more is the lack of orange/green status lights for charging in the new machines." I still have a MagSafe connector on my systems and I'm already morning their loss.

Oh, and I don't have a link for this, but another thing I happened across last week. Kingston announced "the world's largest thumb-drive" at 2 TB. It's a big drive, but what it's not is USB-C.

The Eroding Mac: Preview Bugs - Yet Another FAIL

So I came across this bit of news on MacRumors today: macOS 10.12.2 Users Urged to Avoid Using 'Work-in-Progress' Preview App to Edit PDFs. Essentially, Apple in new strategic direction has rewritten the PDFKit and broken a bunch of functionality. Not just broken, but broken to the point where several experts are recommending that you don't edit PDF files in Preview.

Why would they release a crappy version of some core functionality? Well, here's what the article says:

Apple wants to use a common foundation for both iOS and macOS. However, it was released way too early, and for the first time (at least in my experience) Apple deprecated several features without caring about compatibility. And to make things worse, lots of former features are now broken or not implemented at all, meaning that we had to add lots of workarounds or implement stuff on our own. And there’s still work left to be done. 

10.12.2 introduces new issues (it seems that Apple wants to fix at least the broken compatibility now) and of course fixed almost none of the other issues.

Once upon a time, desktop Macs and functionality like the PDF engine in Mac OS were important to Apple. While it may seem like minor functionality, the core graphic rendering engine is more than just a free tool for casual users, it's yet another essential component for the professional user class.

The writing is on the wall. The Mac platform is dying and Apple can't shovel dirt on it fast enough.