And let's not forget the exorbitant booking fee for using miles for one of our tickets. The actual FLIGHT was only $280 round trip per ticket, but with the booking fee TO USE THE MILES TO PURCHASE A TICKET, we wound up paying over $500.

When Dean tried to convert the two tickets into travel vouchers, the airline charged him another $300. And that, readers, is when the airline killed off one of their better customer relationships.

For a trip that requires two roundtrip tickets priced at $280 each, or $560 before taxes, United managed to tack on over $800 in additional fees:

Dean doesn't have a permalink to his post—it's just up on the "News" section of his front page—so we're reprinting it below for posterity:

There seems to be a trend with me lately - it seems that, without fail, if I am on the phone with United Airlines, it's going to end in me cursing them out.

First, let me point something out. I used to be a devotee to United Airlines. For years, when we had trouble flying on American or Delta or *shudder* Southwest, United was always there as our rock - flights were usually smooth, we got decent service, and life was good. We signed up for frequent flier cards, (Even got a free upgrade to First class from L.A. to Chicago once) and I got a credit card that would give me bonus miles with them. I also had sort of a soft spot for them in my heart, given that my Grandfather worked maintenance for them for most of his life in San Francisco. After his memorial, I wound up taking a bunch of his old United memorabilia home with me, and I'm always going to treasure it, no matter what.

But coincidentally, that particular flight was where the love affair started to go south. See, it was around June, and it was when they started adding on fees for the second checked bag - which we didn't know about until we got to the gate, of course. I understood, to a degree - fuel prices were at an all-time high, and the airlines had to make up for the difference somehow. But I do clearly remember mentioning to the gate agent that "Heh... you KNOW those fees aren't going to go away when fuel prices come down again." How right I was.

Now, of course, fuel has dropped to the lowest price it's been in YEARS, and have they removed the fee? HA! They went one step further... because in early October, we booked a flight home so we could spend Christmas with our families. During that phone call, I discovered that not only had they added a fee for the FIRST checked bag (WHO flies without checking at least ONE bag?!) but they had increased the pet-in-cabin price from $85 per direction (It had previously been $75 the year before) to ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS per direction. Considering we'd be taking Selphie both ways, that adds up to MORE than the price of a ticket - just for the privelege of putting a dog carrier under the seat in front of us. And let's not forget the exorbitant booking fee for using miles for one of our tickets. The actual FLIGHT was only $280 round trip per ticket, but with the booking fee TO USE THE MILES TO PURCHASE A TICKET, we wound up paying over $500. The pet-in-cabin charge would be paid at the gate, of course. And don't forget the roughly $80 extra we would have to pay just to check our bags. This was the first instance where the phone call ended in extreme profanity.

Now, of course, we're MOVING BACK to California. We no longer have need for a flight from Austin to Sacramento. So, I decided to call United and see if it would be possible to convert the tickets into travel vouchers that we could use at another time. Certainly, said the reservations agent! There's only a fee of $150 per ticket to do so.

THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS?! FOR YOU TO PRESS A FEW BUTTONS AND CHANGE SOME INFORMATION IN A COMPUTER?! Needless to say, that phone call did not end in a civil fashion. I don't care if these people aren't personally responsible for these fees. They're representatives of United, and as such, they deserve to hear what I have to say. Take your fees and shove it.

And so, here and now, I officially renounce United Airlines. Call it whatever you want. A denouncement. A boycott. I don't care - the long and the short of it is this - I will never willingly fly United again, and I would urge anyone to whom customer service is important to boycott them as well. And not just United - I pledge, here and now, to never fly on another Star Alliance airline, either - domestically, this means no flying on US Airways. (Not exactly a huge loss) And I'm going to keep this up until United elects to rescind their fees for the first and second bags, and until the silly fees like $175 for a pet-in-cabin go away. But I'm not silly enough to think that the actions of one man are enough to get something done. That's why I'm calling on you guys.

I'm sure I'm not the only one furious with United Airlines for the treatment I've recieved - I'm sure many, many others have had the same experiences. Tomorrow, I will be writing up an actual, paper letter and sending it off to United, and I encourage you to do the same. If you feel so inclined, their mailing address is as follows:

Customer Relations
WHQPW
United Airlines
PO Box 66100
Chicago, IL 60666

Whether the fees go away or not is immaterial. I'm just pissed that United has $500 of my money that I'm never going to see again, and they're holding it hostage unless I pay an ADDITIONAL $300 to make use of it sometime in the next year. And so, I'm going to throw in my one profanity in this entire post - I say this so that people like my mom who don't really care for profanity can stop reading now.

Fuck you, United Airlines. You just lost a devoted customer.

Real Life Comics (Thanks to Arthur!)
(Photo: Getty Images)

Local 6 says:

"When we see that a nearby competitor might temporarily lower a price on an item, our stores have the authority to adjust their price lower. This can happen in a very small vicinity of stores," the company said in a statement to Local 6.

However, the Problem Solvers found that the prices concerned were not temporary as Wal-Mart described, but consistent over a period of at least two months.

Barnaby [a consumer who reported the price differences] said she thinks that Wal-Mart is charging more for the same products in poorer neighborhoods than in neighborhoods with higher incomes.

"It disgusts me that the people who can least afford to buy the food have to pay more money than everyone else does," Barnaby said.

That’s a serious accusation and the Problem Solvers probed further, Cooper reported.

First, Cooper looked at the most recent census data, which showed the median household income is highest in Apopka — where the prices were the lowest, compared to incomes in Mt. Dora and Clarcona/Pine Hills where the prices were higher.

Cooper brought that data to Wal-Mart's attention and a spokeswoman for the company said she was offended by the suggestion that the company was charging more in poorer neighborhoods.

She insisted that Wal-Mart does not price by demographic, that it remains the low price leader in every market — and that the three stores we visited represent entirely different markets with different sets of competition, Cooper reported.
But when the Problem Solvers checked the competition, they did not find a similar pattern of pricing, Cooper said.

They visited Publix stores in the Windermere/Ocoee area, the Rosemont neighborhood of Orlando, and Altamonte.
The prices of the sugar, condensed milk and asparagus were consistent at all three stores. Visits to different Winn-Dixie stores generated the same results, according to Cooper.

Here are the prices they checked:

Sugar
$2.38 Mt. Dora
$2.36 Clarcona/Pine Hills
$1.76 Apopka

Condensed Milk
$1.54 Mt. Dora
$1.56 Clarcona/Pine Hills
$1.04 Apopka

Asparagus
$2.42 Mt. Dora
$2.54 Clarcona/Pine Hills
$1.86 Apopka

Congratulations, Central Florida. You've realized that Walmart's pricing is shady and inconsistent.

Wal-Mart Price Discrepancies Investigated [Local 6] (Thanks, pattie-anne!)
(Photo: RowJimmy )

The insider writes:

I work in a Walmart store in KY, and I'm writing in to let you know that my store has raised the prices on all of its cell phone chargers by almost 50%. These price changes were automatically put into effect in our system by Home Office. This, I feel, is in direct response to Hurricane Ike.

Here in KY, we didn't get the rain, but we did get high winds on Sunday morning, which knocked out power to some 300,000 people here. The next day when we opened, people bought every car charge and battery we had because they were still without any power. Now today all of our car chargers go up nearly 50%. In fact, every charger, car or wall, in our store is a flat $19.00, when car chargers were $10.00 and wall chargers were $15.00 yesterday. This is hardly a coincidence, and it's so blatently obvious to our customers. I can't believe Walmart would do something so totally against their own mantra of Save Money, Live Better. This is more like "Raise Prices, Screw Suffering Customers!"

It could be a coincidence, maybe not. Either way, the timing is certainly suspicious.

(Photo: chasingfun)

Based on the chart provided at Surfline.com, the U.S. carriers are some of the worst culprits. Delta charges $150 each way, United charges between $100-$200 each way depending on board length, American charges $100 each way, and Continental charges $95 each way. (As you might expect, Jet Blue and Southwest are both more affordable, at $25 and $50 each way respectively.)

According to the Los Angeles Times, Delta says surfboards require too much special handling, and of course they blame fuel prices:

The surfboard fees are high because the boards require special care and extra handling, Delta said. They don't go through the normal baggage carousel but must be carried on special elevators to the claims area.

"There are handling costs associated with surfboards that we have to account for," Delta spokesman Kent Landers said. The hike in charges also reflects a general increase in fees to "cover and reflect the unprecedented increase in fuel costs," he added.

Surfers disagree:

But surfers contend that the fees for their boards are unfairly high compared with other items. Although they are large and need special handling as an oversize bag, a typical short board weighs about 4 pounds while a larger board may swell to only 15 pounds.

"It's not the weight thing," said Marcus Sanders, a Huntington Beach surfer and editor of surfing website Surfline.com, whose airline fee guide received 20,000 hits in the first two days it was posted last month. "They just think that it's an extra pain on their employees, that the boards take up extra space on their planes and that we make up a small percentage of its passengers."

The article points out that the combined fees from Delta and Hawaiian airlines cost one traveler about half what a new kite board (think smaller surfboard) would cost:

"You know, I just realized I'm going to be paying $360 to take my board along," Cowan, a Ridgway, Colo., resident, said after checking in his board, which was 4 feet, 9 inches long and weighed about 11 pounds.

Both the LA Times and Surfline.com suggest you look at foreign carriers if you want to avoid or minimize fees.

"Airlines' Fees for Surfboards are Dinging Surfers" [Los Angeles Times] (Thanks to David!)

RELATED
"Breakdown of boardbag charges by airline" [Surfline.com]

Consumers are gouged an extra $0.40 on average.

"My little girl drinks between two and three gallons of milk a week,” said Queens Democratic Councilman Eric Gioia. “And when you're being overcharged 40, 50 cents per gallon — I'm going to be okay, but there are a lot of families, if you've got a number of kids, that it can be really difficult."

If you're thinking "$0.40? That's nothing!," you're not alone. Potential mayoral candidate and supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis also supports gouging local business:

"The supermarket business is a dying breed in the New York area," Catsimatidis told amNewYork. "Fifty percent of the supermarkets in New York City have gone out of business in the last 6 or 7 years because they didn't charge enough."

"[Speaker] Quinn should take Economics 101. It's inexcusable that an official of the city of New York would just try to panic people."

He's right, you shouldn't panic. If you see a grocer selling milk for more than $3.93 a gallon, or $2.01 per half gallon, call the state's special anti-price-gouging hotline, at (800) 554-4501.

Report: Majority of Sellers in City Are Overcharging for Milk [The New York Sun]
Catsimatidis Sour On Quinn Milk Report [The Daily News]
(Photo: Getty)

We called Gateway and they laid the blame directly at Best Buy's feet, saying the P-6831FX was "selling like gangbusters," prompting the retail giant to raise the price by $350. We asked Best Buy about the price discrepancy late Wednesday, and the retail giant said they would get back to us. While Gateway offers a series of similar laptops online, called the P-171 series, the P-6831 is available only though Best Buy.

"When is a bargain laptop not a bargain?" [Crave]

"I couldn't believe it," said Steven Dentali, who was charged the fee in October after renting a car from Dollar Rent A Car in Manchester, N.H. "I said to them, 'You're telling me I'm penalized no matter what? There's no way around me having to pay something?'"

That's precisely what the rental car agreement said. Here's the exact wording he received in his e-mail confirmation:

"Gasoline Policy: Vehicle must be returned with full tank or local refueling charge applies. If car is returned full a $2.00 top off fee will be applied."

When Dentali started asking questions, he said he was told that the fee was being test-marketed by Dollar at select locations in New England.

Dentali demanded a refund and was told he had to talk with a manager, who in turn told him to call Dollar's corporate offices. He did, and said he was promised a refund. But the $2 never arrived.

"I am unable to advise you as to whether or not this is a permanent policy or what the purpose is for it, but in an effort to regain your confidence in Dollar Rent A Car, I have requested a refund check in the amount of $2.16 to be forwarded to you from our accounting office. Please allow up to three weeks for processing and mailing."

At least it's cheaper than United's $50 fuel surcharge. Has anyone else seen and fought the top off fee? Send your experiences to tips at consumerist dot com.

Sneaky fee alert: rental car 'top off' [The Red Tape Chronicles]
(Photo: fabbio)

Uh, what? MSNBC blames Local Franchise Authorities. "Local Franchise Authorities — usually — regulate basic cable rates, though there are certain situations when these basic rates go unregulated. And rates for all other service tiers are unregulated."

Phone companies are getting into the cable game, so with competition... the ability of the Local Franchise Authority to "regulate" prices may soon change. For the better, we hope. —MEGHANN MARCO

Why is my cable TV bill going up so fast? [MSNBC]