TRAVEL BOOKING

Cartoon of a frustrated traveler with arms crossed standing between two suitcases in an empty airport gate area, beneath a large red departures sign reading "FLIGHT DOES NOT EXIST."

Booking.com said my flight was confirmed, but the airline says it never existed

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Lindley Kinerk’s last morning in Dresden seemed routine. She and her companions packed up, checked out, and headed to the airport for their 8:25 a.m. flight home to Boston. They had even gotten a friendly check-in reminder from Booking.com the night before. Then they reached the counter and learned something that would cost them nearly $6,000: their flight did not exist. Not that morning, not any morning. It had been off the airline’s schedule for months. Booking.com, it seems, had quietly rebooked them on an earlier flight and never said a word, and the airline insisted the whole thing was not its problem. With a third ticketing agency tangled into the booking and every company pointing at the others, Kinerk had to buy new tickets on the spot just to get home. What she did next, and what Booking.com eventually said about her money, is where this case turns.

Expedia claims it has the secret to cheap flights. But is it promoting a dangerous—and self-serving—myth?

You can’t hack airfares, but airlines are hacking you

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To understand how absurd the idea of airfare hacking is, imagine this: Your car is running on empty. Instead of filling the tank right away, you wait until Sunday because you heard that the prices will dip a few cents lower at midnight. You circle the block, burning more gas all the while, waiting for the digital display to reset.