Anyone using the electronic kiosks to check in for a United Airlines flight now must learn how to navigate three more added fee hurdles. That’s because United has rigged its check-in procedure with a onslaught of three pitches to load up more extra costs.
If I had pressed the wrong buttons on a recent cross-county flight I took, I would have accidentally paid another $523.68. How did I know they were the wrong buttons? Simple: They were colored and placed to look like the correct buttons.
As computer-savvy, Western-world citizens, we’re used to pressing the highlight, right-hand button in order to proceed smoothly through sign-in sequences. But businesses have caught wise to our bias, and now, Web sites are trying to funnel us into the higher-cost option this way, with a wee little “No, thanks” link in feeble print somewhere off in a lonely left-hand corner of the page where only the intrepid will find it.
