Voice-recognition software is freaky. I HATE talking to a robot woman as if she’s a real person. Makes me wriggle with distress.
Man, this pet business is complicated. I just called Song to find out what their rules are about pets. It turns out (and I should have remembered this) that there is an embargo on having pets in the belly of the plane when the temperature is below 45 degrees or above 85 degrees (BLAH. This is *BOSTON*. When is the temperature ever not one of those??) And they never take pets when it is 20 degrees or below, so I can only get a note from the vet saying that all pets can handle 45 degree weather, and cross my fingers that it doesn’t turn into an oddly cold Thanksgiving with temperatures below 20 degrees.
Of course, I can’t ever actually remember a Thanksgiving where it was below 20 degrees, but then, I could always be unlucky.
Now I’m talking to Quantas. They only will ship pets on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, and, although there is no embargo regarding temperatures (THANK goodness), they do not ship pets during the holiday season. But they said December 4 or so would be okay.
****** Comments on Quantas’ bizarre shipping policies ******
Now Quantas seems to charge in a very bizarre fashion. They don’t actually weigh the pets/crates, they do it by the dimension of the pet’s crate. Fine, you say. What is odd, is that once they have the dimension of a crate, they figure out the volume and (arbitrarily, consulting some chart they have) decide that that volume is equivalent to some certain weight in kilos. And then they charge you $X per kilo to find out the final price.
So, even though they never actually weigh anything, they only figure out the volume of a crate, they end up charging you per weight anyway.
Now what is ironic about this is that their chart is seriously off. I have three pets, the total weight of whom comes to approximately 45-50 pounds. (Then add a few pounds per crate for three crates). Let’s be generous and pretend that the three pets in their crates weight 60 pounds.
Somehow, by taking the dimensions of these crates and applying the wisdom of their chart, they have figured out that the three pets in crates weigh 87 kilos. HOWEVER, the lady said that since they charge by “weight bracket”, it would make more sense to just use the 100 kilo weight bracket, which costs $17.42/kilo.
So now, my at most 60 pounds of pets and crates has suddenly become 100 kilos = 220.5 pounds. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I guess I can afford to feed them up a bit…
Anyway, then you get:
Shipping: 17.42/kilo
Security: .10/kilo
Fuel: .45/kilo (and you know that will be much higher in December)
$10 service fee
—> $1807, bare minimum.
***** End Comments *****
I must say I thought it would be worse, but that’s still pretty steep.
It looks like it is going to cost exactly as much to ship 3 pets as it does to buy two people tickets. $1800-1900 for the pets, $1800-1900 for the people.
No kidding. Creepy
I called the same airline and the personable robot said “hold on while I look up your flight”
Then during the pause, I hear the clicking of a keyboard! Just to make me feel like the robot lady is actually working.
Then there are the times the robot seems like a dumb bot from a computer game stuck on a doorway or piece of furniture.
Did you say “xylophone”?
NO!
Did you say…?
NO!
Did you say…?