Handling "Basic Economy" flight fares with hidden a-la-carte fees

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 12:33 AM Bradley M. Kuhn
<bkuhn at sfconservancy.org> wrote:
>  I'm not sure how to solve this problem.  For the moment, the advice is "be
> on the lookout for this and when in doubt, just ask for a flight cost
> exception", but I'd love if folks have ideas on how we can solve this
> problem more formally. I guess my first question is whether folks have found
> a search tool that allows excluding of these Basic Economy fares?

If you're cost-optimizing this would make things worse. E.g. I've been
on flights with WOW where the "basic economy" fare was ~50% cheaper
than a competing "all inclusive" fare, but once you added a check-in
bag it was maybe 10% cheaper, but *still* cheaper. If you'd just
exclude it you're overpaying by 10%.

Many of these airlines also make their money by charging people who
need significant amounts of luggage in the overhead. E.g. with WOW you
pay extra for both a check-in bag in the hold, and to bring anything
larger than a tiny backpack on the plane with you. If all you need is
a check-in bag and a small bag for a laptop and personal items (so not
a "overhead-sized" suitcase) these "basic economy" + "check-in" fares
are usually cheaper.