Air Hitch
Aug 19th, 2005 | 09:29 AM
#2
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 5,641
Likes: 0
Is this company still around? No i've not sued them but i'm familiar with them for a long long time. Think they've gone bankrupt at least once and perhaps changed owners, but not sure of this. Only thing i know is that they've been around, in one incarnation or the other, for a long time - not a bad sign in that kind of business.
Aug 19th, 2005 | 09:31 AM
#3
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 35,152
Likes: 0
no, but I have some peripheral knowledge of them and think they are a very sleazy, unethical, unprofessional company. Their standby stuff may work.
I first ran across them on Eurotrip.com board several years ago. They used to "spam" the message board by responding to virtually every question about almost anything in order to advertise and plug their company. I think the board monitor had to finally cut them off; in any case, they stopped it. Aside from that, they kind of lied about their company on the board and made it sound like some big charity or something; I think it was technically a not-for-profit company, but having worked for one, I know that doesn't mean no money is being made, nor does it make you like Save the Children (which is kind of what they were trying to present themselves).
A lot of people on Eurotrip posted and said their dealings with them were bad, and that the employees were rude.
The final thing was that they saw some post I had made on the board which was really pretty mild (nothing like the above) where I said something like their rates weren't very good in comparison to regular discount fares in winter, and how some of their statements about being a big charity weren't quite the case or they wouldn't be advertising to get more business.
In retaliation, Airhitch had employees monitoring the Eurotrip board and wrote down the screenname address of anyone posting something they didn't like. I think they required your actual email address be posted, but I was naive to the world of the internet at that time and how many wackos were out there, and actually had my regular everyday AOL email address listed. So, Airhitch employees targeted me outside the message boards by programming my name into their AIM alerts list (if you don't know what that is, it is a list of people they can tell when they get online, it can make a sound if you ask it to). Then, whenever I logged on to my AOL account, within a minute or so, an Airhitch employee would start harassing me by IM. I couldn't believe any company actually had employees doing that. Luckily, you can block certain names on AOL AIM, which I did, but they kept changing their screenname slightly by one digit or so in order to continue to target me for IM harassment (airhitch1, airhitch2, etc.).
So, I would not deal with them if I were you.
I first ran across them on Eurotrip.com board several years ago. They used to "spam" the message board by responding to virtually every question about almost anything in order to advertise and plug their company. I think the board monitor had to finally cut them off; in any case, they stopped it. Aside from that, they kind of lied about their company on the board and made it sound like some big charity or something; I think it was technically a not-for-profit company, but having worked for one, I know that doesn't mean no money is being made, nor does it make you like Save the Children (which is kind of what they were trying to present themselves).
A lot of people on Eurotrip posted and said their dealings with them were bad, and that the employees were rude.
The final thing was that they saw some post I had made on the board which was really pretty mild (nothing like the above) where I said something like their rates weren't very good in comparison to regular discount fares in winter, and how some of their statements about being a big charity weren't quite the case or they wouldn't be advertising to get more business.
In retaliation, Airhitch had employees monitoring the Eurotrip board and wrote down the screenname address of anyone posting something they didn't like. I think they required your actual email address be posted, but I was naive to the world of the internet at that time and how many wackos were out there, and actually had my regular everyday AOL email address listed. So, Airhitch employees targeted me outside the message boards by programming my name into their AIM alerts list (if you don't know what that is, it is a list of people they can tell when they get online, it can make a sound if you ask it to). Then, whenever I logged on to my AOL account, within a minute or so, an Airhitch employee would start harassing me by IM. I couldn't believe any company actually had employees doing that. Luckily, you can block certain names on AOL AIM, which I did, but they kept changing their screenname slightly by one digit or so in order to continue to target me for IM harassment (airhitch1, airhitch2, etc.).
So, I would not deal with them if I were you.
Trending Topics
Aug 19th, 2005 | 10:12 AM
#9
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 35,152
Likes: 0
Wedding trip? Well, if they are still in operation, you can probably post over on Eurotrip yourself and see what they have to say about them. Also, there are a lot of comments about their actual service and how well it works. There used to be, anyway, on the airline board (I haven't been over there in a while).
But Air Hitch used to be just a company that sold cheap standby seats, so I don't know how she can consider them for a wedding. You were not guaranteed any seat, nor even a flight from a particular city or airport. You would have to go to the airport they told you (and it could be within a range of at least several hundred miles, as I recall -- say from Washington DC up to Boston if you were on east coast) and just stand around a wait until a standby seat opened up on whatever airline they had a deal with. I think most people got seats within a day or two but I think the deal was it could be up to four days (maybe, I don't recall details). YOu also didn't know ahead of time when the clock started running so you had to kind of be packed and ready to go whenever they told you.
In return, these standby seats were cheaper than usual APEX tickets, but they weren't that much cheaper--as I said, in winter, it wasn't a very good deal, but in summer might be IF you had lots of time to waste and didn't mind going to an airport very far away.
Oh, the other catch was the destination wasn't guaranteed, either, it could be anywhere in western Europe, I think. Don't know how that would work for Hawaii, but obviously the area is limited, so not like Europe.
So I don't know how in the world you could use them for a wedding, nor would you want to since you weren't guaranteed any date or time of flight. Maybe they've changed their way of business and are somethign else now. However, it's the same name and they were a real bunch of sleazeballs.
But Air Hitch used to be just a company that sold cheap standby seats, so I don't know how she can consider them for a wedding. You were not guaranteed any seat, nor even a flight from a particular city or airport. You would have to go to the airport they told you (and it could be within a range of at least several hundred miles, as I recall -- say from Washington DC up to Boston if you were on east coast) and just stand around a wait until a standby seat opened up on whatever airline they had a deal with. I think most people got seats within a day or two but I think the deal was it could be up to four days (maybe, I don't recall details). YOu also didn't know ahead of time when the clock started running so you had to kind of be packed and ready to go whenever they told you.
In return, these standby seats were cheaper than usual APEX tickets, but they weren't that much cheaper--as I said, in winter, it wasn't a very good deal, but in summer might be IF you had lots of time to waste and didn't mind going to an airport very far away.
Oh, the other catch was the destination wasn't guaranteed, either, it could be anywhere in western Europe, I think. Don't know how that would work for Hawaii, but obviously the area is limited, so not like Europe.
So I don't know how in the world you could use them for a wedding, nor would you want to since you weren't guaranteed any date or time of flight. Maybe they've changed their way of business and are somethign else now. However, it's the same name and they were a real bunch of sleazeballs.
