I've flown on some airlines where they send mail encouraging online checkin which also includes "miss your flight" information. And, I've flown others where if you miss you flight, they call or email or SMS you and try to work with you on rebooking to a later flight (either standby for free or a small fee, or rebooking for $50-150), plus any difference in fare. This would still support price discrimination and market segmentation.

The vast majority of people who miss their outbound leg are still wanting travel on the outbound leg at a later time, not to burn the outbound leg and take the return leg. That is the failure mode to try to optimize, not the return leg.

that's an aside. the point is: they told him to check-in. their system is flawed. they took the time to hire someone to program the ability to cancel the whole flight, but they ignored the part where they tell him to check-in. to make things worse, they treated him terribly when he tried to and didn't realize his "mistake."

Terms of Carriage/Fare Rules are actually quite important. I absolutely do check things like change fees, reroutability, fare class, etc. when I buy a ticket, and will often pay the 5% premium to get a more changeable ticket.

This is much more like reading the tech specs for a new laptop (does it have a linux-supported wifi chipset? discrete graphics?) than a EULA.

A useful fact you may not know: most "legacy" carriers will interline you onto another airline if they can't accommodate your scheduled travel -- for instance, if they cancel a flight, they will put you on another airline's flight if it will get your there faster. This is a VERY BIG DEAL internationally, where they don't always even have daily flights -- if a flight is canceled, it could be 2-3 days before the next flight with the same airline to your destination. Low cost carriers (e.g. Southwest) won't.

It also shows that wepay (through this blog rant) is not saavy in some pretty standard ways of the world. Which is a real big fucking concern for anyone who's thinking about trusting them with their money.

OP says it himself with his very first "lesson", "Don’t optimize for the edge-case." Then he violates his own first lesson.

By complaining about customer service, he just got a small set of sympathetic people to passionately agree. And accidently got a huge set of potential customers to go away.

OP had a difficult experience. He got bitten by a software bug and horrible customer service. We've all been there. We understand.

My point is not that I don't sympathize with him. My point is that he's using his corporate blog to make a small point, potentially costing him huge unanticipated problems on the other side of this. He may pick up a few raving customer service fans, but how many people will think twice before trusting their money to someone either too green or too lazy to understand a standard airline contract?

OP may win this battle, but lose the war. I imagine he, his co-founders, and his business partners have worked way too hard to risk so much for so little.

i can't remember the last time i've actually read a company blog. i don't read them because they're boring. they usually have nothing worth reading, and i don't consider myself attracted to sensationalist material either.

the fact that it's a trivial mistake in the eyes of experienced travelers can probably go dismissed here because wepay primarily caters to college students and roommates.

Whining about vendors, especially when you are partially or technically somewhat at fault, is something you do on "friends-only" posts, personal facebook, etc.

Now.

This is a great idea that, if executed properly, can be so much more. I guess that's why I was so concerned with what I saw as negative corporate blog energy.