Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Zuji marketing screws up - or it is something worse?

Received this in an email as marketing material from Zuji today at 4.23pm on Wed 19th July heavily promoting a great fare "from $1,296++" with "Airline of the Month" Virgin Atlantic. I am being very specific on the time and date I received the email because if you look at the fine print the

"Offer [is] available until 21 July"

This gives the customer just shy of 31 hours to book at this price (assuming it is good until midnight on the 21st). We all know that fares like this are looked at by people on Thursday and Friday of a week, discussed with the other half on the weekend then booked on the Monday. This makes this fare all but unavailable to every normal shopper.

It could be that this is just a screw up by Zuji marketing. However, the darker reading is that this could be an "bait and switch" - using a low fare to entice customers and then sticking them with a higher fare. Am tempted to not give Zuji the benefit of the doubt here. Bait and switching is not only illegal in Australia it is also stupid behaviour. It pisses off customers, wastes your marketing efforts and is just plain annoying for everyone. Here's hoping (if your Zuji) that it is just another screw-up.

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