u/Aniss201

I booked two flights with BudgetAir for the summer. I'm aware of the bad rep they have and have read awful stories about them, but my budget was very low and since I was not going to attempt to change or cancel the flights, I paid for them.

Today, months after booking, I got an email saying that one of my flights had been rescheduled by the airline, and that I had to confirm I was okay with the change. It was both a change in schedule and layover destination, but I was fine with it, so I confirmed.

Some time later, I checked my inbox again and saw that I had gotten other emails from BudgetAir a few hours afterwards, asking me to confirm and pay for a supposed flight change request. The first email said I had 30 minutes to do so, and that the request would be cancelled otherwise. However, I never requested to change my flight, I just confirmed I was okay with a change done by the airline. I wasn't even interacting with BudgetAir's website during the time I had supposedly requested this change.

The 30 minutes had already passed. I had another email reminding me to confirm the change request, and another one telling me that the request had been cancelled after the time limit was over.

I have no idea why I got those emails, and it got me worried about the state of my bookings. I talked to an agent who confirmed the airline had changed the flight and schedule and that I did not have to pay extra for that change, but they played dumb when I mentioned the confusing emails I got.

Before speaking to the agent, I was afraid that this might be a strategy to force people to pay extra: Tell them the airline changed the schedule (when they also changed one of the flights), make you confirm that change by presenting it as free, and then turn that confirmation into a flight change request that, if not paid, messes with your booking.

However, now that I think that my booking is still fine, I think the strategy goes a little differently. They might be targeting people whose flights have been changed by sending them a supposed change request initiated by them, while also adding a short and stressful time limit. Some people might think it has something to do with the change they confirmed earlier, so they might pay extra because they think their booking is at risk. Other people might not be compatible with the airline change, so that's BudgetAir's way of securing that extra money with a flight change.

Maybe this was just a bug, I don't know. It's just that I keep seeing this exact pattern with platforms like BudgetAir, where you're always persuaded to pay extra (flight changes, cancellations, add-ons, etc.) while still leaving a gap open for you to keep true to the original price. You're probably going to be fine if you manage to not click anything, whether it's during the extremely annoying booking process where they shove every imaginable add-on in your face, or when getting a suspiciously timed email. The problem comes when these awful strategies actually manage to trick someone into giving them more money.