Bonus episode #165 – Nickel and dime

A quick announcement before we get started with this episode, and this one is a special announcement for our Japanese listeners, in particular, the Tokyoite. out there. Is that a word? Tokyoites? I'm not sure. But if you live in Tokyo, this is an announcement for you because we are going to have a CULIPS meetup in Tokyo on Tuesday, February the 10th.

Tuesday, February the 10th. And I would love to meet up with any Clips listeners. It doesn't matter if you are just a casual listener or if you are hardcore QLIPS. fanatic and are a Q-Lost member. It's open to everybody. And guys, the link for the details is going to be in the description for this episode. And to be honest, I haven't decided on a venue yet. If you are a listener in Tokyo and think you could help me out planning a little bit and finding a good venue to host.

maybe ten to fifteen people, then that would be awesome. And yeah, we'll have a nice casual and fun meetup with some Qlips listeners in Tokyo on February the 10th. So check out the link in the description and yeah, let's do it. See you in Tokyo. Hello and welcome to bonus episode number 165 of the Clips English podcast.

How is it going? I hope you're doing well. My name's Andrew. I'll be your host and your study buddy today for this English language lesson. What we do here in the bonus episode series at QLIPS is I just talk to you and I hang out with you and I tell you some stories.

From my everyday life. I'm a Canadian, but I live abroad in Seoul, South Korea, and I hope by listening to my stories you will be able to build your English fluency and grow your vocabulary and become a clearer and more confident communicator. To accompany this episode, there is an absolutely free interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary. They're awesome study resources and you can get them by following the link in the description.

Plus, if you're a QLOOPS member, then you can also get a comprehension quiz. Yeah, so QLOOS members, make sure to check out that comprehension quiz. And I gotta say a big welcome and hello to all of the new members who have joined us recently. We had just a ton of brand new members sign up at the start of the year. So guys, thank you so much for trusting QLUP.

with your English language education. And we're gonna make a lot of progress this year. So it's great to have you aboard. Thank you to all the new members out there.

Okay, so let's get started with this episode, guys. And in today's story, I'm gonna tell you about. My upcoming trip to Canada, I'm going back to Canada. And you may be wondering, Andrew, why in the world would you go back to Canada in January of all times of the year? In January. for the same amount of money, essentially, you could travel to beautiful places around the world. I could go to Spain. I could go to Australia. I could go to Pali in Indonesia. I could go to

Mexico. I don't know, beautiful places around the world I could visit for the same amount of money, but no, I decided to go to Canada in January. Why? Well, as I said at the start of the episode, I am from Canada and I gotta go back home. You know, I live away from home, far away from my friends and family. And these days with technology, that's not as difficult as it used to be in the past.

I can FaceTime my family anytime and have a video conversation with them and it makes things not so difficult when I live away from home because of technology. However Once a year or twice a year I do like to go back to Canada and to see my family and see my friends. So that's why I'm going back to Canada here in just a little bit. So I'm gonna tell you about the process of buying my plane ticket because it was actually a little bit of an ordeal. and I've complained about buying plane tickets.

in the past on Cubelips. So maybe this is just a me issue. I don't know. If anyone else has difficulties buying plane tickets or if you find it frustrating as well. then let me know in the discussion for this episode that we'll have over on our Discord server. But Yeah, I think this is something that affects everyone who travels, is that there's always a little bit of frustration with air travel.

And yeah, actually the big plane ticket that I needed to buy to go to Canada from Seoul to fly from Seoul to Canada. Originally I was thinking in my mind that there was no drama and that it was simple and easy to do, but now that I'm speaking here, I just remembered that there was actually a little drama buying that plane ticket.

Thankfully, I bought it during a sales period. Air Canada had a sale on, so I was able to take advantage of the sale and and buy my plane ticket for a very, very affordable price. I have to say that. You know, I go back to Canada yearly, so I know how the plane ticket price is. fluctuate from year to year and fluctuate is kind of this bigger high level word that just means change. So they change, they fluctuate, they go up and down from year to year. And I do have to say that this is

uh the cheapest I've bought a plane ticket back to Canada in a long time. So I'm thankful for that for sure. However, One thing that is a little bit frustrating is that you gotta shop around for a plane ticket. Like you get different prices from different websites. And you would assume that if I I'm flying on Air Canada to go back to to Canada.

You would assume that if you go to the official Air Canada website, that would be the cheapest price, right? Like they should be able to sell it for the cheapest price. And they did have a good price, but I found it on a different third party travel website for a cheaper price. So I was able to get a cheaper price on my airplane ticket through a third party. And a third party is what we call a service.

that kind of acts like the middleman. Like they are in the middle of my transaction, my business transaction with Air Canada. Right? They buy the ticket off Air Canada or get it somehow and then they sell it to me and then I travel.

with Air Canada, so we're bringing in this third party, and they were able to offer the the ticket at a slightly lower price. So I was happy about that and I booked my plane ticket and thought everything was done and dusted was finished and I could just uh not worry about that anymore. However, a few hours after I booked my ticket, my wife came running up to me and she's like, Andrew, you gotta cancel your ticket.

And I was like, What? Oh, why? Why do I have to cancel my ticket? She was able to find actually a quite substantially cheaper ticket through a Korean third party. reseller and they even had some special bonus discounts that if you used your Korean credit card. Um often in Korea here you can get some discounts when you make purchases online depending on the card that you use. And it just so happened that we have the card that got a pretty good discount on this plane ticket.

So thankfully I was able to cancel my original ticket. It was still in that 24 hour window. I'm not sure if this is global or not. I'm not sure, but here in Korea when you purchase a plane ticket. Legally, you have 24 hours to cancel the ticket with no fee or penalties. So I was still within that 24 hour window. So I canceled my original ticket. And I rebooked it using the Korean third-party reseller, ticket reseller, or travel service, whatever you want to call it.

And I was able to get a really good price. So yeah, I'm happy at the end of the day. No complaints on my behalf, really, except for the fact that you do have to jump through these hoops, right? It's not just a simple Sit down, go to the Air Canada website, book your ticket, finished. No, you gotta do all this shopping around.

And depending on the card that you have and the service that you find, the exact same ticket and the exact same seat can really vary a lot. So that is a little bit frustrating. However, not a big deal. Got that ticket for an affordable price. Happy about that. Great.

Now, here's where my main complaint is. My main complaint. My main complaint is that I'm from a small town in Canada called Kelowna. It's a city of around 150,000 people or something like that. It's in a region in the province of British Columbia, my home province, called the Interior or the Okanagan. And it's around Four hour drive or a one hour flight

from Vancouver. So of course when I fly to Canada I leave from Seoul. I go to Vancouver and then sometimes I spend time in Vancouver. I do have friends and family there, but often I just fly right on to Kelowna. That's where my parents live, that's where my brother lives, and that's where I grew up. I I consider Kelowna my hometown. So In the winter.

You don't really want to drive to Kelowna from Vancouver because there's a big mountain in between those two cities. And driving that mountain pass in the winter can be really dangerous. There's lots of snow and ice and Yeah, it's just not the safest

Bet you never know if you're gonna have like really good weather one day. You could have great weather on the mountain road, or you could have a blizzard and snowstorm, or the road could even be closed down. It's just totally unpredictable in the winter because of the weather. So instead of taking a bus or driving or anything like that, it's best to fly. So I needed to book

a plane ticket to go to Kelowna from Vancouver, just like I said, a one hour flight. And this is where I got really frustrated with the ticket booking process because And this is on me. This is kind of my fault. Actually, it's pretty much 100% my fault. However, I just went to this. airline called WestJet and I booked a ticket with WestJet.

And uh I've noticed that WestJet, which is a Canadian airline that that services lots of domestic flights in Canada, but also some international flights. I've actually flown on WestJet from Canada. to Korea before. I think they've canceled that flights now, but they used to offer that. So they do have some international

options available, but it's mostly just domestic flights in Canada. That's their bread and butter, I think. And ooh, that's a good idiom to be your bread and butter just means your specialty or your main focus, your main skill or talent, something like that, when it's your main thing, then it's your bread and butter. So WestJet's bread and butter is domestic Canadian flights.

And yeah, I booked a flight on WestJet to go from Vancouver to Kelowna. Now I noticed when I went to WestJet's website that they have kind of changed their services over the last year or two since I've flown with them last. And it used to be that they had Two or maybe three options. You could buy Uh maybe just two options. Maybe they had like a premium and an economy ticket. And I'm not sure what they called it. Maybe it was business and economy, or maybe it was first class and economy.

But I think they just had those two options. Maybe they had like business, first class, and economy. But they just had those those kind of very clear options where you could book your ticket. And of course first class or business, you know, these are premium tickets, these are more expensive, and then you have your economy where people like me sit, okay? And that used to be what you would see when booking uh a ticket through their website. However, now they've introduced a lot of complexity and

Now in the economy, they have all of these different options. I believe they had three options just for economy, and the options are priced differently depending on if you're gonna check a bag or not check a bag. Check a bag means to store a suitcase or to store luggage. in the storage compartment of the plane underneath, right? Like you can have a carry-on bag, which is like your little bag that you take with you on the airplane, or a checked bag that goes in the airplane's storage compartment.

So that pricing is different. There's different pricing options depending on if you want to be able to cancel your ticket or not cancel your ticket or change the details of your ticket. Select your seats if you want some more leg room or less legroom. Like there are all these different options. And yeah, it's a little bit frustrating.

because when you search for your plane ticket, the first price I saw was a very affordable price and I was like, Oh, this is great. However, when I went to actually get to the stage where I have to book the ticket, then that price goes up quite a bit once they add in the extras and the tax and everything. And yeah, I I reckoned, I thought that I probably wouldn't be canceling my ticket, so I just went with the the no cancellation option, which was

Just a terrible mistake. I don't know why I did that. So I booked my ticket, kind of the cheapest option available. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this just one hour flight. I thought, okay, I'm done. All of my plane tickets booked. However, then I called my parents to tell them about my travel plans and, you know, when I was expecting to come in, and my dad

Asked me why I was flying on WestJet. He's like, Why are you flying Westjet? You usually fly at Northern Air. Why aren't you flying Northern Air? And in that moment, I was like Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about Northern Air. There's this other airline that's a real regional carrier. It really only operates in the western part of Canada.

and they service the north. That's their specialty, northern Canada. So it's kind of like the northwest part of the country. However, they do fly between Vancouver and Kelowna. And I've flown with them a lot in the past, but for whatever reason I just totally blanked and it didn't cross my mind when I was booking my airline ticket and I forgot about Northern Air.

So then after I finished talking with my parents, I went to the Northern Air website. I'm like, oh, how much how much was it? Like, did I really miss out on a good deal or something? And I checked. And yeah, I really did miss out on a good deal. It was like a much more affordable price and it included two checked bags with WestJet. I had to add a a checked bag.

to my ticket and it was really expensive just to check a suitcase, like one suitcase, and it's not like I'm carrying a ton of stuff. I'm only going to Canada for a week. So I don't have that many things, but you know it's always nice when you go back. I bring some little gifts and things back for my family and so I do have to check a bag. And yeah, it's it costs almost like the same amount as the airplane ticket costs to check a bag to go uh on a return ticket on West chat. So just ridiculous.

super expensive and I feel like I'm just getting nickel and dimed. Nickeled and dimed is an expression that means like a company or a person is trying to Extract and get like every little cent and dollar they can get out of you, just to extract the most amount of money out of you.

So I really felt like just terrible with WestJet that I was getting taken advantage of and all these fees, fees for this, fees for that. However, with Northern Air, it's really simple. It's like a basic website. Everything is very transparent. What you see is what you get. There's no extra fees. Stuff is just included. And so I really like as a customer that kind of business, right? So I crunched the numbers. I calculated, okay, if I cancel my flight with WestJet and I have

the remember I booked the no cancellation option, right? I I checked to see if I could cancel my flight. And I guess I have to tip my hat to WestJet a little bit here and And say that I'm thankful that even though I chose the no cancellation option, I was still able to cancel my flight. But you don't get a refund. You have to pay a cancellation fee. And then the refund that you do get isn't money. They don't give you money back. They give you credit.

So I did the math, I added everything up and Yeah, I was really not happy to have to pay the cancellation fee to WestJet. however, was more affordable to fly on northern air. I also have to say that the plane Times were a a better time. I would spend less time waiting at the airport. between my soul to Vancouver flight and my Vancouver to Kelowna flight with Northern Air, something like a three or four hour layover compared to a six plus hour layover with WestJet. So the time was better as well.

So when I took all of these things into consideration, like the way better service and just business practice that you get from Northern Air and the better times. And just the overall impression that I got comparing these two different airlines, I was like, I gotta cancel WestJet, I can't fly with them.

So I bit the bullet, I cancelled my flight, it really sucks. I had to pay that cancellation fee, and then I received no refund, just credit. So I guess I'll be flying WestJet sometime in the future, now that I have credit with them.

But it was just frustrating. And really I'm the one to blame, right? I was the one who totally forgot about Northern Air in the first place. I'm glad my dad reminded me about them because without that, uh I wouldn't have been able to use their Service, but yeah, that's on me, and that was a little bit of frustration I I had booking the ticket going back to Canada.

However, it's all finished, it's all in the past, the tickets are booked, everything's good to go, and hopefully that was the only little bit of a travel headache that I'll have for this trip. Hopefully the rest of it will be smooth sailing. In the next bonus episode, I'm actually going to tell you about what I'm looking forward to doing in Canada. I've got

Not a lot of things planned. Like most of the time when I go back, I just want to hang out with people. I want to see my family. I want to see my friends. But there are a few things and activities that I want to do as well. And that's gonna be the topic of our next bonus episode. So you'll have to wait until next week to hear that one. But for now, everyone, I just want to say thank you for listening. Don't forget to check out the study tools, the transcripts.

the vocabulary glossary and the quiz that are available for this episode. And also come on over to our Discord to hang out and to chat about. what you heard today in this episode. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you. Plus, there are tons of other different topics that you can talk about on Discord with our awesome community. And it's a great way to be active with your English and to practice your English.

output as well as your input that you get from listening to the podcast. So guys, we'll see you over on the Discord. Please take care and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, bye-bye.