cebu pacific's zero fares: i'm not too excited

i received the news from a good friend via text: cebu pacific is offering zero fares! YAY!

NOT.

while i did forward the news to all my vagabonding friends, i, in turn, abstained from the hoopla. for one thing, i told myself i'd cut down on mini trips to achieve a bigger, better, badder travel goal for 2009.

and the other thing is the fear that my flight will be cancelled, moved, postponed, or just be bestowed with a ton of misfortune. cebu pacific has sure done a great job of discouraging me from traveling. while i know there are other airline options, i haven't got the funds to shell out that much for higher airfare, so i've chosen to let everyone else do the traveling.

i'm staying home. for now. i'm using all the time i have to prepare myself for possible disasters for my bangkok trip in november, as i'm using cebu pacific for that trip. and what do you know, the -ber months aren't even here, and that flight is already messed up.

i told a friend of mine about the zero fares promo, so she could buy her ticket for the same bangkok trip i'll be going to in november. i gave her the flight details that the rest of our party has already booked from a previous fare promo, and what do you know, the flight schedule has changed. instead of 10:05pm, the flight to bangkok will be leaving at 9:25pm, while our trip home was also moved from 1:35am to a little past 12 midnight.

while the schedule is not a drastic change (thank god the flight still leaves after office hours), i was pissed that we weren't even informed of this change. no email, no text, no nothing. three of us had already booked this flight, and none of us received word from cebu pacific.

granted, the flight is still months away, i think passengers should still be informed of any changes on their flights as soon as the changes are made. what if that "miniscule" change affects our entire trip? it will allow us to adjust to the changes months ahead.

why is cebu pacific making it so hard for us travelers to like them? why?

it's not like we're asking for the sun and the moon here. as budget travelers, we ask for the basics. i've already made peace with the fact that they don't serve food on board, but rather sell it at astronomical prices. but to cancel, postpone, and delay flights without informing passengers about it, is just an outrage.

emailing doesn't take much. a short, template-ized email will do the trick, if you don't have it in your heart to spend a peso for a text message to a customer who's paid for your services. and if you could do it kindly, not RUDELY, as has been done in the past, that would be great, thanks.