Does anyone have any experience with Airhitch.org and its super cheap standby air tickets? The website is designed horribly and the process is documented in vague and magical terms. Something seems to be up....

I forget if I used airhitch r airtech, but I flew from the westcoast to Europe and back with them once, when I needed to travel on a dime. I was forced to drive halfway down the west coast to catch a flight on my date of choice, but I got on the flights no problem, and had no major issues. Decent experience if you're flexible

I used them once about 10 years ago and it worked out fine. I flew from JFK to Luxembourg City and returned out of Paris. I even did a stopover in Iceland for about a week.

On the outbound, I almost didn't make the first flight, because there was no availability, but some unfortunate diplomat from an African country was denied access to the flight. He was headed for Zurich, but was landing in Luxembourg and had no transit visas for either France or Germany. I sympathized with the poor fellow, but was secretly glad he didn't get on the flight, because I got his seat.

On the return, availability out of Paris was difficult to come by. I could have gone back to Luxembourg and gotten out the next day or hang around in Paris for an extra couple of days. The choice was clear for me, even though by that time I was flat broke.

I attempted to use Airhitch last fall but had an astoundingly horrible experience. The website is very cryptic and, in my opinion, not in the best logical order. After I submitted my information and flight preferences, I really had no idea what to do from there. I did read the website and even had some help from a friend who had just used their services but it did not help in my case. I was met with a CSR that was extremely pretentious and treated me like an imbecile. There are very specific and strict guidelines in their chat rooms (I was even told how I should and should not ask a question and what questions I was able to ask!) and I was severely rebuffed for not adhering to them. Coincidentally, I was not given the link to their chat guidelines page beforehand). After being told I would need to donate money to their sponser in order to get information about travel alternatives I decided to find my own alternatives. Never before have I been so morally and emotionally debased by another's words on the internet.

I used Airhitch about 5 yrs ago, and got to Europe ok, but they are very shady, and criptic to say the least. I would be intrestd to hear more about how tight security and very full planes are effecting them.