> to get the full value of my money.
No one is forced to understand the system, but that means leaving some indeterminate amount of money/value in the hands of the predatory airline.
If you wanna save money, you figure it out. If you don't wanna figure it out, you leave money on the table.
They're selling (negative) convenience, but that's pretty much by design.
You already have to spend time researching airlines, buying tickets in advance, etc. but now in addition to that there is a completely contrived layer of bullshit I need to know about.
You can extend this concept even further and imagine literal series of hoops that you must jump through to earn “cash back” on your ticket at the end of the flight.