My wife are planning a vacation and we wanted to book some flights on Northwest Airlines the other night.

We went through the entire process, clicking, accepting terms and conditions, selecting seats, entering credit card numbers, verifying this and that and was on the final page to purchase the tickets (side story-the last button they want you to click to buy the tickets says "complete transaction" or some jumble like that -- the tooltip says what the button should have though: Purchase tickets).

In any case, I clicked the button. Boof. The web site kicked us clear back to the flight selection screen and said we had to call to purchase tickets. Frustrated by the waste of time, I called the Gold/Platinum service line to complete the transaction. Smoothly completed.

The next day, my wife noticed an extra "$20 service fee" for using the phone service center.

I called within about 15 seconds of hearing that.

Please hold. Holding. Holding.

("We value you as a customer, please continue to do something useful while we keep you on hold and waste your time.")

I was told by the person who answered after a LONG wait that they might not be able to credit me that money as they personally can't -- maybe the helpdesk can. A minute or two passed and she said that "this time, we'll credit your account, but next time we won't. We always charge that fee, EVEN IF THE WEB SITE SAYS YOU HAVE TO CALL." Shocked, I questioned that logic. It was true. I said, next time, I'll choose another airline -- I'm a gold member, and my wife and I have over more than 700,000 miles accumulated between the two of us -- it seems like a terrible way to treat a customer.

"OK. I'll note that," she responded.

"Goodbye NWA."

If you have your own business -- think your rules and regulations through before you slap your customers in the face with rules that may have made sense in a board-room or meeting, but don't connect with reality. Sometimes, the customer may deserve it (as not everyone plays by reasonable rules). Other times, a slap means you're just loosing a customer.

And no, the person I spoke with and booked the tickets originally mentioned no fee for using the service over the phone -- I imagine there was some click-through on the phone that I had agreed to ...