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Let me tell you a story about a bad airline experience. Maybe you can relate directly as, unfortunately, I think many of you can.

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I won’t name the airline, but a few months ago, I was going on a four-day trip to Mexico with my son. As we approached the gates for a 6:30 a.m. flight in Toronto, the loudspeaker informed passengers that the flight was oversold and they were looking for volunteers to take the next flight, which was about 10 hours later.

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My son and I weren’t initially interested, but we were near the desk and they leaned over and said they were desperate. They were offering $4,000 in credit, which got our attention. I asked if the credit expired, and they said no. I asked if the credit could be used by different family members, and they said yes. I asked my son what he thought, and he said, “Let’s do it.”

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The airline kindly offered food vouchers and vouchers for a limo ride back home and a return to the airport later in the day. We thought we had received a pretty good deal. However, I know that airlines can be tricky. What could go wrong? Maybe nothing, but maybe it would.

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After we got back from the vacation, my wife wondered if we might be able to use the big credit on business-class tickets for a planned summer vacation in Europe. I told her I would look into it.

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Airline trickery No. 1

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The electronic travel voucher we received “is not applicable towards the payment of taxes, fees, charges or surcharges.” I figured this might be a problem, but it still must cover a decent amount. The first thing I did was test book our flight to Europe. I put in the basic economy option.

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The flight was roughly $800 a person. The price details were broken down so I could see the various taxes, fees, charges and surcharges. The amount for the base fare was $1. Could this possibly be correct? Could my $4,000 credit only cover $1 for each of us?

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I checked some other flight options. Business class, for the low, low price of $5,000 a ticket, did include a base fare of about $2,000. So we had the option of paying $6,000 for two business class tickets and using up the full $4,000 credit. That wasn’t something we were prepared to pay, so back to economy.

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Airline trickery No. 2

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I went back the next day, and the algorithm apparently thought I might be interested in this particular trip and now the price was $880. The good news was that the base fare was no longer $1; it was now $50. As it turned out, $880 was still a good price.

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I thought I’d better book this now, and at least I could use a bit of the credit. I searched and searched on the website, and while there were certain types of credits that could be applied to the purchase through the website, I couldn’t do so in my case. To use any of the electronic travel voucher, I would have to call the airline in order to use my small credit of base fare.