Using Crypto as a means of paying for travel is a great idea, but not if it means paying an extra 40 or 50% for the exact same ticket purchased from another site. The AVA token is the crypto travel token from Travala and the site is not competitive. Crypto as a use case is what we want to see and clearly this is not working how it should.
When I first started buying into AVA over 2 years ago I had so much hope for the project. The idea you could stake and earn crypto which could then be used for free or discounted travel really appealed to me, but the project is a complete joke.
Roughly 12 months ago I thought I would get some prices and possibly book some airline tickets through Travala earning some AVA rewards in the process. What was clearly evident back then is they were not competitive and the rewards earned were nowhere close to covering the difference in prices from else where. As an investor is is disappointing to not be able to use your investment the way it should be used.
Last night I was online running over the schedule for next years family trip to the UK via Paris. Air France was by far the cheapest option and not being direct did not matter due to the savings which were substantial. When you are paying for 5 adults and 2 kids the budget does become rather important and why this tie I have gone against my policy of direct flights reaching the destination as quickly as possible.
The Air France website comes in at R8210 per adult or $439 per return ticket and flying Virgin directly to Heathrow is nearly $200 extra per ticket. 5 adults that is $1000 for the inconvenience of 5 hours or $200 per hour which I will take.
The same Air France flight on Travala is $749.32 or R13 874.71 which is a ludicrous $310 extra per person. This is exactly the same flight using the same flight schedule and AVA is clearly not even close to being competitive. Oh I nearly forgot you get a $3.75 AVA bonus once you have completed the purchase.
How anyone is ever going to use AVA for travelling is beyond my realms of imagination and why I cannot justify being invested in the project. The hope is now the price rises with all the other coins and I can get out with a profit never to be seen again.
I was originally sold on the idea of investing in the project via staking and earning AVA as an APR reward, but since they cancelled that part it is hard to justify the investment. My other staking investments are flying through the combination of regular purchases and compounding the rewards, but AVA is stagnant.
One would have hoped they would have got their prices and deals on offer into being more competitive, but truthfully they are seriously expensive. Just on this trip once down with hotels and flights I would have wasted more than $2K using AVA compared to finding the same deals elsewhere and they are not actually deals, but paying the prices advertised with the airlines at their standard prices.
I couldn't agree more and exactly how I feel.
I do think crypto has changed so much over the last 3 years where in the past you may have struggled to spend your crypto, but now with debit cards etc on and off ramping is not hard at all. Anyone using AVA either has too much money or has not checked the pricing of flights elsewhere.
