Comments on: Upgrades and Downgrades: Southwest wi-fi, United customer non-service, fare sales and $0 fares, and more

By: Patrice

Patrice — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:15:39 +0000

The email will be just as much of a joke as the call center. I have the call log and the email chain to prove it. United’s web site was having a problem so I could not complete a purchase I had on hold. I called customer service and after 10 minutes of going through voice options then another hour of being transfered to dept after dept and being hung up on I sent an email to customer service. Same run around with the string of emails that had the same tone as the call center script. I was given a 10% coupon that didn’t work.
The reason for the call and email: I had a ticket on hold for my daughter to join us in Cancun and needed to make sure she could get the time off, but the price went up by $300 between the time I got a hold of a person because the web site could not find the reservation. I was told by customer service and email to bad the fare was no longer available and I had to pay the $300 extra, the kicker I bought the ticket 2 days later after the original reservation expired for .30 cents more. ( I needed her on this specific flight with her sisters) NO one in customer service checked the fares, I had a good laugh at the emails because the fare was available for the entire week and a half of the tough crap for you I got from “customer service” dept.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:20:52 +0000

Dave, if you follow the link the woman was British, not American.

By: Heather

Heather — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:02:12 +0000

I needed to speak with United customer service representative a few weeks ago to book a flight. Normally I would use the website, but I had a travel gift certificate that of course could only be used if I spoke with an actual person. The automated booking system wouldn’t allow me to use the certificate, and when I asked to speak with an actual person, the automated voice told me that due to high volume they couldn’t take my call but to try again. I did this for a few days before resorting to email. It took a couple of weeks to hear from anyone. By that point I had given up and booked with another airline — the travel certificate’s value wasn’t worth any more effort. So yeah, email’s going to be a real winner.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:12:20 +0000

That quote was hilarious about Puerto Rico. To Simon: Puerto Rico is actually a US territory, so that’s why it’s so funny. A more appropriate analogy might be if a Brit boarded a flight thinking it was going to Germany, but it in fact went to Gibraltar. Then they would say, “I looked around the airport, saw this huge rock instead of a wall, and posters of Gibraltar everywhere, and thought: ‘What am I going to do? Where is Gibraltar? Where am I?’

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:40:28 +0000

Born in the UK myself, I have to say Puerto Rico is not a place that is large in the consciousness there, I would like to think most Brits could place it in the Caribbean but for many it might be vaguely thought of with Guam or other islands.
Imagine an American who booked a trip to France and ended up in the Faeroes, would they know it was a Danish territory in the North Atlantic?