Why does United Airlines suck so badly??? -- they redeemed themselves!!

[AndrewR]

EDIT: See below.

:| :| :|

Here's the problem -- we have ticket vouchers for use before May 2001 that we received when we volunteered to be bumped off of a flight for the Memorial Day weekend. We would like to use them for a trip to Paris in March and found an awesome fare of $382 RT per person online. Our vouchers are $300 each so the final fare would be $82.

HOWEVER, the fare through the phone is $520, and you cannot use vouchers except when booking over the phone or in person (and the vouchers cannot be used online -- they aren't that technically adept yet). So, the best fare we can receive is $220 -- a $140 per person penalty because their technology sucks. Grrrr.

Had to vent. Can anyone provide any links to bomb making materials? (I'M KIDDING, just very frustrated -- back to the phones)

 

[AndrewR]

Doesn't anyone know? I'm still wondering (and they're still sucking -- good thing I wasted about three hours today at work).

 

[damocles]

The sucking comes from the hole left when the door falls off.

Seriously though, i have heard a lot of nightmares about United and wouldnt fly with them

 

[Balt]

I don't know about United Airlines, but I can tell you that Paris ROCKS.

That was the most fun I've had my entire life, I think. And it was of course very educational at the same time.

Get there by any means possible.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

United has gone from being a premier carrier to being one of the poorest - it seems to be the nature of the industry that there is great fluctuation in quality. I think Delta is the best nowadays.

 

[Balt]

Even Delta has gone down the crapper, though. Every airline seems to be doing so.

They used to be a lot better than they are now :disgust:

 

[AndrewR]

I am thoroughly convinced that only the luxury airlines and some of the international carriers (Virgin Atlantic, British Air, Singapore Air [assuming it's on the right runway], Qantas) are the only good choices anymore. The large domestic airlines are all amazingly inept. Did you know that under FAA rules a plane departs "on time" as soon as it leaves the gate? So, you can depart "on time" and sit on the tarmac, inches from the gate, for three hours and still be "on time". It happened to us last year!

We used to fly USAir but gave up on them after a couple disastrous trips. Delta is generally the most expensive here in Atlanta (they rarely have discounted fares -- full fares are cheaper though). Now United is jerking us off. Air travel is crap. :|

Oh, and I'm very familiar with Paris -- I lived in France for a year and probably spent about four weeks in Paris. I'm exceptionally eager to go back because I can stay at the Grand Hotel (an Inter-Continental hotel right across from the Paris Opera) for $60/night. Plus, the exchange rate is FANTASTIC right now. Woohoo!

Here is what I decided to do: I bought the ticket online to lock in that awesome fare ($382 to Europe kicks ass! that includes taxes, BTW). Tomorrow I'm heading down to the airport to have them reissue the ticket while applying the voucher credit to it. If they refuse to do it, I'm screaming bloody murder and waking the dead with noise until I get my way. Heh. I pity the poor person that says, "How may I help you?"

 

[Balt]

Oh, and I'm very familiar with Paris -- I lived in France for a year and probably spent about four weeks in Paris.

Andrew, I am sooooooo jealous.

I only got to spend a week there and there was so much more I wanted to see. I'm actually thinking of moving there myself after I get out of school, but who knows what I'll actually be able to do.

 

[Xzaver]

<< Why does United Airlines suck so badly??? >>




They no longer fly the friendly sky's.


Reagards,
-Xzaver-

 

[DataFly]

Consumers are a big reason airline quality has declined. Everyone demands lower and lower ticket prices, so airlines have to fit more and more people onto a plane to make a reasonable profit. Often increasing a plane's capacity isn't enough to offset the reduced ticket price, however, so they have to cut into other services.

Most of the massive delays are not the airlines' fault. There has been such a tremendous boom in air traffic recently that the current infastructure cannot support; too many people want to fly, but that means too many planes that have to take off at the same time, so someone has to be delayed. This is why highly efficient, high-capacity planes like Boeing's 777-200 and Airbus' future A3XX are becoming more popular or will be popular with airlines. They're relatively cheap to fly and can carry lots of people, which means fewer planes will be needed to take a certain number of people somewhere.

As for &quot;friendly skies,&quot; don't forget what the people that work behind all the counters and on the planes go through. Lots of angry or dissatisfied customers take their frustration out on them, even though whatever caused the frustration usually isn't their fault. You'd get pretty unhelpful if you got treated like they do day in and day out.


BTW, if you can spare the $$ and you fly frequently, get a membership to the member's club of whatever airline you usually fly on, like the Red Carpet Club for United. It's worth it, especially with all of the delays nowadays.

 

[damocles]

I have flown British Airways, Singapore Air, Air New Zealand, Quantus and Thai Airlines in the last year, all offered phenomenal service. My pic of the bunch would probably be Singapore Air, with Air NZ being a close second.

 

[IamDavid]

I was once delayed for 13 hours while flying United. The stupid thing is that the flight was only supposed to of been a 1 hour flight. Every time I asked some one what was going on they told me it was only gonna take another 15 minutes. Then when I finally got to board the plane it took another 45 min. to taxi out to the runway. Needless to say, I never have nor will I ever fly United again.

 

[AndrewR]

Woohoo!! Update:

I went down to the airport ticket counter (a 30 minute trip on the transit system) and waited patiently to present my case. I took some attitude from the ticket agent (and smug and stupidly incorrect interpretation of the terms of the ticket vouchers) before talking to the Service Director. He agreed to help me and apply the vouchers (with very little hesitation -- bitchy ticket agent went on break or something; choke on your pretzels, babe).

So, after about 45 minutes, I walked away from the counter with two roundtrip tickets to Paris for a grand total of $144.42. Yes, that's for TWO tickets!!!!

Just have to say that Mr. Kumar, the Service Director at Atlanta last night, ROCKS!!! What an awesome guy!



------------
DataFly: Certainly infrastructure is partially to blame for air traffic problems -- in Atlanta it is particularly problematic since the corrupt city government (currently under investigation by the Justice Department, which has already indicted at least half a dozen officials) refuses to place concrete plans for a new airport in the city to alleviate the congestion. If they do build a new one, it will compromise the VERY lucrative concessions market at Hartsfield, the owners of which are VERY closely tied to the city machine.

However, the biggest problem in airline pricing is the hub system which encourages mini-monopolies and enables the large airlines to dominate the smaller airlines and drive them from business through predatory pricing.

Doubt the monopoly? The ONLY non-stop flight between Atlanta and Los Angeles goes for a fare of $1,800 roundtrip from Delta, which has their hub in ATL. It's the SAME fare no matter if you book it 21 days in advance or 7 days in advance. It is also usually near capacity for every flight, and there are NO discounts available at all (that price is actually with a corporate discount, full fare is higher). Nonstop to Europe is far less for a longer flight. How exactly is that justified?

The people who should be most upset with the airlines are business travelers, more specifically finance people at companies who are RAPED by the airlines' pricing schemes which cause prices like the one quoted above (how about $900 for a RT ticket from Atlanta to Washington National?). One guy at our company had to pay $10,000 for a ticket to Paris which had a stopover in London. Book tickets like that often enough and you might as well buy your own plane.

 

[MajesticMoose]

I got a question:
i was flying TWA this summer and everytime i took off they drove home the point that window shades had to be in the full upright position.
I think its just a dumb rule they made for no reason.

moose