Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - SAA Voyager programme and staff a disgrace

The dealings with this programme over the last 12 months have left me so dismayed with this airline I have switched to Lufthansa.

BUT the part that really pisses me off was when I gave them one last chance to try retain me as a customer ......... and surprise of surprises, they did not even try.....

See the mail exchange below..........


Begin forwarded message:

From: [redacted]
Date: 8 April 2012 03:38:35 GMT+02:00
To: Anthonette [redacted]
Cc: Rob Prophet <[redacted].com>
Subject: Re: Voyager programme complaint
Reply-To: [redacted]

Dear Anthonette, I should find this no surprise at all .......but to date I have heard nothing from anybody at SAA. This just re confirms my opinion of Voyager.

I assume you will understand when I publish this letter on numerous frequent flyer websites.

Rgds
Rob Prophet
------Original Message------
From: Anthonette [redacted]
To: Rob Prophet
Subject: RE: Voyager programme complaint
Sent: Mar 22, 2012 11:55

Dear Mr. Prophet

Thank you for your email and I profusely apologise for the bad service you have received from SAA Voyager. I will be forwarding your email to our Executive Desk, who deal with these matters , for a immediate response to you.

Kind regards


Anthonette [redacted] | Business Analyst | Voyager Systems and Support

[redacted]Room 313, Floor 3, Block C, Airways Park, OR Tambo International- Johannesburg- South Africa


-----Original Message-----
From: [redacted] [redacted]
Sent: 22 March 2012 10:53 AM
To: Anthonette [redacted]
Cc: Kim [redacted]
Subject: Voyager programme complaint

Dear Anthonette, allow me to introduce myself. I am one of your voyager members. I also hold a LH miles and more card.

I wish u to know why I will most definitely NOT be continuing to use the voyager programme. I am at OR Tambo right now with a 7 hour lay-over between DAR and PLZ (which has a flight time total of under 6 hours). I am using my miles for this trip. When I made the booking directly with Voyage I was assured this was the only connection.......however on arrival in JNB I find there is a 13:00 flight to PLZ, after checking availability and confirming there are plenty of seats I am told it is an invol change and I am required to pay ZAR 200 to take the flight. Please clarify to me how my request for travel from DAR to PLZ involves an fee for the most logical connection ? This is the second time in 4 months your programme has done this to me. (The last time being a 23 hour transit in JNB between WAS and PLZ which again was possible to change against a fee)

As the loyalty person of SAA I am sure u ar aware that to hold a gold card means I have already invested heavily with ur company. I find this nickle and dimeing most distasteful and no longer see what the value of my card actually is. This is the third time in less than 10 months I have had to experience this nonsense.

I will now focus my travels around my miles and more card, as LH are clear, upfront and aggressively asking for business.

I clearly realize that I am just one lost gold member and that the impact of my depart from the SAA programme will have no influence on the losses experienced by your company. However, I can assure u that I will share my experiences with as many people as I know .....u will find I am a heavy user of linkedIn. This is not said as a threat, but as a fact.

I have taken the liberty of cc'ing Kim in as she knows me.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email.

Sadly, your lost customer
[redacted]

after checking availability and confirming there are plenty of seats

You dont mention if the 'plenty of seats' are seats on the plane, or are in fact X class seats (for economy). If there was no X availability on the flight when you booked, it wouldnt help if there was 100 Economy seats as you were on award travel.

Before you jump ship, a word of warning: I traveled once LH in FIRST class, JNB to Verona, arrived 28hrs late in Venice (apparently its close enough to Verona). My one item of luggage was lost, I had my wallet stolen onboard, had to endure two nights in lousy hotels, and my one item of luggage arrived one week after I got home, all because of their plane going technical. I wrote 3 letters, one I cc'd SAA in, because I used my Voyager miles to fly on LH, only SAA bothered with a reply. LH 26months later and still no response.

I received zero compensation for lost or late luggage, for the car hire to drive to the final destination, nor the decency of a reply.

I would rather be a Voyager member than LH.

I would have paid the ZAR200 to get home early :eek:

I wish u to know why I will most definitely NOT be continuing to use the voyager programme. I am at OR Tambo right now with a 7 hour lay-over between DAR and PLZ (which has a flight time total of under 6 hours). I am using my miles for this trip. When I made the booking directly with Voyage I was assured this was the only connection.......however on arrival in JNB I find there is a 13:00 flight to PLZ, after checking availability and confirming there are plenty of seats I am told it is an invol change and I am required to pay ZAR 200 to take the flight. Please clarify to me how my request for travel from DAR to PLZ involves an fee for the most logical connection ? This is the second time in 4 months your programme has done this to me. (The last time being a 23 hour transit in JNB between WAS and PLZ which again was possible to change against a fee)

As the loyalty person of SAA I am sure u ar aware that to hold a gold card means I have already invested heavily with ur company. I find this nickle and dimeing most distasteful and no longer see what the value of my card actually is. This is the third time in less than 10 months I have had to experience this nonsense.

I will now focus my travels around my miles and more card, as LH are clear, upfront and aggressively asking for business.

I clearly realize that I am just one lost gold member and that the impact of my depart from the SAA programme will have no influence on the losses experienced by your company. However, I can assure u that I will share my experiences with as many people as I know .....u will find I am a heavy user of linkedIn. This is not said as a threat, but as a fact.

I have taken the liberty of cc'ing Kim in as she knows me.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email.

Sadly, your lost customer
[redacted]

Please tell me you did not really write a letter of complaint as if it was a text message from one teenager to another.

What he said.....:eek:

The sad realities are that frequent flyer programs are not the cadillac programs that they were marketed to be in the eighties.

They are full of restrictions and complications that make it a challenge to learn the system.

There are advantages, however you do have to learn to exploit them.

I can understand how one can get pushed over the edge by a series of poor service experiences - but that was a pretty big hissy fit over R200! :)

As to the award booking, it seems quite plausible that no award seats were available on the earlier flight when you booked - so the agent gave you the only flight with award availability. (To which you agreed, it appears. If you don't already, you really should check award availability yourself before booking.) When you wanted to change on the day the rule for changes kicks in. Again the agent is probably unable to overrule the system even if he/she wanted to. So that part all seems well within the Voyager rules.

Having said that I do wish that SA would be more pragmatic about switching people onto earlier flights when there are empty seats on the day and the pax are at the airport already. They always used to - in fact they would do it at the check-in desks - but nowadays they play very strictly to the rules of the ticket.

"Papa said SAA was also repositioning Voyager by reaching out to different markets and customers. His department was currently doing a detailed benchmarking of the programme."

"To improve general customer service, SAA had identified 26 touch points where improvements were needed but at this stage was focusing on three: its call centre; passenger check-in; and baggage handling. The CEO’s office itself was accountable for customer service and a leadership team assessed all customer service complaints weekly. He acknowledged that customer service at SAA was not always consistent, adding this was being addressed by the airline’s steering committee. “It often boils down to the attitude of the staff. We’re dealing with it and we are focusing on up-skilling the staff."

Source (http://www.tourismupdate.co.za/NewsDetails.aspx?newsId=62813)

Johan

.......- but that was a pretty big hissy fit over R200! :)



Quite!
It looks like the OP joined FT just to vent his spleen about this 'incident'. Plus one post saying that the SA website is more down than up (OK, its not a great website, far from it, but more down than up....:().
Never seen since Apr 8. Troll. I'd say!

Quite!
It looks like the OP joined FT just to vent his spleen about this 'incident'. Plus one post saying that the SA website is more down than up (OK, its not a great website, far from it, but more down than up....:().
Never seen since Apr 8. Troll. I'd say!

+1