Northwest WorldPerks (Discontinued Program) - Note to TTU about upgrade procedures and a very generic response

Yesterday I flew from BWI-MSP-YWG. Had a great interaction with NW on Tuesday night as my original BWI-MSP flight was cancelled and they rebooked me on the later flight. So far so good. Wasn't really expecting to get upgraded from BWI-MSP, given a cancelled 757 at 8:47am and a smaller FC cabing on the 2:30pm BWI-MSP flight. Here is the note I sent to TTU about my experience on the flight. Following is the response I got this morning from NW. Typically when you send a comment to CO, it may take them several days to respond, but they typically respond with a little more than "we'll let them know". I would have been fine with a response that said, "We looked into it and you are insane." But the non-response just isn't sitting well. I know the "compensation" is a little out there, but it can't hurt to ask....right? :D Thoughts?

NW/KL Customer Care Form:
First Name: BWICOPLAT
Flight Date: 06/13/2007
Flight Number: NW0150
Origin City: BWI
Destination City: MSP
Ticket Number: 012XXXXXXXXXX
Confirmation Number: XXXXXX
Response Required: Yes
====================
Message:
My original flight this morning was cancelled. NW did a great job of
notifying me last night and getting be rebooked on NW 150, the 2:30pm
BWI-MSP flight. Arrived at the airport and went to the kiosk to put my
passport info into the machine. I asked about the possiblity of an
upgrade. The customer service supervisor said, "It's full, but you are
at the top of the list." Went to the gate and checked in with an agent
there. She said, "You are at the top of the list, hang on it might
happen." I stepped away from the podium and a man approached and had a
conversation with the agent. She indicated the F/C list was pretty
long. He said he was a friend of "Mr. Y" (who I now know is the
customer service supervisor at the gate). I walked away. During
boarding I noticed this man board with the first class group (he sat in
4B). Boarding continues and at the end of boarding the flight
attendant, XXXXX, comes running from the back of the plane saying, "don't
close the door there is a gentleman without a seat." "Mr. Y" approaches
and the conversation takes place next to me seat 7C. "What seat do you
have?" "11A" "Did you switch with someone?" "No" "Someone was in your
seat when you got there?" "Yes". "OK. Go ahead and sit there
(pointing to 3D)." When I fly I ask for a few basic things. Safe transportation to/from destination (hopefully on-time) and consistency in service. I am
detecting some inconsistency in service here and would like to know if,
as a Continental Platinum Elite, the normal procedures for upgrades was
disregarded for favoritism and laziness of the GA to upgrade the
appropriate elite level flyer? I am not sure that is the case, but it
sure seems like it. If that turns out to be the case I think
retraining of the ground staff at BWI and a pair of upgrade certificates, at the time of booking if there is a first class seat available, would be a
nice gesture from NW.
Thanks!
Submitted: 06/13/2007 16:48:10

NW RESPONSE:
Dear Mr. BWICOPLAT,

RE: Case Number XXXXXXX

In your email, you shared your concerns regarding your travel aboard
Flight 150 on June 13. On behalf of Northwest Airlines, we sincerely
regret your disappointment with the way in which the first class
upgrade procedure was handled, and certainly appreciate your comments and
concerns in the matter.

Please know that we take our customer's concerns seriously. Although I
am unable to advise you what exactly occurred with our upgrade process,
be assured that I will share your comments with the responsible
executive team in Baltimore to preclude a similar incident from happening in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to write, Mr. BWICOPLAT. We appreciate the
opportunity to respond, and if your future includes air travel, we hope
to be your carrier of choice.

Sincerely,

XXXXXX XXXXXX
Customer Care
Northwest/KLM Airlines

What more do you want?

They said they are unable to tell you exactly what went wrong but would forward your concerns onto the people in BWI for them to look into.

Seems reasonable to me.

I need to agree with Schmutzig on this one...

First of all, if you have read the postings on the NW board in the past week or had done a search you would have seen that these type of instances have been recently coming up.

Second, you mention about CO customer service and "it may take them several days to respond"... well you got a response from NW that they are looking into it... the investigation that comes of these types of incidents takes several days to look into... (see other threads recent threads on this subject) at least they acknowledged your complaint and have forwarded it to the right individuals.

Third, in this case it sounds like there was a dupe seat issue that wasn't resolved until the end of boarding. Though, I agree the empty seat in FC SHOULD have been filled by the GA from the upgrade list and not with the mis-seated passenger.

I think you should have at least given NWA a week or so to investigate and respond further. If then there was no action, then I think it would warrant a posting here.


What more do you want?

Are you perhaps a little slanted in your response because you didn't get the compensation you were looking for? Max, I think 7500 miles would have been appropriate. This equates to half of a one way, domestic upgrade, from discounted coach, as you received it as an elite upgrade, not pre-booked. Perhaps they were turned off by the larger demand?

Sometimes it's hard to track down what happened at the gate and honestly, I'd prefer them spending the time fixing the problem, rather than researching it.

Did anyone actually go look & see if 11A was occupied? This sounds like a ruse to grap an unoccupied seat in F. If there was an unoccupied seat in F, it's also possible there were no elites in the back to upgrade, so the gate agent probably has some leeway in resolving the situation.

Or maybe the gate agent deliberately gave out a duplicate seat to facilitate the ruse?

Nevertheless it appears the OP was seated in F and thus suffered no loss, so this reply is about the most that can be expected.

We have to be careful about overusing TTU. I don't think I would have TTU'd this one, lacking any clear evidence of unupgraded elites.

Did anyone actually go look & see if 11A was occupied? This sounds like a ruse to grap an unoccupied seat in F. If there was an unoccupied seat in F, it's also possible there were no elites in the back to upgrade, so the gate agent probably has some leeway in resolving the situation.

Or maybe the gate agent deliberately gave out a duplicate seat to facilitate the ruse?

Nevertheless it appears the OP was seated in F and thus suffered no loss, so this reply is about the most that can be expected.

We have to be careful about overusing TTU. I don't think I would have TTU'd this one, lacking any clear evidence of unupgraded elites.

I don't think the OP was in F -- 7C is what I understand is where the OP ended up...

I don't think the OP was in F -- 7C is what I understand is where the OP ended up...
I had to re-read it myself, but I think you're right mdb

A couple of responses that might help.

First, I wasn't going to post until I got a response from TTU (hence I waited). I read the TTU response as a "we can't tell you what happened, but we are going to talk to the folks at BWI about it". I didn't expect another e-mail from NW again about this, so I went ahead and posted.

Second, I was in coach (7C). I can say that there were at least 10 others who boarded in the post-FC "elite level boarding". Note, they didn't board exit rows with the elite's for this flight.

Third, 11A was full as the F/A who came running up said, "this man doesn't have a seat someone is in his". The conversation between the GA and the mis-placed passenger occured next to 7C. The GA was looking back towards 11A and verified the seat was occupied.

As I said in my post. I threw the upgrade certs out there. They can't put 7,500 miles into my OnePass account (I don't have a WorldPerks account) so handing over miles wouldn't work. A one-way upgrade would work, too. I guess I was disappointed in the rapid response. They could be taking any issue with any customer at any airport and send the same reply "we'll forward it to the station for their benefit" and never do that. As I mentioned, CO would have provided at least a "yes, there was something amiss and we are going to fix it" or a "no, it was all above board and you just happened to be an elite that didn't get the upgrade".

I think if this is happening more frequently (and I read the other posts about it) if enough people write to NW about it, they may be more apt to do something.

I had to re-read it myself, but I think you're right mdb

Ditto for me, sorry about the misunderdstanding.