Nice experiences on China Southern as a Elite Plus
Recently, I traveled extensively on China Southern domestically and internationally as a NW plat. Here are some highlights for my wonderful experiences on China Southern.
If you are traveling out of their main operation bases, such as CAN, PEK, WUH, URC, Skyteam Elite and Elite Plus on board will be listed on SPIL, the Special Passenger Information List. Even if you sit in economy, during boarding or after taking off, FA will come to you, introduce herself and give you a welcome drink. There is a lot of personal attention during flight. I asked a FA once and she said the company asked them to treat ST E+ like VIP (some kind of high level governor).
If your flight is longer than 6 hours, the seat next to you (ST E+) will be locked automatically if the flight is not sold out. So be sure to provide your FFP# in advance. I found this does not always work. However, there is no problem to ask check in agent to lock the seat next to you at the airport (assuming agent is CZ staff not from third party). And, I have no problem to get seat locked in domestic flights (<2 hr).
If your aircraft is parked on remote bay, there are VIP shuttle dedicated for first/biz class passengers and ST elites in CAN/PEK/SZX and other operation bases.
I did read some bad comment for CZ from this forum. But my experience is much better than my expectation. I never got such personal attention on NW/CO/DL/KE/AF/KL if I sit in Y. If you are complaining CZ, please be patient. They are definitely improving!
Programs: nwaworldperks gold, cathay pacific asia miles, bangkok airways
Posts: 161
goes along with what I have said in the past. In fact, here at NNG, they always send me VIP shuttle to take me to the boarding ramp if it is an apron ramp and always send me to private VIP room with food and beverages pre-flight. in fact, better service here than at CAN. enjoy the frinedly Chinese skies.
I did read some bad comment for CZ from this forum. But my experience is much better than my expectation. I never got such personal attention on NW/CO/DL/KE/AF/KL if I sit in Y. If you are complaining CZ, please be patient. They are definitely improving!
This is certainly different than most of the other reviews of CZ that I have read. I had been dreading having to fly CZ, which was the only SkyTeam carrier I could get on award tickets to BKK. Due to a major schedule change by CZ, my itinerary became impossible, and Delta put me on flights with DL and KE. I was pleased with the change from CZ based on what I had read about them until now. Maybe I will give them a try next time if I see more favorable reviews.
I also had a realtively good experience on CZ as an Elite Plus in late December. At checkin at LAX, I was able to use the premium economy/business checkin line, which was empty, while the economy line snaked beyond the end of the tensa barriers. I had to do educate the business line "guard" a little to convince him that I could access the line (he said, "Yes Delta Platinums are allowed to use the line, are you platinum?" as I was holding my plat card for him to examine). The agent at the ticket counter was incredibly helpful. I asked if there was any better seating available on the flight, but was told unfortunately that there was not (based on loads I had a small hope for an op-up).
There was no special transportation from the gate to the remote stand at LAX, but I was once again able to board the bus with business/first and bypass the line. Once I was on the plane, I was a bit dissapointed to not see any particularly "personalized" service which I had heard about. I was quite pleased to see that as the flight was nearly finished boarding, I (in the window) was the only pax in my row--the gate agent had blocked it for me. Upon closer investigation once in flight, there couldn't have been more that 5-8 total free seats in economy, and no other row was empty. I proceeded to sleep for about 12 of the 15 hours from LAX-CAN while laying across 3 seats.
My connection at CAN was relatively uneventful. I can't report on the lounges in CAN as the flight inbound from LAX was delayed abour 35 minutes, making the connection time quite tight. There was, however confusion about my (and all of the other passenger's) checked luggage. The ticket agent at LAX was quite clear that I would need to claim/take my bag through customs in CAN during the transit (I clarified this with her to be sure). I arrived at passport control, where all of us headed for BKK were sent through one line and kept waiting without our passports for an scort to take us back through security and to our gates--but still no sign of bags. Upon arriving at the gate, I asked the gate agent about the bags--no dice. I tried to explain that LAX had tild me that we would need to claim them in CAN, but they said don't worry. A group of about 15 passengers had formed at the gate (all from my LAX flight) with similar issues, so I took over the luggage issue. I informed the GA that I wouldn't be boarding my flight unless they confirmed my bag had made the connection and was onboard. After 20 minutes, they assured my that all of our luggage, but specifically mine (they checked my claim number via wlakie-talkie, apparently with the ground handlers) had made it on the aircraft.
Upon arrival in BKK, I was somewhat unsurprised to find my bag absent from the carousel. I went the the baggage office (run by TG for most of the airlines) and they traced it to CAN. Long story short, my bag never showed after two days. I took it upon myself to call CZ (I called the general reservations number in Guangzhou, with a Mandarin/Cantonese speaker at my side in case of language issues) and told the agent about my bag problem. She collected my ticket number, itierary, bag number etcetera, promised to research it and call me back shortly. After two hours, I had heard nothing, so I repeated the above exercise two more times. My bag arrived in BKK the next afternoon--in short, I'm not sure it would have ever made it without my prodding calls.
Interesting story concerning the luggage that did not connect to the BKK flight after the flight from LAX. Did the other passengers from LAX get their bags in BKK or were they also delayed? Was your luggage singled out?
Interesting story concerning the luggage that did not connect to the BKK flight after the flight from LAX. Did the other passengers from LAX get their bags in BKK or were they also delayed? Was your luggage singled out?
This is unclear to me as they wern't part of my travelling party. I suspect that no one's bags made the connection, as the time was quite short, but at the same time I didn't see any of them in the luggage office in BKK (I could also attribute this to the confusing situation regarding what office to visit in BKK--it was really far from our luggage carousel).
No offence but reading about how good CZ is for ST E+ made me laugh. By mistake I'm still FB Gold (ST+ for my address) and my crap flights with them was simply 'that'. CDG-CAN and CAN-AMS are not short ones and they where enough for me.
Ok, there could be something done in a good way but a bit of nice paper wrapping does not increase the value of an item, if the item is of poor quality.
In my case, no VIP or whatever first/biz service, my bags went lost, twice, I had no support... in a nutshell 'crap'. (if interested I created a post on it). I redeemed a domestic flight two years ago and the MD80 was really worn out, but for a one hour short haul I did not really cared .
Can they improve ? Sure, they can and they will. Perhaps in 15 years CZ will beat SQ, but. not today; there's a looooong way to go. Good luck to them and to whoever flies with them. I'll try as much as I can not to be in that lot once again.
Nice experiences on China Southern as a Elite Plus
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