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Alton Brown asks UA why he paid $50 to sit on UA Club floor

Alton Brown asks UA why he paid $50 to sit on UA Club floor

Old Apr 13, 2015, 5:56 am
  #1  
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Alton Brown asks UA why he paid $50 to sit on UA Club floor

Read this on Twitter this morning and got a good chuckle. Didn't this this already posted. As always, mods, please merge if I missed it.

At least there is better food coming this year? You just may need to eat it on the floor.


I didn't see how to link to this conversation, but screen clip taken from Twitter.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 6:08 am
  #2  
 
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That would suck. BTW- Should I know who Alton Brown is?
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 6:09 am
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Pretty sad.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 6:09 am
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Originally Posted by Singapore_Schwing
That would suck. BTW- Should I know who Alton Brown is?
Multi millionaire celebrity chef on the food network.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 7:17 am
  #5  
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Originally Posted by Michilander
And, the host of the best show ever aired on the Food Network, Good Eats!
Agree 100%, as evidenced by my FT handle....

Thanks for posting this, as I am not a twitter user.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 7:18 am
  #6  
 
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Originally Posted by jacobac00
I didn't see how to link to this conversation, but screen clip taken from Twitter.
here you go, last post in that thread. don't need to be a member.

https://twitter.com/united/status/587506644508082177
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 7:58 am
  #7  
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Originally Posted by bob_the_d
here you go, last post in that thread. don't need to be a member.

https://twitter.com/united/status/587506644508082177
Thanks for that. I played around with that when initially posting. However I thought there was a way to actually show the conversation without clicking the link. Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

As whether this is news? Of course not. We all know the clubs are over crowded. I think it's entertaining when higher profile figures than U.S. publically shame UA.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 8:23 am
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The really amusing part is how pathetically the social media geniuses at United handle tweets such as this. First with a canned response, that makes it 100% clear no-one actually read it. Then with a request for more information about the tweeter, and never with a response to the issue at hand.

I tweeted a pic of termites crawling on my UA Club napkin a the IAH club, because I reported the infestation of hundreds of the bugs all over the windows to the front desk, who didn't even bother to go look. After I tweeted it, the agents finally came back to look, but no-one every addressed it with me head-on. What's wrong with, "thanks for letting us know, we had no idea, we'll get right on it"...is that so difficult?

Last edited by transportbiz; Apr 13, 2015 at 4:35 pm
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 8:35 am
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IMO, what's sad about this story is that it took a high profile shaming for UA to act. How many other people have experienced the same as Alton Brown did, but never heard back?

BTW, I loved Good Eats. Speaking of which, I just took out a batch of blueberry muffins from the oven this morning. I've been using his recipe for several years now, after seeing it in one of the shows.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 8:40 am
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I saw an interesting rant recently at the MLL at LAX. It turns out they don't have a liquor license (for some reason). Someone was very upset to pay $50 for admission and then to find out they didn't have any alcohol.

Then again, even with a seat, I would be very upset to pay $50 for a United Club.

Pretty unacceptable to let people pay to get in when the club is at capacity.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 8:49 am
  #11  
 
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When there are no seats in a Club I now ask the dragons to pay for an entry pass for me at another club at the same airport. It has not worked yet but I hope they pass along the feedback and it helps make the point that these clubs are not free for me and I'm actually expecting to get a benefit in return for my membership payment.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 8:51 am
  #12  
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is every single seat truly taken, or there are groups of 3 taking up the space of 4 and he's not comfortable enough to grab the last seat ?

why are we blindly assuming that the club was definitely at capacity ?
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 8:55 am
  #13  
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Originally Posted by transportbiz
The really amusing part is how pathetically the social media geniuses at United handle tweets such as this. First with a canned response, that makes it 100% clear no-one actually read it. Then with a request for more information about the tweeter, and never with a response to the issue at hand.

I tweeted a pic of terminates crawling on my UA Club napkin a the IAH club, because I reported the infestation of hundreds of the bugs all over the windows to the front desk, who didn't even bother to go look. After I tweeted it, the agents finally came back to look, but no-one every addressed it with me head-on. What's wrong with, "thanks for letting us know, we had no idea, we'll get right on it"...is that so difficult?

Part of it's cultural.

Historically, CO never liked to acknowledge mistakes or apologize. So if you bring something up that makes CO look less than perfect, they don't know how to react.

I've had a number of bizarre reactions regarding minor CO service issues over the years -- from a plane with broken video that the crew was trying to ignore until I asked and they acknowledge it, to a First Class catering screwup where food was served in tins, not on plates and the FAs said nothing, to minor stuff like printed menus being photocopied, not printed, with no acknowledgment that that was not normal.

So when you point out something like termites eating the walls, and the staff is not trained in service recovery, and they're raised with fear if they were to disparage the mother ship, the result is they zip their mouths and pretend nothing's wrong, while the termites eat the house around them.

I've had something similar though not as severe with them -- I noticed expired snacks in a CO club, reported it, they did nothing, and I had to write corporate before it got removed. Really?

Today, when you see that culture influence the Twitter responses, it's no surprise their response is as weak as it is.
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 8:56 am
  #14  
 
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It could be worse. He could be sitting in one of the fine seats at the Narita United Club:


http://i60.tinypic.com/2q9h2qp.jpg

Last edited by FlyinHawaiian; Apr 13, 2015 at 6:41 pm Reason: image too large for posting
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Old Apr 13, 2015, 9:00 am
  #15  
 
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Sounds like United could benefit from one of these:

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