travelcomments

Two recent experiences with United:

(1) TUS-LAX-SFO (Ugly)
TUS-LAX was on a UX RJ200. Enough said. Due to weather delays the flight arrived late in LAX, but timely enough to allow for most connections. Incredibly, the plane stopped 40 yards away from the gate (for those who know LAX - the last gate at the tip of the terminal, gate 80 something). After a couple of minutes UA ground control sent the plane on a remote parking position. Apparently UA ground control could not figure out the sequence of other planes leaving the gates and simply decided to hold flights and clear waiting planes out of the way.

At that time a 20 minute delay grew to 40 minutes. Most pax missed their connections and the typical mayhem ensued since UA had exactly one CSR in gate area. All I needed was to pick up a new BP. Given the long line I tried the RCC - and was rudely shown the door. Yes, I am not a RCC member (not worth the money IMHO) but as a 1K I had hoped the act of spending 30 seconds to print a new BP would fall under general customer service. It ultimately took 42 minutes in line to get the new BP - ehough to nearly miss the re-bokked flight.

The original LAX-SFO leg had been upgraded and before boarding I asked - very politely - about getting upgraded on the re-bokked flight. A fairly gumpy gate agent told me to get out of his hair. I boarded as one of the last 5 passengers and was told that no upgrades were available ("F is full"), a number of other pax were also denied upgrades. I was none to happy to discover that the F cabin was half empty. The GA's attitude very much seemed to be "you don't deserved to be in F so I will not upgrade you".

Summary: Less than stellar operational intelligence, understaffing, and staff unwilling to assist in event he smallest way or staff interpreting CS in "interesting" ways.

(2) BOS-SFO (very good)
Great F cabin crew. Attentive. Polite. The captain kept the pax updated (again wehather delay) and was even funny. The food was good. This was one of the rare occassions which led me to send a comepliment to WHQ.

Summary: All in all a very good experience.

What to make of this? I guess this is UA in a nutshell - some very good and quite a bit of very bad CS. But what is so difficult to create a consistent, half decent CS experience? Other airlines from SQ to VJ (Virgin Blue) get this done.

jason8612

I would of tried upgrading at a easy checkin, or try another agent (if one was free) if possible

grayland

I think the OP indicated there was only one GA or CSA in the area.

jason8612

ah. misread.

Bluehen1

If only reprinting, find an EasyChicken. You can always reprint if you can find one of the machines (though I can't remember where there might be any inside the terminal at LAX).

jetsetter

After a flight goes under gate control typically at t minus 20 minutes (in UA jargon they call it "gating the flight" I think) then I don't think an Easy Chicken or even an agent at any terminal other than that at the departure gate can complete any ACI transactions. ACI = automatic check in or basically the system handling check in and dm lists. An upgrade at that point would be an ACI transaction.

I've also had good experiences on my BOS transcons they have a good crew working BOS typically, and I've always managed to get an upgrade on my BOS transcons knocking on wood.

BDLORD

Sorry but you don't have a membership for the RCC so the agent was correct in sending you away. It is a benefit of being a member, one of the main reasons I belong.
Irregular ops , seating and a better bathroom (better than the one the "lice" have to use) are nice and worth the dues I pay.

auh2o

There are tons of Mr. Easy's about 50 feet from the RCC at LAX.

SkiAdcock

Heck, I've never noticed the Mr. Easy's near the RCC! But if the flight was under gate agent control sounds like it doesn't matter if the EZs were there or not. And why do they have them near the RCC since normally you have to have checked in to get through TSA. Do that many people check in for other flights once they've already started traveling?

On a sep note - to the OP, sorry to be hard, but the RCC did the right thing in turning you away. You weren't a member. If they did your BP they'd have to do anyone else's that wandered in w/ irregular ops.

Glad the Boston flight went well. Cheers.

antroboy

Not what I have experienced. I have asked front desk people at the RCC about seating/routing changes and they have always helped even though I'm not a member (just a 1K). Maybe it helps that I always wait aside until all people waiting to check into the RCC are taken care of.

My 2 cents!

SkiAdcock

Well that's nice that they did it for you, but again, it's a membership club, so they were correct in turning him away. Given the hassle he experienced I could see them cutting him some slack (and probably should have), but they were within their rights to say no. And if I were you I certainly wouldn't count on all the RCC staff being so understanding/helping you out.

I'm still more interested in why there are EZs near the RCC given it's airside. I can't imagine why they really need them.

Cheers.

ryan182

I also believe there are some Mr Chickens right at the beginning of T8 pier, so if your walking from T8->7 you would go right past 3 or 4. My guess as to why they have them airside is because they only have 1 CSR in LAX as a whole to handle irrops (or so it seems).

As to using the RCC, heck no!! The ONLY reason I pay for RCC (with miles) is to use the agents during irrops as there is typically no line, if every 1K could go "just to print a bp" the line would be just as long as the one in the terminal.

Fredd

FWIW We bought a walk-in membership with miles at ORD a few years ago when we were still 2P during a long delay. Despite my share of whining about the lack of food, etc., it's been well worth it for us to maintain membership for the concierge access in such instances as the OP describes.

unitedelitewannabe

All I got to say is that I'm glad I read this and now I'll know to call em "Mr. Easy".

rjque

I tend to agree in most circumstances that non-members shouldn't use lounges just to get access to agents. However, UA has staffed LAX in such a way that the RCC door staff are sometimes the only agents anywhere in the entire terminal. I am now an RCC member, but before I was, I once was forced to go into the LAX RCC to try and get them to call a CSR to any one of the 10 or so abandoned gates with long lines just outside the lounge. Each of these gates had flights that were set to depart within an hour, but there was no GA in sight. Mine was set to depart within 20 minutes and all I wanted was to be added to the standby list. When the GA showed up 15 minutes before the flight, she refused to deal with the line and instead started clearing the pre-existing standby list. That left a line of status pax, including myself, without any option of getting added to the list before all seats were taken by non-status pax.

The problem here is that UA doesn't staff its hubs with enough CSRs to handle operations during regular ops. During irregular ops, UA goes into full meltdown. IME, this is an issue unique to UA, at least when compared to AS, AA and NW.