Originally Posted by
ExCrew
That said, having worked in one for 6 months (IAD), those who were "upper echelon" there, never seemed too concerned with "getting to yes" with a customer. Most of my supervisors seemed to get great satisfaction with telling customers NO when they asked for their help. This was back in 1999. I couldn't help but think to myself at the time..."boy, this will one day come back and bite them in the a$$." Truer words... Now, all of them are without jobs, and scores of the customers they alienated, defected to LCCs like Southwest and jetBlue.
What goes around, comes around, as they say...
I had an incident like this recently. I was trying to change an award booking for my mother. At first, she was on a Star award but the res. agent made a mistake with the booking. I had to change the award ticket (due to the res. agents mistake) but there was no availability on *A carriers. I got a one time exception to change it to an award on United metal without a fee but one leg was in Y. The supervisor told me I could get the class of service paid for if it opened up since it was a United award. That supervisor was great.
When availability opened up, I called back and the agent (ICC) told me I had already used my one time exemption and couldn't change the award. I stated the exception was to change from a Star award to a United award with no fee. I got bumped up to a supervisor based in ORD and was surprised with how abrasive she was. She spoke in a really rude tone and told me I couldn't change the leg to the class of service paid for. I kept explaining that the exception was to change the ticket to a United award and I should get all privileges of a United award ticket. After 5 minutes of arguing, she finally agreed to check the record. Turns out I was right and things were changed. She then spoke as if she did me a favor.