Originally Posted by
bmvaughn
Yeah.. poor IT... but we've come to expect this with UA. The flight number changes have only exacerbated the issue... hopefully CO's IT team will bring some better coding to the FF marketplace.
I wouldn't assume that CO IT is better than UA IT.
IME, CO's IT glitches have been more impacting than UA's.
As an example, if your ticket is out of sync on UA, UA won't let you OLCI. It's a nuisance. CO won't run EUA on you (though UA would). That's a big deal.
Originally Posted by
barberio
What matter is training for customer service. And the ethos in United has been that Elites get good customer service to make them feel special, everyone else gets minimum standard. That breeds contempt for the customer, and that's going to spread over into the 'Elites' too. Look what happens when you don't bother with policing excess carry on for the 'unwashed masses' because overhead crowding at the back of the plane isn't important...
I disagree with this. If any airline shows contempt for the customer, particularly the Elite, it's CO. Prior to the UA partnership, CO was the industry laggard in terms of FF program. The CO FF Elite program was particularly uncompetitive for Platinums -- no SWUs, no CR1s, only program to charge close-in reward fees to Plats, etc.
Part of the benefit of being Elite is that you do get better service. Not saying that UA couldn't do better for the General Member -- they certainly can -- but Elite awareness is something that I would hope that CO learns from UA. Being treated well and knowing that the airline values your repeat business reinforces that repeat business.
DL has been doing a good job with this over the past year or so, since the SkyPriority launch, as their management has been reinforcing it with staff.