Originally Posted by katycab

I did not realize that this would become such a hot and more surprisingly, contested, topic.

I apologize if my original post appeared misleading. I thought that I did make clear that the Internet did work, that they were able to put my seat down once I realized that was possible, and that they were able to cook the food. I am not exactly sure what was inferred from what I said that made it seem more dire than it was.

Honestly I was much more inconvenienced by not having Internet at all on my flight back from Shanghai, and that was made worse by the fact that I was not aware until AFTER we reached altitude, and so I had no way of warning my office and delegating tasks before the cabin door closed. By the time I landed it was already after EOD and all I could do was read the email s to see what had happened in my ansence and what I would need to fix.

I did not discuss what my personal expcetations were because I didnt really think it was too relavant. But personally I was not planning to sleep for the first half of the flight because my trip to Asia had been short and I was working each day so I needed to be working diring business hours on the East Coast.

If I had not been in the center section I would have loved to be able to "open" (undim) a window for light. Yes, we had cabin lights for the dinner service. We had daylight by window for the pre-arrival meal. In the center section that was kind of dark, adn many people were not undimming their window.

As I said, I was personally grateful that I had Internet and would have been inconvenienced much more by its lack then then IFE. My laptop did lose power eventually, and I had to switch to using my phone for emails. I had power packs to keep my phones charged.

The email from customer service simply said that the compensation was for the lack of IFE, and I feel that the rest of it was important, too.

To be very clear: I am VERY grateful we did not divert to Tokyo! I am VERY gratefeul that they did not leave the electricity on and let that incessant seat belt chime continue!! I never felt that there was a safety issue, and I was by and large comfortable on the flight. I think that most of us agree that SOME compensation is fair. I am not expecting a refund of the fare difference between Polaris and coach. Not even close. But I do think that $175 is about half or less of what would be fair considering the multitude of issues.