heckenhocker

agree with kwflyer. BTW it's the CEO + the Compensation person who usually get to fire the HR person ... nope, I'm not the CEO

FlyerTalker683455

Not only do I always get a reply from his office, I also am getting resolution to my issues. I am pleasant, firm, polite.

AftOf245

As a former employee with "J" travel rights, I would like to comment on this thread. I worked for the company for 18 years, the last 6 years I spent on the road the majority of the time traveling across NA and Europe. As an employee I had no opportunity to collect miles, my employer paid for my travel, I spent 5 days per week on the road travelling late into the night most days. The only benefit I had was "J" travel, if I had worked for any other company, my position would have come with "J" travel priviledges.

I now travel extensively and I pay for my own travel, if I need to travel in "J" I pay for it, if I happen to get an upgrade I am greateful, otherwise, I read my book and relax.

What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.

It would be interesting for everyone on here to post what benefits their organizations provide for there customers and see how it stacks up.

Ca77andra

Very profound. This will go in my quotes file. Nice twist on trying to keep down our expectations.

AftOf245

And BTW, I do not agree with an employee pre-empting the UG list as it appears to the gate agent. How exactly does the OP know that a rev pax was ahead of the AC exec on the list?

AftOf245

I was not twisting anything, only defining what an expectation is, when I travel, my expectation is to get what I paid for. If I go to a restaurant and order a hamburger and they give me a 12 ounce New York Strip, I am grateful and certainly would go back to that restaurant, but on my next visit I would not expect to recieve the steak again, nor would I be pissed if the waiter got a free steak for being an employee.

Prewrappedbacon

Nice. Expect nothing, be grateful for everything. It's one of the keys to happiness.

AftOf245

^

SYM

Good bump of an old thread.

I lost SE this year; just did my first TPAC in the back since 2008. I've lost count but I must have been at least 20/20 on upgrades.

It was a bit disappointing to hear other people's names but not mine being called at the gate. I could rail against the enhancements - but the reality is I got what I paid for. And I survived.

I was in paid Z on the way back (I find the jet lag hits me much harder on the eastbound leg). Flight was hugely oversold so a bunch of happy campers got op-ups. I could rail against that, but the reality is I got what I paid for. And I found myself wondering what the big deal about J is anyways.

tyberius

While I hate to agree with Tedgrrrr, I have to agree with Tedgrrrr.

My first job, a computer company that was supposed to deliver some computers was giving me the endless runaround. Polite emails and phone calls and me being understanding never resulted in anything. After many weeks of this I mentioned the frustration to my roommate. He said to me:

"You know, some people just need to be .....ed at."

The next day, I picked up the phone, called me contact, and gave them both barrels. Computers arrived the next week.

I was stunned. The sad thing is that it's true, if you are nice in many situations in life this puts you on the "reasonable" list with others. If you are on the "reasonable" list, then when they have conflicting priorities, you are going to be the one who gets shifted aside... because game theory tells them that this will be easiest for them personally.

So anger and unreasonableness gets rewarded and reasonableness and kindness gets punished.

I've had people that I contracted work to for instance ask for flexibility, and when granted, and in the future I've been told flat out for instance that they can't show up at the scheduled time today because they have this other client who's made a request and he's really inflexible and a hard ... so would you mind if we did this on another day?

So the guy with the last minute request trumps the one who is waiting for his scheduled appointment. Because the last minute guy is a jerk about it and the scheduled guy they know is just going to say sure and be deferential without making a fuss.

I don't like having to rough someone up to get a concern addressed, but a lot of companies train their stuff to put up roadblocks as a cost savings measure and sometimes the only way through that is by smashing through. It is a day ruining kind of thing and they want it to be like that for you.

In the long run though if you keep having to deal with the choice of getting pissed off at someone or getting shafted by them, we're just going to all end up being angry all the time.

tyberius

The picture in our of how it is supposed to be is often shaped by someone's marketing department, and we've just paid for that thing that ends up being a lie. And that is upsetting.

Sometimes the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be is actually how it is supposed to be. It is half of a contract. We have supplied our half and then the other party has reneged on their half.

It is normal for people to have negative or hostile reactions when they perceive they have not been dealt with fairly.

The solution is to not convince everyone that they should have an expectations of being ripped off all the time and that This Will Make Them Happy. So that the one time a week they get dealt with fairly they won't look at and say wow, that was an amazing experience, someone didn't steal from me when they had an opportunity!

No, the solution is to hold these people or companies feet to the fire so that they stop this kind of behavior. People being able to review things on the internet has gone a long way towards making companies accountable for their products and services. Of course it opens up leverage for bad actors on the customer side to take advantage of the situation, but in general if customers act to hold companies accountable, what happens is that companies will offer better products and services.

If nobody ever complained about AC's wait time on the phone, and just trained themselves to have the lowest expectations possible, the only thing that would ever happen is that AC's wait time would increase.

Progress in all ways usually depends on someone being dissatisfied and willing to act on it. From the guy who first figured he'd go kill an animal and wear it's skin because it's cold out and he's tired of being cold to this hunting and gathering crap is lame, I'm going to see if I can't make some of these edible plants grow nearby to I'm tired of the booking hotels thing being russian roulette, I'm going to make a website where people can share their experiences to root out the rotten hotels and commend the good ones so people can make an informed decision.

canadiancow

And what if as part of your continued business, the restaurant tells you that if they have extra steaks, they'll give you one instead of the hamburger you paid for?

So you intentionally visit the restaurant on a day where you know they'll have extra steaks, you pay for your hamburger, and then you watch them give the last steak to an employee "because he was hungry"?

If you're going to make an analogy, at least make it accurate.

I know what the upgrade rules are. I've personally seen them broken, and I've read similar stories from others on FT. When a flight is J0 at check-in, and that doesn't change between check-in and departure, I don't have an issue with sitting in the back on my Flex fare.

When I'm a Super Elite on a M fare on a two cabin aircraft (since that distinction matters), and the only two J seats are given to an E35K on an unknown economy fare (not that it matters, because at the gate, status trumps fare class within the cabin), and an off duty employee, I get annoyed, because they've clearly denied me a benefit I'm entitled to.

I'm still not entirely sure how the employee J space allocation works, but my understanding is that they'd never be ahead of revenue passengers on the list. They'd either be behind them, or they'd have a confirmed J seat (and not be on the upgrade/standby list). Or am I mistaken about that?

Wings100

I am a SE and recently from YYZ to Boston I was told in the MLL that there was space to upgrade. I told them I would do it at the gate. When I got to the gate about an hour before the flight I was told there were no upgrades and then two crew members walked up and asked and the gate agent told them she had held the seats for them. After I boarded I saw them both sitting up front

AltaBound

Mr. Cow,

I think you have hit the nail on the head in your response to AftOf245. When does a thank you for doing business with me become an entitlement? Using your analogy, on one day the owner decides to thank the customer by giving them steak when they asked for a hamburger. Bonus to the customer. On the next day the owner decides to reward the employee by giving them the steak. Bonus to the employee. In both cases the owner receives nothing in the form of extra revenue for serving the steak, just an extra expense. Using your thought process because the owner thanked you once it has now become an entitlement.

On to the airline. You purchase a latitude ticket. When I read the terms of a latitude ticket it talks about same day flight changes and whole bunch of flexibility but nowhere does it indicate that your are entitled to a free upgrade to J. In the case of a passenger vs. an airline employee vying for an 'upgrade' to J the airline is simply trying to decide who it wants to reward on a given day. Some days the customer wins some days the employee wins. The one thing I am pretty sure of if someone was to show up and offer to pay for the J seat both of you would be sitting in the back.

With respect to your comment on the 35K flier getting bumper ahead of higher ranked super elite. I got nothing.

ffsim

Just out of curiosity, how do you "do it at the gate"? Why wouldn't you just ask to be put on the waiting list?