kwflyer

Your friend just need his altitude card and he's fine. The ap status thing only works half the time. Once got zone 8,. Another time my baggage allowance jumped up to 9 bags.


The so called premium check-in agent at yyz recently took over 20 mins to check a bag for me (already checked in just needed to drop the bag off). And then t-45 happened and said she couldn't get a bag tag printed and wanted me to come back tomorrow (red-eye flight) since she couldn't check the bag and there's nothing she can do and wouldn't try anything or call somebody for me.

Then another couple staggered in late after me looking to not only check in but also drop bags off (on the same flight as me) and not only get checked in but have their bags tagged. Which another agent came by to open a new desk

To which I turned to her and said you dint normally work the priority check in desk do you? To which she replied it was her 2nd day...working for ac (and this is where they stick them)

To which I then left and moved to the desk with an actual competent agent to get my bag checked .

So they're apparently putting all the greenhorns working the priority check in and sportingmtheir premium agrnt badges which must have only consisted of 30mins on a WebEx seminar where everybody gets a gold star.

Best part was the greenhorn somehow created multiple bag tag records and the lounge dragon couldn't figure out which one was the real, so I was stuck with 6 bag tags.

Geoflying

Hopefully all 6 bags arrived on the belt first - or maybe you could submit a claim for 5 lost bags...

biglinguist

I thought of this thread while at the Calgary airport last weekend, trying to book an EYW itinerary ('cause I had no phone and it wasn't online-able). Counter agent volunteered to help, but when she saw it was yyt-lga-ytz she told me it violated sixth freedom and she would lose her job if she booked it. Well no, sixth freedom is completely different. I assume she meant cabotage (aka "sabotage" when it's explained to Cargo & the Cow, I believe), but it's not even that unless I was buying from an American airline. Attempts at explanation were rebuffed.

I went to the phones you use when you've missed a connection, and the woman on the phone brilliantly broke up my itinerary in every combination possible until she got me the best price, saving me a hundred bucks.

canadiancow

That works for certain things, but not standby priority during IRROPS.

Since I was ditching him at the airport to go have lunch with my mom, I wouldn't be around to sort things out if anything happened, and I wanted to make sure he showed up as "someone with status" rather than "cheapo X fare".

Regardless, the point was more the attitude ("WE WILL NOT DO THIS").

CZAMFlyer

Don't you think that as "someone with status", he might be perfectly capable of looking after his own affairs?

canadiancow

No, because he just earned it, and I'm still trying to explain to him the benefits, etc.

In IRROPS, I know exactly what can be done, what is easy to do, and what I want.

The "what is easy to do" stops mattering as much when you have status.

And standby priority is the really important aspect in IRROPS. No status on an X fare means you're above commuting employees, and that's about it. P25K on an X fare is above all non-status in economy.

BlueMilk

Yes they are. If you need something done under pressure, black jackets at YYZ are to be avoided--like the plague.

AC was probably trying to improve the service with all the hiring, but it's little more than window dressing unless they're trained well.

CZAMFlyer

I guess the larger point I was making was that your friend was not left alone with wolves. You were having lunch off-site, but presumably, in the unlikely event IRROPS were encountered, your friend could have very easily phoned/texted you and asked some advice?

Did you ask what your friend - the one taking the trip - wants?

It seems that with some members, there is disproportionate confusion, indignation and subsequent injured feelings whenever dealing with airline staff and seeking preferential (compared to non-status pax) treatment.

canadiancow

I don't understand how this conversation has drifted so far away from the original point, which is that the staff refused to even attempt to do what the website said can be done, and that they told me, to my face, that I'm wrong.

Your entire post is completely irrelevant to the thread.

Or is this some attempt to deflect blame from AC?

CZAMFlyer

Hardly. People make mistakes - including airline staff. It's how one reacts to these mistakes that I'm discussing.

We've all been given information by officials or company staff (not necessarily at an airport) that isn't completely correct, and most of us have been the subject of an inaccurate assumption. We have choices: we can adopt a water/duck's back attitude, we can gently correct, or we can take offense and stew over the issue to the point where we spend the time to write about it online days later and use terms such as "blame".

Dude, you've been questioned if you were in the correct lineup. You were told they couldn't print a boarding pass. Somebody mistakenly read your booking on their screen for the same flight number, but on a different day. Somebody else told you you couldn't add a third party's FF number onto a booking. They didn't tell you these things out of spite. My guess is that they legitimately didn't realize all the minutiae of the byzantine rulebook - stuff that some people read/study/obsess over.

Granted, certain staff (concierges, supervisors) had better know the minutiae; if the airline has seen fit to enact a policy, their senior staff should learn it. If we stumble across an employee who hasn't memorized Section 745 (j) (iii) para 2.a of the XII Amendment maybe seize the opportunity instead to help them.

Let's agree that the use of the term "you're wrong" isn't model customer service. My input - directly relevant to the thread title - is that life is short. Let some things slide. Decide what's really, truly important and what deserves the effort of indignation. Maybe next time, rather than typing a default whinge, start a thread advising the FT community that you encountered an uncommon glitch, and provide some guidance on how we can avoid the same experience, and/or how best to help the airline staff help us.

FT was created as a forum for experienced travelers to share information and to help less experienced flyers. Is is not a bulletin board for the aggrieved.

YOWgary

That's the problem, though; airline staff, AC and otherwise, often default to "I know the rules, and you couldn't possibly, so that's the end of it".

For non-frequent flyers, this is aggravating and then you give up.

For frequent flyers who've memorized this year's rules, last year's rules and the fonts on the dinner menus from eight years previous, this kind of problem often feels like you're simply being cheated, at which point it hardly matters whether that's due to malice or ignorance.

And - as in the original point of this thread - it's hard to know "how best to help the airline staff help us" when they simply fall back to "you're wrong, I'm right, stop resisting".

canadiancow

This.

I do not post when an agent says "Oh I think you're too late to print a boarding pass. Check-in closed 5 minutes ago." when I'm already checked in, and just need a boarding pass.

It's the whole freaking attitude. "You are NOT booked on this flight."

The Aeroplan number on the Aeroplan booking is the least of my issues, because it actually did not work (even though the website says it's "permitted"). But the whole attitude. "My colleague has worked here over 30 years, so if he says it's not allowed, then it's not allowed."

By that logic, rules can never change. I guess E35K can upgrade TPAC without a co-pay, too?

I don't need you to be right or competent (though it's nice), but being wrong and having a crappy attitude is ridiculous.

Because when it comes right down to it, even if I, the customer, am wrong, there is no excuse for talking to me that way.

Maybe I booked a flight on the wrong day. Help me with it. Help me get home. Don't stand there telling me I'm wrong.

CZAMFlyer

Well that's human nature, and can be found in every service job, everywhere. Doesn't make it acceptable or any less frustrating, granted. I applaud the resisting part - polite pushback from a knowledgeable customer can only benefit the rest of us.

I tire of the incessant "can you believe they asked me - ME - if I was in the correct line?!?"

CZAMFlyer

Absolutely agree here. Our reciprocal part of the exchange, when recounting the error on this site, is to turn our poor experience into a positive learning lesson instead of layering on the negativity.

canadiancow

I just don't even know what else I could do, short of walking up and shouting "mike romeo bravo one two tree".

I told him the flight number. I told him it was a separate ticket from the one he was looking at.

I'm the kind of guy who has a print out of alternate flights when I'm on an international trip in case any segment is delayed or cancelled. I'm about as prepared as you can get.

I check my bookings on all airlines. I verify I'm ticketed properly. I don't think any of this should be necessary, but I do it anyway.

I just don't know what advice to give someone who walks up to a check-in counter and is told they're not booked on the flight.