Sisbethe

I have read with interest all the responses from awa employees. I am a 16yr employee that has worked in the flightfund service center almost all of my career.....I answer the phone at 6:00 am when our elite members call to "see if their upgrade" went through. I have received many letters of appreciation from elite members but rarely do they include a and b cards. I am shocked at the solicitation I am reading from flight attendants for these cards. They are great to get but there are many, many, deserving employees. Next time you feel a need to part with an a and b card...think about that gate agent that did go out of her way to get you your upgrade or those of us that rebook your last minute travel, find award seats for your vacation or personally watch your reservation for a last minute upgrade.

AIRBUS GIRL

Exactly my point - the personnel that seem to benefit the most from A&B's are the one's that work first class..... for the rest of us......... we are still (hopefully) providing excellent customer service but are not acknowleged under the present system. I do not want to come across as a "whiner" but service in this industry goes beyond row 3 or 4. (First class cabin!) There are other customer service personnel that deal with passengers, whether it be the gate, ticket counter, flight fund or the coach flight attendent. That is why I am stressing - WRITE a letter if you have had a good experience - it will become a part of that person's file.

AgtMulder

I agree with Sisbethe and Airbus Girl. About half or more of my A&B cards go to non-F FAs for this reason. You should have seen the face of a FA on a Mesa CRJ flight light up once when I gave one to her for dealing with a bunch of belligerant passengers. Many of mine go to gate agents who get me on flights that I am standing by for, or who deal with rude jerks who I don't think I could have handled without swearing or losing my cool.

You should have seen the faces of 2 coach FAs who my companion and I gifted with 2 A&Bs each even though we were in F. I ended up chatting with them for half an hour in the galley of an A320 on the way to PHX after being denied lav access up front due to the F FA not holding up the coach folks from going up front, so I went in back. We chatted about everything: about HP, jerk passengers, the future of the company, life, etc.

Anyway, it was patently obvious that the F FA was one of the rare folks who was a bit snobby and didn't pay much attention to the younger looking Golds in 2C & 2D, but was all over the suits in F in the attempt to get an A&B or something, and who seemed to have a bit of an attitude toward the more junior coach attendants. She was a bit... shocked after the two coach FAs came up and pointed us out and mentioned that they got 2 A&Bs each from her. Every 10 minutes she was hovering over us asking if we wanted more drinks, etc etc.

In conclusion, I hope my rambling commentary was meaningful, and helped convince folks to remember non-F FAs & other HP reps with those letters and whatnot.

To the employee lurkers on the board: I hope to see you all in the sky soon, I'll be the nerd tommorow in 1D "signing" his flyertalk handle in the HP Magazine, and reading biology journal articles the whole flight.

AIRBUS GIRL

Agtmuldr - You crack me up!! I would love to be on your flights! Note to self - usually (90%) of the time - the "junior coach" flight attendant is SENIOR on the crew! It does not mean that we don't like you all........ it's just that sometimes (always) it is easier to work in the back. That is what always gets me.......... the coach pax always appreciate what we do, say something great about the flight and how it was the best service ever and we never hear another word....... yet you kiss *** in first and you are awarded the A&B. I'l stick to coach - it is much more rewarding!!

snokums925

As a fellow HP employee (5 years in res) I was happy to see a new Flight Fund agent that I know beaming from ear to ear because he got two A and B cards for his work on an elite member's reservation. These cards made his day and it showed.
So, Sisbethe is absolutely correct...As I said earlier, don't forget about the "behind the scenes" employee that you don't have face to face contact with when you hand out those valuable cards!

CMK10

I figured I'd post this in a follow up. First things for every one who posted, especially those who joined just to post. After I got back to Phoenix, I wrote America West a letter outlining what had happened. I figured I'd get a form letter back in the mail, so I was quite suprised when I recieved a call from Flightfund Customer Service on Friday. The woman said that the gate agent had erred and that they'd looked into my flight and said three elites were left without upgrades and "that pilot should NOT have been upgraded". The woman asked if I had any future America West flights and when I said that I did, she told me to pick one, give her the confirmation number and she'd upgrade me right now for my troubles. Therefore I am not seated in 2A on my PHX-LAX flight next month. Kudos to HP for being so appologetic.

andrewp

Wow! HP continues to impress me for being very customer focused.

AS Flyer

You're kidding, right? You want the Pilots to be happy as a bunch of clams but screw everyone else? Even to the point of the F/A's should be checking their bags? You're crazy.

AgtMulder

Hopefully they'll fix this type of situation in the future.

The other day I sat across from a FA in first. The airbus was checked in full, so I'm curious if other elites got sent to the back.

enviroian

Well I sat in the back of the bus (pun intended) today on a phx-cmh flight. I didn't any HP personnel in F, but F was apparently sold out by last Friday. Perhaps if HP had a decent elite program and had more than a 3 day window for plats, I would have (and other plats who also didn't make it up front) had a seat up front. Kudos to HP and their crappy "elite" program

AS Flyer

I agree. I think it makes a lot more sense to GIVE the F seats away rather than sell them. It just makes better business sense.

enviroian

I see your sarcasm but I am only saying HP continues to alienate their top tiered flyers--the most loyal group of customers HP has at the expense of squeezing "x" amount of revenue out of a few F seats. IMO I still think it sucks, and I'm at least entitled to said opinion.

It's like I almost wish HP would nix F all together so my decision to go elsewhere would be that easy.

SDLFlyer

Eliminating F all together wouldn't make me jump. I took a Southwest flight this morning from PHX-BUR. It makes you wish you were on AWA even on their worst day.

-no elite security line
-I had boarding group B from home and still ended up in a bad (middle) seat because it was already full with thru passengers.
-They only served orange juice. I thought this was strange but they told me it was standard for short morning flights.
-The other passengers (and trust me I'm not really a snob) were a step-down from AWA.

The only reason I took them is because I had to go to Burbank and the only choices on AWA were an early morning 7am flight or a 1020 am flight. I needed something in the middle and Southwest had a 830.

I think I'll get up earlier for the 7am RJ flight if I have to do this again next week.

Every so often, AWA flyers should fly Southwest, just to see how good we really have it.

Insiderdude

I AGREE! Having to fly a WN flight SAN-PHX lately, boarding in group C ... etc etc., I can't imagine a more literal interpretation of the term "cattle herd". Though the FAs in WN are nice, but HP is starting to surpass them by a large margin. Let's just hope that the potential US merger (or lack of communication regarding) doesn't destroy some of the morale.

Podcat

I don't think that will ever happen.

As evidence I offer the fact that no HP employee will let you audit their upgrade process. When they tell you there are others "ahead of you", you simply have to take their word for it. They won't let you verify that, for example, all the F passengers on your flight are paid, or Platinums (to your Gold). Anytime a decision process occurs "in secret" like this, you can bet the farm procedures aren't being followed.

The truth is, management wants the flexibility to do whatever is easiest to get the plane pushed. Getting the flight off is always going to take priority over giving an upgrade to the right person.