crobe

Just a rant from me

I booked a flight from UK to Bangkok on my points, and paid for a ticket for my 11-year old son to travel with me - all done through the Flying Blue service desk and seats reserved.

Come to boarding on the day of the flight and some d***head in KLM had changed the seating, so that my son was not only 12 rows away from me, but in a totally different cabin.

I was told at the gate to try to sort it out on board as they were too busy- but no way was I going to board the plane without knowing my son was not sitting with strangers, so I took the boarding passes to the girl at the boarding desk, and got out my KLM card.

Now I should explain that I am not only Platinum Elite - but I am a lifetime member...but this did not help as the first thing the girl said was "I don't care about your card" - and then proceeded to tell me it was my fault as there were 2 different bookings...!

Eventually I got the seats changed and an apology from the purser on-board (but not from the girl at the desk), and afterwards I wrote an e-mail to KLM complaints.

The response was the typical fob-off - we will investigate - here are 5000 points on your account to be quiet.

Well KLM, my response to you is this - I don't need to fly with your airline anymore - I am already lifetime so I do not lose anything by going with other airlines - maybe when I build up the status with them I can get better service

crobe

UTA_flyinghigh

This is exactly the stuff I don't miss from my AFKL days. I used to be PE, stopped all ST flying after April 1st '09, went down to GE, shall be SE next year when hopefully I'll have burnt my 580k miles then good riddance to FB.

UTA

FlyinDutchman

things you don't ever wish to hear...

Handled poorly and I've been in this situation (girlfriend, not child, however), gives one a lot of frustration.... at least you got 5000 miles

irishguy28

I attended a wedding in Dubai last year. The sister of the bride, her husband, and her 2 year old son, flew from Boston on Emirates (via JFK).

Emirates informed them in JFK that the flight was oversold and handed over a new set of boarding passes - with the 2 year old now travelling alone on a separate flight.

COFF-Platinum

See, now that's what I call true customer service. These parents must have been in heaven. 12 hours of bliss in the sky, with someone else taking care of their toddler. Why can we not expect the same service from KLM?

TuxTraveller

^^

On a more serious note, I'm quite surprised as EK usually get very top marks for customer service. I usually steer clear due to focusing on airlines in the 3 alliances, but I still keep tabs on the other carriers.. very interesting experience, may I ask how EK handled this when made aware of what they had done?

irishguy28

Well, as you'd expect, there were red faces all around when they realised that they had bumped a small child off the flight and were extremely apologetic and flew into a tizzy to sort out the mess. I don't know how they managed to secure the extra seat, but space was found for them all on the originally-booked flight.

However...their luggage didn't arrive with them in DXB, and took something like a further 48 hours to arrive...

hfly

EK only gets such ratings from infrequent travellers. The same ones who think their seating great.

Henry III

Just a possibility, but could there be a 'lost in translation' effect here? Maybe what the young lady meant was that, for the operation she was attempting, the card was not helpful to her, but it came across badly when spoken in her (non-native) English.

-- Henry

TuxTraveller

A very true point perhaps. I don't know many frequent travellers that use EK as their main carrier.

I have never used them myself as miles+status means the value proposition of the cheap flight on a new aircraft isn't as good as with other carriers within the alliances.

If you have a more in depth comparison I would be interested to hear it (perhaps in a pm since it's likely a bit OT for this thread).

I think even with an element of "lost in translation" there is clearly a lack of customer service training here. To show good customer service treatment a simple "thank you we value your continued business" or the like would have been all to show she had recognised his status and whether it didn't help her directly in "the operation she was attempting" the OP would still have felt valued and not ill treated.

To me it's a lack of customer centric culture!

Aviatrix

The "I don't care about your card" bit is just totally unacceptable, and I don't think it can be explained away as a "translation error" (We all know about "It's not possible", but I'm not aware of any polite Dutch phrase that would translate into "I don't care about...")

However, I think that some of the fault lay with the FB Helpdesk. If the two bookings were made at the same time then there should have been notes in both bookings linking them to each other, and these should have included suitable wording to make it clear that this was an adult travelling with a minor and that they must be seated together.

jetfan

Well not sure what the value of the PE card is in your wallet if you don't plan to fly with them anymore...
If you are a lifetime PE I would imagine you don't let one bad employee influence your judgement on your travel pattern - that would be a bit out of proportion.

But I will agree that the lady's response is of course not acceptable.

hfly

Tux, while EK is not my primary carrier I do manage to carry Silver status on them year after year as the flotsam of my travels that I throw at them easily earns this. Their a/c are some of the highest density on the sky (7 across on 777's in J, 10 across in Y). While their FA's are young and better looking than many (which some people equate with being good) they are far from being good, their ground staff especially in DXB are often clueless and few if any are empowered to do anything......Good luck with irrops. EY is heps better in my experience.

In any case, my point was that for those who travel little and are used to normal US or European service they seem great.....lots of video entertainment...TV is the opiate of the masses (SQ adds ice cream to the mix and that makes most people think they are the best!).

Regarding the OP, I did have a similar experience a few years back where in a similar situation they tried to seperate me and my 4 YO son, we were both paid and upfront. I got a similar answer from the GA (my situation was actually slighty worse as our flight had been cancelled the night before and the flight should have been the same). I very carefully explained to the GA that not only would we not board, but god help her if I saw anyone related to the airline sitting in our original seats, I then showed her names and phone numbers of two senior execs from the airline on my phone. We got our seats back. I am not citing the airline in this post as my complaint was more than adequately dealt with after I wrote in a formal complaint.

TuxTraveller

Thanks for scoop on their aircraft density, as I said I've not ever stepped on board any of the aircraft.

Very true about the TV

I have to say that my view on SQ being one of the best is not based on the IFE or the ice cream, but their attentive and superb FAs! ^

Verboten

Could very well be true. Dutch nuances are not easily translated, resulting in the Dutch generally being perceived as frank on the one hand and rude on the other.