You be the Agent! Making the hard choices.
 

You are an airline phone or gate agent. What do you do in the following circumstances?

1. There is a transoceanic flight with one business class seat open. Your airline, as a matter of policy, says that a certain low fare is not upgradeable. Who do you upgrade?
A: The 100K flyer with the non-upgradeable fare who was quite insistent that he is one of the airline’s best customers, and the rule should be waived for him.
B. Another 100K flyer with the non-upgradeable fare, who didn’t ask for the upgrade.
C. A 50K flyer with an upgradeable fare.
D. A 25K flyer who was nice and gave you chocolates.
E. A no status flyer, willing to pay miles.
F. No one..

2. Same question, but 2 seats are open. Who do you upgrade?
A. A 100K flyer and his companion (no status), with upgradeable fares.
B. A couple, each with 50K status.
C. The two flyers with the most status, but not their companions.
D. The honeymoon couple with no status, who are making out in the waiting area.
E. No one.

3. You are a phone agent, and Mr 100K calls. Your airline tracks each call, so you see that this caller has called 5 different times trying to get a waiver on a $100 fee for changing his return routing. You
A. Give him the waiver, even though it is against policy.
B. Make a note on his record.
C. Hand him off to a supervisor.

4. A 50K flyer (who normally must call 72 hours in advance for an upgrade) told the agent he is using a special upgrade certificate, and then can reserve a upgrade 4 weeks in advance. At the gate, he does not produce the certificate, but wants to use his normal (72-hour) coupons to upgrade. You:
A. Upgrade a 100K flyer instead.
B. Insist that he produce the special certificate, otherwise give the seat away.
C. Let him slide and take the normal upgrade.
D. Upgrade him with the normal upgrade, but add a note to his record.
E. Quit and work for Burger King.


[This message has been edited by opus17 (edited 02-25-2001).]

OK, I'll bite.

1. C (doing a favor for the top tier flyer hurts someone else who is entitled to the upgrade)
2. A (not exactly the same circumstances as 1-on most airlines, companions assume the same elite level as the elite flyer)
3. C (bump it upstairs so that Mr 1K quits bothering everyone)
4. B (I dislike people who try to scam me and lots of people try to scam me)

I agree with Bill's answers.

It all depends on the company's policies as to what you do, or if you override them, what kind of doo-doo you get into when you make an unauthorized decision!

Totally agree with Bill.

Really cannot stand scammers... or people who believe they do not need to follow the rules like everyone else.

William

Opus,

Just curious...did this happen to you?

Dan

No, but if you scan across the airline boards, you see these discussions, with several answers represented.

I purposely did not pick a particular airline, so I am being vague about some of the rules (like companions).

I would do C, C, B, B. But you can find cuurent threads on some airline boards (hint: Delta, United) that complain about the airlines following their own rules and not making exceptions such as these.

The first 2 questions show that upgrades are a zero-sum gain -- with a finite numnber of seats, someone wins at the expense of someone else. Do we prefer clear rules, or is it survival of the fittest?

The third question afects only the airline and the flyer -- although it may not be fair to others who have to pay the fee.

The fourth question is one of ethics. Yet there were protests on both the United and Delta boards when similar loopholes were closed...

[This message has been edited by opus17 (edited 02-25-2001).]

Interesting!

I agree with Bill. The companion wrinkle is interesting. If the companion was my wife, I would expect I would sit with her wherever. If it was a business companion then I would expect another 100k should get the finite seat (If he/she was with their spouse I would also defer!)

The agent obviously would need to be told the circumstance.....and this might already be construed as becoming a nag.

I am also intrigued by the issue of profiling the pnr. What do you mean by
"tracking" the calls? Do you mean that a notation is made by the agent each time a call is made on that pnr or is it somehow automaticallly tracked by big brAAther?



[This message has been edited by GreyOwl (edited 02-25-2001).]

C, A, C, B

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"Sire, it is not a revolt. It is a Revolution!"

A recent post by a former Delta agent says this is done on that airline.

Without knowing the rules of that airline with regard to companion upgrades, and Simply Good Business (I must say that some of your examples look familiar...)

1. C or E (depends who asked first, the company gets something positive out of both; Depending on any waitlist priority, I might not have a choice).

2. A

3. B (Is it your job to pass this to a supervisor unless the customer asks to speak to one?)

4. B

[This message has been edited by james (edited 02-26-2001).]

I object to Question 1.

A multiple-choice question never has 6 answers.

Especially when a question is related to the airline industry. In this case there is only one answer: "No"

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif




[This message has been edited by Craig6z (edited 02-26-2001).]

C...A...C...B

C
A
C
B