So there was no coffee on yesterday morning's UX flight ORD-GSO. I'm thinking that reasonable compensation is a year's RCC membership and a comp to 1K, plus a $1,200 voucher. Or maybe they could bring back Coke instead of Pepsi........blah blah blah

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I guess the purpose of this thread is to see if there's a consensus on what a "compensable offense" is, and how much each such offense should be worth. There are a lot of posts asking what "reasonable compensation" is for various kinds of infractions, such as a two day delay; a screwed up award reservation; broken entertainment system; and involuntary denied boarding among many others.

What is compensable and what is not? What should the scale be in terms of assessing a value for an inconvenience?

I don't think I'm entitled to any compensation because yesterday's plane had a broken coffeemaker. I also don't think I'm entitled to compensation because my golf bag didn't make it on the flight even though I checked in on time (I got it later the same day).

However, different story if for some reason *no* beverages were loaded and we went dry (even for just an hour and a half flight). Or if my golf bag were missing all weekend and I had to rent other clubs.

What is your threshold? Once it's crossed, how do you go about assessing the value of an inconvenience/failure to deliver expected services?

PS. I pulled the links above just to show that this question seems to be asked a lot. I do not mean to suggest anything either positive or negative about the linked posts.

I missed my connection home (30 minute flight) from ORD because AA was 30 minutes late in arriving.

I ran through the airport, and as I reached the gate (I asked the GA at the arrival gate to call ahead for me to let the connecting gate know I was on my way). The GA was shutting the door when I reached her.

This was the last flight home for me. And missing it means a three hour drive.

She refused to allow me to board. Then made me stand at the desk for 20 minutes while she chatted on the phone (sounded personal, but that's just conjecture).

She then told me it wasn't AmericanEagle/Connection problem that AA was late. She told me the only thing she would do is rebook me on a flight the next day.

Refused to provide me a meal, drink, rental car, hotel, or compensation of any sort (all I wanted was a rental car to get home).

I got a tad upset. More than a tad. I stormed out.

As I was leaving the Airport (to look for a rental car), I noticed a gentleman wearing a suit coat and tie with an AA id badge. I asked him if he had a minute. He told me that I would have to move down to a ticket agent. I explained quickly I simply had a complaint, and wondered if he could direct me to the AA person in charge at the airport.

He responded by saying that would be himself and if I could wait five minutes he would be happy to listen to me.

I waited. Then he listened.

He told me he was sorry for the inconvience (This was very nice to hear). Then he said while he could not actually get me a rental car, he would make it up to me.

He refunded my ticket price in full (~$400), then he refunded me another ~$400 amount (he doubled my refund - directly back to my charge card).

I explained that the rental would be not more than $200 (one-way to home for me from ORD). He told me he was happy to refund the extra money as an apology.

While I hated driving for 3 hours instead of flying for 30 minutes, the $200+ for sitting in the car wasn't bad at all. I made it home in 2 hours (no traffic at all that time of night getting out of the city).

End result - I was very happy with the way the problem was handled.

Pakse

When one worries about compensation fo no coffee, I believe that there too many lawyers in the world

>>No coffee on UX. Reasonable Compensation? <<

Maybe a voucher for two No-Doz pills.

Mikey, what's scary about this post is that there are actually some people who would feel the way you jokingly stated.

It's a freaking cup of coffee, folks! Get over it.

The only time I want compensation is when I'm bumped. If I get on the plane, and it gets me to where I'm going, I don't really give a **** about anything else. I'm pretty low maintenance. Just do your job, folks, and get me and my luggage to where I'm supposed to go, and I won't care about whether it's Pepsi or Coke, whether the coffee's warm or not, or whether I get bottled or tap water.

Many (and most of my) incidencies are unique and hence have to be handled on a case by case basis.

Missed coffee/service items: If I absolultey depend on it, I bring my own.

Looking at the majority of this board we want the airlines and their much appreciated FF-programs around in the longterm, so PLEASE lets all allow them to concentrate on running their businesses, instead of burdening them with non-/micro-problems. Thanks!

Pakse -

What a positive story! Stories like that make me glad I've jumped ship from CO to AA!

I'll still favor DFW connections over ORD, but it's good to see that someone would step up and take final responsibility for your inconvenience.

How about squat?

How long was the UAX flight anyway?

Similar story to Pakse 2 weekends ago.

I missed my connection from LGA to JFK to take my JFK- SJU flight because the original flight ORD to LGA was 45 min. delayed plus it took an hour to put my luggage on the belt. There were not any other flights to SJU that night. At the beginning AA told me that the only thing they could do for me was to rebook the flight and find me a hotel with a discount (at my own expense). I called the Plat desk. They told me to go to the check in desk and talk to a supervisor. People at that desk in LGA were very friendly and helped me right away. They booked a hotel for me, transportation to the hotel and gave me a $15 voucher for breakfast. The lesson of the story is that you have to keep trying and don't take the first answer as the final answer, specially when it is not your fault.

Okay, here's a real request for ideas.

I recently flew to Australia/New Zealand on a UA award ticket. It was actually courtesy of Marriott Rewards but the way they handle the flight portion is by depositing miles into your frequent flyer account.

Anyway I was scheduled to travel AKL-LAX-DEN-MSN. The problem was that the flight from AKL to LAX originated in MEL and left about 4 hours late. I never got a straight story why it was late; one person told me it arrived late, another said mechanical problems, another said weather (though there weren't any weather problems within at least a thousand miles), another said they had to wait until the crew was legal.

Anyway, when I checked in I found out that we were going to leave about 3 1/2 hours late. At the ticket counter the United person said that we were going to misconnect in LAX so she told us we'd have to stay overnight in LAX and she put us on flights the next day back to MSN. She told us that someone from would be waiting to greet us in LAX with hotel vouchers.

When we arrived at LAX there was the usual mass confusion going through customs but there was clearly nobody to meet us with hotel vouchers. This was a full 747-400 with virtually everyone in trouble because of misconnects. For example there were over 60 people on the plane who were scheduled to continue on the same flight number from LAX to GTW; United, in their wisdom, had scheduled a plane change so the continuing flight had already left before we arrived.

Anyway, after 2 1/2 hours of being sent from line to line (I was getting stubborn; I should have just left and gotten my own hotel room) I finally got to someone who could make a reservation and give me a voucher. United customer service in LAX is an oxymoron! I know the United counter people were faced with hordes of exhausted people trying to deal with flight problems but the UAL folks were generally pretty ornary. By the way, I think I'm lucky - they told a lot of people that there weren't any rooms available so they were on their own.

The next morning we flew from LAX to ORD, then from ORD to MSN. The ORD to MSN flight was about 2 hours late, too, so I ended up arriving back in MSN about 24 hours late.

Now my question is whether it is reasonable to write United and ask for some kind of compensation. I know it was an award ticket but these were miles from Marriott so I assume there was some financial arrangement for them. I also realize that the contract of carriage only says that United will provide a room when they force an unscheduled overnight stay (which they did provide). But somehow this left me with a pretty bad taste.

Any ideas? Am I just being ornary? Or if I should ask for something, what is reasonable? A discount on a future trip so United can prove that they can do better than this?

I realize the original question was somewhat tongue in cheek, but if a cup of coffee would cost $1.50 and a frequent flyer mile is worth 2�, suitable compensation would be 75 FF miles.

On a more serious note, I agree with those who favor not sweating the small stuff. The airlines usually do their best to get us where we want to go at the time they said we'd get there. Broken coffee makers, seat back recline mechanisms and other stuff happen. I don't like it any more than the next person - but it's an airplane, not a five-star hotel. Rolling with the occasional small punches is the way to go. Save the ire for when it counts, as in Pakse's story.

I've never seen them do it before, but perhaps you could get them to part with half a clue.

You are kidding right?

One of my upgrades didn't clear a few weeks ago and I was forced to sit in steerage class and suffer with the rest of the peons who haven't showered for a week.

Oh, the FA smiled at me.. a direct violation of the United Committment.

what can i get back?

"United customer service in LAX is an oxymoron!"

>>>Correction, UA customer service anywhere is an oxymoron and is a joke. One of the many reasons we got out of there.

I don't like it when an airline messes up and then says you are on your own to find a hotel...I feel sad when I see quite a few people sleeping in an airport and you know that the airline did this to them... The magazines/newspapers should go out and do an article on this, would absolutely kill the airlines' PR and image, then maybe they would do something about it.

My sympathies to the traveler from Melbourne. That is a LONG freaking trip and to have to get here and go look for a hotel... Not fair and you have my sympathy.