A bad day, or...
 

I needed to rant. I had two simple tasks to do today -- book one open-jaw roundtrip award ticket with NW, and one open-jaw roundtrip on United using US miles.

Call #1 to Northwest. I provide info. I want to go MSP-SFO-BOS. Agent is surly. "That is not an open jaw," she states. "Why not?" I ask. "You have to return to your origination city." Bulls**t, I think. I do the hang up and call back again trick.

Call #2 to Northwest. I provide info. I want to go MSP-SFO-BOS. Less surly, but still mean. "You want MSP-SFO-MSP?" she asks. "No, I want MSP-SFO-BOS." "I can give you SFO-BOS," she says. "I would like to take a redeye on Delta," I said. "That flight doesn't exist," she says. "Yes it does, I say." I give her the flight numbers. "Oh. Well you can't do that anyway because it's not an open jaw." "Why not?" I ask again. "Because you're not returning to the city you left from." This time I've had it. "But an open-jaw by definition on the policies published in all of your documentation as well as on your website allows you to open the jaw either at the origin or the destination." Click. She hangs up on me! At no point was I rude or obnoxious -- but she certainly was to me!

Call #3 to Northwest. Agent is friendly. Arranges everything perfectly. Everything is perfectly fine. Ticketed.

Call #1 to US Airways. I want to book a ticket on United. I give info. "You don't have a saturday night stay so it will cost 40000 miles." Oh...forgot about that. "I'll call United then instead." The agent replies, "it won't matter, they require saturday night stays too. You'll have to pay the extra miles no matter who you book through." I reply "I'm pretty sure United has no sat. night stay requirement." She says "I'm pretty sure they do." Whatever. I say goodbye and hang up.

Now, is it just me or do the vast majority of these agents either 1.) have no concept of proper customer service, or 2.) are completely misinformed yet tell us bald-faced lies as if they were scripture? Who trains these folks? It is really sad when passengers know more about the rules than the representatives of the companies that make the rules. And it is totally out of hand that it took 3 calls at Northwest to finally get a semi-friendly, competent agent capable of doing something without grandstanding, making things up, or hanging up on their customers.

Frankly, the culture developing at the big airlines clearly does not include either competence or customer friendliness. I am incensed.

Get used to it. Unless the job situatiion gets so bad that someone who is trainable is willing to take a phone rep job things are gonna stay the same. If things get so bad that you gotta look for a phone rep job God help us, 'cause there won't be anybody for the phone reps to talk to. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

that was well put, snake...

Sad? Yes, but unfortunately necessary to survive in today's environment. It's also a source of comfort when things go the way you already know they should.

IMHO, this lesson is applicable in many situations one encounters on a daily basis. This, I believe, is the genesis of why many people distrust attorneys. It is not possible for most people (self grudgingly included) to "know more about the rules" than even the average attorney.

That said, its still the stuff good rants are made of and no one should begrudge you that robinhood!

This is also a symptom of the ever worsening situation of both finding standard award availability and the ridiculous heaps of varying rules and restrictions placed on them. Not that this example was that extreme but the agents all too often can't get their own policies right, much less those of their partners. Don't look for online booking engines to help either! They don't do open jaws.

I think you can add this comment to many big companies in many industries. But each company has their share of exceptional employees (who know what customers mean), and their share of dead wood that think they are doing you a favor just by picking up the phone.

You ever call AT&T (Cell Service)? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif I wanted to throw the phone through the phone. After 3-4 people, "Let me see if I can get you taken care of Sir". Sure enough!

When their cup is half full http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif.

I work in a large company and I hate to admit it, but we have it too.

I don't expect every agent to be an expert on every rule which is why I wish the training would teach the skill to say "I don't know the answer to that, do you mind holding while I look up the answer?"

I sometimes get the impression that the agents are judged on how many people they help, not on how well they help them.

I agree that you were not treated very nicely with Northwest customer service. I had a very similar experience trying to book Harrisburg, PA/Detroit/Columbus. I also just hung up the phone and called back two more times until I got what I needed.

Where I AM confused is that I thought what you were doing was basically a one way trip with an intermediate stop. Why do you consider this an open Jaw RT?

I have worked in a call centre. The problem is that there is a rather large chasm between call agent and soup divider. The soup divider listens in to the agents conversations a few times a month (at best!), the rest of the agent's assessment is purely based on net number of calls an hour. Top management tend to set targets based on this figure. When it comes to quality of customer service, the training of agents in 'in-house' call centres is adequate; the quality of the agents is usually below that level. They have no commitment to the job, hence they also lack a commitment to the customer. When it comes to outsourced call centres....if an in-house call centre trains their employees 120 hours before they are left to their own devices, an outsourced one will train the employees for about 15 hours...

Thank you, fellow Orange Contean, for a postive post. Just for the record, I redeemed four transatlantic awards on Delta and their partners this year and last and always had the pleasure of taking to well-informed, courteous, and helpful agents. I don't think it was just my luck. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

For awhile now I have had a personal policy of always getting the first and last name and location of the rep I am speaking with (or other identifying info)and writing it down before I tell them what I want. Then I use that person's name in the conversation, so that they know that I know who they are. Rarely do I get poor service after that, and the few times that I do, I take great pleasure in calling back and asking to speak to a supervisor, who then receives enough info from me to actually do something about the employee.

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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

i do the same thing pgary..except i always start off by saying, in case we are disconnected, do you mind if i get your name and the city you are in? that way they are not on the defensive right away

still do not understand...what is an open jaw??

Open jaw #1 - you fly from city A tocity B. You return from city C to city A. There is an "open jaw" between cities B and C.

Open jaw #2 - you fly from city A to city B. You return from city B to city C. Same thing, but less comon.

It is assumed you get between the two open jaw cities one way or another (planes, trains, and/or automobiles).

Specifically permitted on most award tickets, not too sure about paid tix. With an award you can generally do an open jaw on both ends! Cool.

However - having said all that - not too sure where MSP-SFO-BOS fits as an open jaw. I guess he starts at MSP and finishes at BOS (duhhh). OK - open jaw. Can't understand why the agent didn't grok that.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by BigLar:

Open jaw #1 - you fly from city A to city B. You return from city C to city A. There is an "open jaw" between cities B and C.

Open jaw #2 - you fly from city A to city B. You return from city B to city C. Same thing, but less comon.

However - having said all that - not too sure where MSP-SFO-BOS fits as an open jaw.

QUOTE]

I agree on your open Jaw #1. As an example you leave LAX, fly to JFK, get into a car drive to BOS, and then fly back to LAX. That is the typical open jaw. Now you can leave from LAX, SNA, ONT, or BUR and return to another because they are "co-terminals".

Your open jaw #2 describes MSP-SFO-BOS. Personally I don't think that is an open jaw (although I don't claim to be an open jaw expert in scenario number 2) when outside of co-terminals. If you ask me its two one ways. What if you went SFO-MSP-BOS, that's still scenario number 2. I can't see how that could be an open jaw, that's a one way trip with a stop, or again two one ways.

So are there any Open Jaw experts out there that can explain scenario number 2 or the routing the original poster had. The more I think about it I guess I can see why the res agents has difficulty with it (I'll take any politeness out of the equation for now).

If I leave LAX, go to ORD and return to SFO is that an open jaw? If it is, then same scenario and you "return" to DFW is it? If so, then same scenario and you then go to to BOS is it? I guess in my opinion if isn't a co-terminal then it isn't a round trip, thus not an open jaw. Or said another way you can't have an open jaw on the departure/return city only somewhere in-between.



[This message has been edited by 1K_From_SNA (edited Nov 14, 2003).]

This is the general idea behind an open jaw:

" Open-Jaw Trip means travel that is essentially of a round-trip nature except that the outward point of arrival and the inward point of departure are not the same or the outward point of departure and the inward point of arrival are not the same. Open jaws are allowed (unless there is a restriction in the fare rules) when the mileage between the open-jaw points is equal to or less than the mileage of the shortest sector flown. "

So, unless I'm wrong, MSP-SFO-BOS could be considered as an open jaw because the distance between MSP and BOS (1124 miles) is less than the distance between MSP and SFO (1589 miles) an the distance between SFO and BOS (2704 miles).

I use open jaw tickets type # quite often (I had an ORD-CDG-SEA flight last month).

Less common are either double open jaws or open jaws between two countries (I've booked a MIA-SYD-YUL ticket two weeks ago on Air Canada).

You are right, this is not an open-jaw becase BOS-SFO is a greater distance than the flown segments.

Yes

No but DFW-LAX-ORD could be http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You can even have an open jaw on both the inbound and the outbound end, it is called a double open jaw.

I hope this helps,

Regards,
FRAC

BTW, the open jaw definition is from Alaska Airlines. I am sure there is a formal 'IATA' definition but I don't have access to it.