Nickel and Dimed by SAS Airlines
Dec 29, 2018, 1:35 pm
#76
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: CPH, Swedish side of the bridge
Programs: SK*G (EBD)
Posts: 574
Paying for say C/J and being booked into a tight economy class middle seat between two other passengers is something LH, LX, OS, or BA do at time of ticketing/booking on itineraries where there is no indication of different class of service being booked on a continuing/feeder short/medium-haul flight than for the long-haul business class flight?
What is so f*€%/ing difficult for you primadonnas to get? You have the same product as LH. They also cram you into an economy seat. They just charge you way more and block the middle seat. RTFM, shut up and stop complaining. And SK never advertises them as J, and only in rare occasions misrepresents them as such.
Can't we all just agree to disagree? Happy New Year! (again)
Last edited by JR67; Dec 29, 2018 at 1:45 pm
Dec 29, 2018, 1:55 pm
#77
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Do you deliberately misunderstand posts? Seems to be a pattern with your replies. Maybe some reading lessons would help you out. Easy to understand why you have over 80,000 posts when most of them must have been asking stupid questions based on misunderstanding. Reread what I wrote - I was saying the lh product was better than those airlines.
What is so f*€%/ing difficult for you primadonnas to get? You have the same product as LH. They also cram you into an economy seat. They just charge you way more and block the middle seat. RTFM, shut up and stop complaining. And SK never advertises them as J, and only in rare occasions misrepresents them as such.
Can't we all just agree to disagree? Happy New Year! (again)
What is so f*€%/ing difficult for you primadonnas to get? You have the same product as LH. They also cram you into an economy seat. They just charge you way more and block the middle seat. RTFM, shut up and stop complaining. And SK never advertises them as J, and only in rare occasions misrepresents them as such.
Can't we all just agree to disagree? Happy New Year! (again)
What do you believe I misunderstood? When I buy C/J for LH flights, I never am booked into an economy class middle seat squeezed in between two other passengers. This cramped middle seat assignment happens with SK when buying C/J marketed as business. If it happens this way with BA, LH, LX, or OS, then I would be critical of those airlines doing what SK does, but they don’t AFAIK — while SK does.
Complaing about SK receiving due and comparative criticism from customers buying C/J on SK is the ultimate primadonna behavior, but primadonna behavior can be entertaining if nothing else.
Hopefully no one disrupts the holiday posting due to violation of FT TOS related to trying to get around the FT profanity filters.
Last edited by GUWonder; Dec 29, 2018 at 2:09 pm
Dec 29, 2018, 2:10 pm
#78
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: CPH, Swedish side of the bridge
Programs: SK*G (EBD)
Posts: 574
I certainly don’t believe that you’ve read most of my FT posts, so I’ll take the above comment about my posts to be nothing more than a fact-deprived characterization of most of my posts, but you’re entitled to feel how you want about SK, my posts are anything else.
What do you believe I misunderstood? When I buy C/J for LH flights, I never am booked into an economy class middle seat squeezed in between two other passengers. This happens with SK when buying C/J.
Complaing about SK receiving due and comparative criticism from customers on is the ultimate primadonna behavior, but primadonna behavior can be entertaining if nothing else.
Hopefully no one disrupts the holiday posting due to violation of FT TOS related to trying to get around the FT profanity filters.
And kudos for the thinly veiled threat about my terrible language.
Dude, you don't fly much more than me (maybe less but I will give you the benefit). I don't love SK. I just call BS (don't forget to report this one too) when people complain with no cause. This entire thread is people botching because they have someone sitting next to them for one hour. Ridiculous.
Dec 29, 2018, 3:20 pm
#79
Join Date: May 2008
Location: ARN
Posts: 3,470
The "Business Smart" that you're showing a link to is the fare. The fare class is called "Business Smart," but that does not necessarily mean that you're flying in business class on all legs. You'll see the same situation if you're e.g. booking LH ARN-FRA-HKG or BA OSL-LHR-JFK in first class.
Dec 29, 2018, 3:24 pm
#80
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And again you misunderstand what I wrote.
And kudos for the thinly veiled threat about my terrible language.
Dude, you don't fly much more than me (maybe less but I will give you the benefit). I don't love SK. I just call BS (don't forget to report this one too) when people complain with no cause. This entire thread is people botching because they have someone sitting next to them for one hour. Ridiculous.
I don’t like the idea of SAS flights being marketed and sold as business class with the customer surprisingly ending up in a situation as bad or even worse than their typical economy class flight would be for the customer. If someone thinks that customers shouldn’t complain much about not getting value for money (or for miles/points) from an airline or about being negatively surprised by an airline, then FT may be a rough ride.
I do recall something about the FT Community Director having had quite a surprise with SK over the same kind of matter. So it’s not just proverbial newbies hit by this kind of SK thing: SAS to get rid of Intra European C
Last edited by GUWonder; Dec 29, 2018 at 3:30 pm
Dec 29, 2018, 3:32 pm
#81
Join Date: May 2008
Location: ARN
Posts: 3,470
When I buy C/J for LH flights, I never am booked into an economy class middle seat squeezed in between two other passengers. This cramped middle seat assignment happens with SK when buying C/J marketed as business. If it happens this way with BA, LH, LX, or OS, then I would be critical of those airlines doing what SK does, but they don’t AFAIK — while SK does.
Dec 29, 2018, 3:48 pm
#82
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What you're saying is absolute correct. SAS does in a few cases represent their intra-Europe as business class. And while I certainly recognize that the other airlines you mention have better seating in European business class compared to SAS, I personally am not sure if I would call it fraudulous or misleading marketing. After all, there is no legal definition of business class which defines it as having a free middle seat.
Dec 29, 2018, 4:13 pm
#83
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 2,016
The "Business Smart" that you're showing a link to is the fare. The fare class is called "Business Smart," but that does not necessarily mean that you're flying in business class on all legs. You'll see the same situation if you're e.g. booking LH ARN-FRA-HKG or BA OSL-LHR-JFK in first class.
Case 1: The customer rarely flies anywhere but wants to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Tokyo. Inexperienced customers don't realise that you should click on links to see more info. It says business everywhere, so it must be business class. "A fare, what's that?" For example, a friend of mine once needed a ticket from STO to LON. A search engine showed that the cheapest option was with PS via KBP. "Ukraine, where's that? Never heard of." Ticket booked with very stupid routing.
Case 2: The customer often flies, but not with SK. You note that it says business. You know about fares, but note that the SH and the LH both are in the same booking class (Z) and you assume that SH Z is the same as LH Z.
Case 3: The customer regularly flies with JAL and knows that JAL is very confusing: booking class J on international flights isn't the same as the "Class J" service on domestic flights and therefore is suspicious and starts digging into it and eventually discovers that you only get SAS Plus between Gardermoen and Kastrup.
In cases 1-2, the customer is rightfully angry.
Dec 29, 2018, 4:44 pm
#84
Join Date: May 2008
Location: ARN
Posts: 3,470
I think that you are making an error in that you do not take the potential customer's knowledge into consideration.
Case 1: The customer rarely flies anywhere but wants to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Tokyo. Inexperienced customers don't realise that you should click on links to see more info. It says business everywhere, so it must be business class. "A fare, what's that?" For example, a friend of mine once needed a ticket from STO to LON. A search engine showed that the cheapest option was with PS via KBP. "Ukraine, where's that? Never heard of." Ticket booked with very stupid routing.
Case 2: The customer often flies, but not with SK. You note that it says business. You know about fares, but note that the SH and the LH both are in the same booking class (Z) and you assume that SH Z is the same as LH Z.
Case 3: The customer regularly flies with JAL and knows that JAL is very confusing: booking class J on international flights isn't the same as the "Class J" service on domestic flights and therefore is suspicious and starts digging into it and eventually discovers that you only get SAS Plus between Gardermoen and Kastrup.
In cases 1-2, the customer is rightfully angry.
Case 1: The customer rarely flies anywhere but wants to make a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Tokyo. Inexperienced customers don't realise that you should click on links to see more info. It says business everywhere, so it must be business class. "A fare, what's that?" For example, a friend of mine once needed a ticket from STO to LON. A search engine showed that the cheapest option was with PS via KBP. "Ukraine, where's that? Never heard of." Ticket booked with very stupid routing.
Case 2: The customer often flies, but not with SK. You note that it says business. You know about fares, but note that the SH and the LH both are in the same booking class (Z) and you assume that SH Z is the same as LH Z.
Case 3: The customer regularly flies with JAL and knows that JAL is very confusing: booking class J on international flights isn't the same as the "Class J" service on domestic flights and therefore is suspicious and starts digging into it and eventually discovers that you only get SAS Plus between Gardermoen and Kastrup.
In cases 1-2, the customer is rightfully angry.
Dec 30, 2018, 3:33 am
#85
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Tokyo
Programs: JAL Metal Card (OWE), SAS Eurobonus Gold (*G), Marriott Titanium (LTP), Tokyu Hotels Platinum
Posts: 21,102
If it happens once in a blue moon, I would accept that as a slip by the staff. If it happens very regularly, they do have a problem with the training of their call center staff. It can't be that difficult to give people a fact sheet and terminology to be used when dealing with customer calls
Dec 30, 2018, 3:56 am
#86
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I might argue that this has more to do with managing an outsourced call center, than with how SK represent their product. Though in actual fact for the caller that would probably be an irrelevant distinction.
If it happens once in a blue moon, I would accept that as a slip by the staff. If it happens very regularly, they do have a problem with the training of their call center staff. It can't be that difficult to give people a fact sheet and terminology to be used when dealing with customer calls
If it happens once in a blue moon, I would accept that as a slip by the staff. If it happens very regularly, they do have a problem with the training of their call center staff. It can't be that difficult to give people a fact sheet and terminology to be used when dealing with customer calls
For outsourced contact centers, wouldn’t SK be able to have the call records searched if SK really cared about this kind of issue?
My bet is that SAS doesn’t really care as much about an issue like this as it is all about filling planes with as many passengers as possible regardless of how it disappoints on intra-Europe flights. Caring about its reputation and distinction from low cost carriers seems to be increasingly just old history for SK. SK cutting back on earning points/miles on its flights in the main is just another sign of that SK nickel and dime approach.
With more cuts here and there, SAS has ended up becoming worse than nothing positively special. And it’s pretty bad when even a lower SK price than competitor’s price for same intra-Europe city pair travel isn’t attractive enough to get some customers to choose SK over say Norwegian.
SK can only hope that the other European legacy majors jump on the same band wagon of packing in the forward intra-European cabins the way SAS does.