LAX 1K

One of the things I learned when returning from Cancun to Los Angeles, is that if anything goes wrong and your ticketing airline is not there, Star Alliance means nothing.

I was on vacation in Cancun on a United Award ticket on Mexicana, and our ticket was either lost or stolen from our bag. When getting to the airport, Mexicana could do nothing, United could do nothing. Just alot of messages sent back and forth. I know losing a ticket is not good (but no eticketing was possible). So I was on hold with United for over 60 minutes, before one agent (and supervisor) assured me to buy a ticket on Mexicana and it will be reimbursed/refunded.

I just never saw a lack of integration like this. I am use to the close relationship between UA and Air Canada, which seems a tighter relationship.

While trying to resolve this, I talked to some other Star Alliance Gold members who said they noticed the same issues between UA and LH, UA and MX, etc.....

How tight of a relationship is there? It is sad when you see United's logo all over the place, and Mexicana could not assist at all.

Just my obeservations.

curt

Well, it seems that UA is an outsider in many aspects in *A... training, integration, service... I think they just don't care about *A. But that's only my opinion...

[This message has been edited by curt (edited 01-23-2002).]

ahrz

Star Alliance offers common benefits to all *S or *G members. These benefits are clearly described in the star documentation.
That's all. Not more, not less.

For all other issues, as you can expect, *Alliance airlines remain independant.

At a MX (like any other) ticket counter, if there is no policy to issue a free ticket in case your ticket get lost, nobody can and will issue one.

LAX 1K

I truely understand that. But if United and Mexicana are code-sharing, selling tickets on each other flights, and UA's name is represented by Mexicana, I would think they would at least be agreeable to work with United. The thing many of the Star Alliance airlines forget that just because I am Star Gold with United, doesn't mean I do not fly Mexicana and could be one of their better customers? I do fly them periodiocally... and was just alittle disappointed that they did not even try and let UA do what they wanted to do.

The thing that gets me is the marketing "airline for Earth" or something simular. Just thought they would have a procedure in place to help their "alliance elites".

Flexible Flyer

Perhaps I missed something in the original post. What was it that UA wanted to do? How did MX contravene that? It's one thing for a airline partner to be of no help, and another thing altogether to get in the way of help. I'd be interested in learning more.

UAL Traveler

*A sounds great from a marketing perspective. They just don't want us to confuse a good story with the facts. I cannot count how many times I have been unable to get BPs issued for downstream segments on all *A carriers on a single PNR. The *A structural overlay on the dissimilar airlines is a very thin veil, that is easily torn. However, I do foresee a tightening and standardization of procedures if the alliance continues to survive.

peter42

It works pretty good, except for UA and sometimes SQ.

Koala

Lacks 1K - the answer is in your topic title. Still inter-gration, not yet integration. Happy daze. Koala

By the way, this is not just a Star problem. Have you seen just how excruciatingly difficult it is to get more than 4 boarding passes issued by UA, on UA if all those flights have the same date. That can be a real pain if you are heading across the date line e.g. SIN/NRT/SFO/DEN/ORD/BOS.

[This message has been edited by Koala (edited 02-09-2002).]

UAL Traveler

Apparently 3 BPs across the dateline is not too hard for UA. I routinely do BKK-NRT-SFO-EWR where the third segment departs 'before' the second, and thus far UA has been able to cut them w/o problem in BKK. However, if I originate in BKK on TG, and want to connect to UA in HKG or NRT, forget it.