Annalisa12

I don't know where to put this but I just want to whine about it as I couldn't believe it. It wasn't fair on the traveller so I guess it was unreasonable.

Arriving in Sydney and going through the "something to declare" lines I was close enough to hear and see some of the searches. A person was having their bags xrayed and was asked to put it on the conveyer which they did then walked up towards where it would pop out. The absolutely vile woman said to the person "why did you put it that way, if you had any idea what you were doing you would of realised you should of put it the other way".

What did the person do? He put the case "face up" or what I would consider the front and the horrible customs lady turned it over then sent it through the scanner. I said to my husband and others probably heard. What a horribly nasty lady talking to that passenger like that. I had "no idea" there was a right way up when I put things through the scanner. There were a few nods of the head around me.

teddybear99

Easily solved for future reference:

(s)he

soccergirl

Husband and I flying BA from LHR to West Coast; I was exec plat on AA (2 million miler) and he was platinum on AA at the time. We got comp upgraded to Club World. Happened to be flying home after working in Europe so had a lot of luggage. They would not honor the baggage allowance for a Club World flier. Their response was, "we only upgraded your seat - you are not allowed to all other perks." When I asked whether I would have to eat the coach meal as well, she advised that I could always stay in London....(eventually threatening in so many words that she would remove me from the plane for harassing her).

We ended up paying to get the "extra" bags on the flight, but I eventually got my money back by speaking to customer service.

Annalisa12

Unbelievable.... you could stay in London!!

skywardhunter

As in operationally upgraded? Op-ups never include lounge/baggage allowance, etc. on virtually all airlines, unless one has those perks due to status already

roberino

But it is unfair if they held them to a rule that they hadn't told them about. Especially when, if you look on the website the baggage allowance for CW is published clearly.

kb9522

That was my first thought too.

skywardhunter

One doesn't find out about op-ups until one is at or enroute to the airport usually, so they had already overpacked at that point. They received a better seat with accompanying service (if one can call it "service" on BA), some airlines occasionally upgrade so many pax that the premium cabin is all upgrades and receives Y service.

Proudelitist

BA once lost my luggage from SAN to LHR. When I went to the baggage office at LHR the woman told me it was my fault for checking it in the first place. Keep in mind, it was a direct flight, no connections and no interlines.

Annalisa12

Yes. How dare you want clothes, toiletries and other belongings in LHR.

ltfly

Generally speaking, I find economy seating horrendous, particularly for long haul flights. When companies change the original seating composition of a 2-4-2 into a 3-3-3, for example, and you are so cramped you want to fight everyone around you, it is just unreasonable, unfair and simply scandalous.
This simple fact beats all the incidents that may happen during a flight.

mapleg

They probably manage better than most of us. I work with a couple of people like that who have the amazing knack of pronouncing a "simple" solution to a complex issue. It's almost as if any thought longer than 10 seconds is dismissed as unworkable within their brain. We have nicknamed one of them "Speedy" due to his proclivity for suggesting quick solutions (that never are well though out).

As a side note, I have never once put my deodorant (typically a small travel stick in my carry on) into any tray in any airport in the world.

mediakzar

This may not be the worst but I've been dealing with it this week so it's top of mind.

My wife and I are heading off in 10-days for a 4-week trip to Mexico. The Mexico part of the trip starts in Cozumel for 10-days and then by ferry & bus to catch a flight CUN to TGZ to visit Chiapas; then TGZ to OAX for Oaxaca and then OAX to CUN for our return to Cozumel before heading home. We’ve arranged for our son and daughter-in-law to meet up with us ( traveling from US through MEX) for the Chiapas and Oaxaca part of the trip. So we all have 3 domestic flights in Mexico. All of those flights are cash.

On Monday of this week we received a notice that the TGZ to OAX flight time was changed to 5 hours earlier in the day meaning activities planned for our last day in TGZ had to be cancelled or moved to another day.

Then yesterday I double checked times for all the other flights and discovered that the son & daughter-in-law flight for MEX to TGZ had been cancelled and the airline rebooked them for 2-days later. Got a full refund but had to buy tix on another carrier for more than double what I had previously paid. We never got a notice on this one so it's possible they might not have known about the change till they tried to check-in in MEX.

I’m holding my breath waiting to see how they change the OAX to CUN leg!

beachmouse

Ah, late springtime and summer in the Southeast. Meaning the ATL/IAH/CLT ground stop recovery dance. Usually, it's an annoyance along with the understanding that you want the planes to successfully take off and land and for airport employees not to get hit by lightening.

And then there was the Atlanta Pimp hotel.

The bad news of the day: ground stop recovery was going poorly, and we were not going to make our original onward flights to Scotland.

The alleged good news: our flight delay was in the system as MX-something about our inbound flight was carrying parts to fix a plane at that outstation, so they'd give us a hotel voucher once we did get to ATL that night, and then they'd send us transatantic the next day. (We've actually had good luck with Delta/Northwest not blaming the weather when they've had the chance so we believed the GA)

Flight into ATL finally gets there after about a 5 hour delay. We go to a customer service area as instructed for our hotel vouchers, and are told by multiple employees that they've run out of vouchers for MX a few hours back and to just go find something on our own and we'd be reimbursed later.

At this point, it's after midnight so 1) hard to internet search for a room that night/morning- their systems return info for the following night, so ended up trying to call a dozen properties to be told they're sold out because 2) everyone else caught up in the ground stop problems and to find something ourselves and save the receipts and we'd be reimbursed for the hotel later. (Which I knew wasn't SOP, but things were weird enough I was willing to believe it)

Have 2-3 people mention that (deflagged Wyndham whose name I can't recall) still has rooms. Pay the shuttle driver for the Country Inn $10 to slightly go out of his way to drop us off and discover why the hotel still had rooms when everything else was sold out. First clue is the sex workers in the parking lot, followed by armed off-duty cop in the lobby and mold smell everywhere. We try to ignore the mold, get some sleep, and as we're waiting for the shuttle back to the airport the next morning, there is a fistfight in the parking lot among what seems to be the managers of the ladies from the night before. We take cover back in the lobby, the police are called (off duty cop is apparently there only on the overnights) and get back to the airport.

End up talking with a red coat as we were checking in for the flight and was told that the people the night before had lied about reimbursement. (Eventually got 2x10K Skymiles as an apology, which are actually useful from our home airport) Stuff happens, but if we'd known that there were no hotel vouchers waiting in ATL, I could have tried booking a hotel 5-6 hours earlier when I could have gotten something far better than the pimp hotel. Like a Motel 6 or Knight's Inn or something.

Final insult was that on the rebooked leg that was BOS-AMS, Spousal Unit got stuck next to a guy with an active sinus infection, spent 2 of 3 weeks of that vacation sick, and passed it on to me just in time for our flight home from CDG. I got the shooting facial pain version of it that came on quickly, and apparently looked bad enough that the purser asked if he should find a doctor for me. (Fortunately, Spousal Unit had some EU version of Afrin in his bag-I'd been too distracted by the pain to remember it was there at first and he'd been asleep, and that managed to knock back the pain, but leave me heckava jittery for the rest of the ticket routing)

The experience drove us to try the airlines that have the other 30% of gates locally. United was more pleasant than its reputation but the GA in Houston during IRROPS managed to rebook us onto a flight that was scheduled earlier than our original rebooking but currently MX- was told that a lot of GAs don't look at flight status when rebooking passengers. American was just generally mediocre. And if you're flying the last flight of a night to an outstation, Southwest has a tendency to give away your plane to a route that needs it more, and it's another 90-120 minutes in Nashville or BWI.

So have ended up coming back around to Delta, and haven't had any issues since then.

ellyse

I was flying PVG-LAX on (probably) MU, then LAX-GDL on AM. Rechecked baggage after passing through LAX customs. Next afternoon (Fri) after I arrived in GDL, nothing was to be found at the baggage claim. My return flight was on Sun morning, and finally the baggage came on Sun afternoon, so I asked to be changed to the Sun evening flight. AM declined and told me the next open flight they could change me to was on Thu (or something ridiculous like that). I lost it and told them that I wouldn't be asking to change my return flight if they hadn't lost my baggage for a full 2 days. Thankfully they somehow got me on that evening flight.

Another one, flew CA for MXP-PVG, ETA 0600. Somehow they claimed bad visibility and landed at NKG at 0600, and kept us on the plane with almost no food and water till 1200, when we were told we can now go to the terminal to "rest". Pax connecting to other destinations were reaccommodated on other flights, but those going to Shanghai were told that they could take us by bus to Nanjing South train station and then we would have to buy our own train tickets back to Shanghai. ...?! Should we be happy that they landed us in NKG and not somewhere further off, like PEK or SVO - "oh you can just take the TransSiberian back, we'll see you in a week or two"?!

Last one for now, was on UA flight PVG-ORD. To cut the long story short, FA poured hot tea on my hand, gave unpleasantly some paper towels (no ice!) to mop up, then came back and insulted me saying that I don't know how to hold a cup properly. Oh, and later UA offered 20 USD voucher for that.