A New Low for me in UA service
 

I recently took my fifth trans-Atlantic flight of the year, which was carefully booked four months ago so that I'd be on UA operated flights for the long legs (no way to avoid European airlines for the legs within Europe), with a layover of a few hours in London on the return to VIE so that I could fit in a meeting.

Two days before departure I reprint my itinerary to find that I have been rerouted and no longer go through London and am now on Austrian for the trans-Atlantic leg. No notification whatsoever, so who knows when or how this happened?

When I call, I'm eventually (not easy to get to that point) told that it's because BMI, my LHR-VIE carrier, has dropped Star Alliance, so I'm entirely rerouted and no longer going through LHR (despite the fact that Austrian and several Star Alliance partners have many flights that could get me back to VIE). This, by the way, despite an email from UA a few weeks earlier assuring me that if I have any already-booked travel on BMI the tickets will still be honored as if nothing had changed. I'm pretty sure this excuse is untrue, as I'm leaving Kansas City on the final day of a convention when many flights from there are overbooked, and I suspect they just didn't want me going to CHI and wanted to send me to IAD because there was more space.

I ask to be rerouted again, but the agent isn't too with it and can't understand why if I leave DC on the evening of July 9 on a red-eye to London I would then want my LON-VIE flight to be on July 10. She never is able to work that one out. So I find my own flights on their website and tell her which ones I want (the original two legs being my originally booked two legs). No seats available, says she. But I'm looking at them. Hmmm...she still says she can't and a good 1.5 hours later I'm transferred to her incredibly unhelpful and obnoxious supervisor, who tells me their only obligation is to get me to VIE no matter how they decide they want to do it. I explain to her that I have booked to go through LHR because I need to go through LHR, and there are still flights (many) that can do it.

NO, just NO. Your plans have already been changed once, and we only allow one free change. But I didn't make (or even know about) the change, says I. NO, just NO--we only allow one change and you have had yours. Incredibly rude and unhelpful in every way, from tone of voice to lack of effort on her part.

Eventually I have to cancel my London meeting and fly on Austrian to VIE from IAD in a cramped seat that I cannot fit into (the E+ seating is the ONLY reason I use UA and always make sure to get a UA operated flight for the long legs of the trip).

I have two more trans-Atlantic flights already booked for July on UA, but I guess I should have the miles credited to USAirways and see if they can do any better in terms of decent customer service? It was quite clear to me that UA appreciates my business not at all.

So I have to keep rewatching "United Breaks Guitars" to amuse myself and try to keep a sense of humor, and as a reminder that even though UA said loudly and clearly that that public relations fiasco had taught them a lesson about delivering good or at least respectful customer service, that also was just a platitude with absolutely no sincerity behind it.

Sounds like you got a lousy agent. While their rerouting you sans-LHR might have been within the absolute fine print on the contract of carriage it sounds pretty darn unreasonable given the existence of several perfectly reasonable *A carriers who can get you from VIE to LHR with or without stops.

But did you try phoning up again to see if you could get a more reasonable agent?

The real problem in this whole dealio, as far as I'm concerned, is United's habit of changing itineraries without even bothering to send out an email about it. Seriously, United, you can email me sixteen pieces of advertising per week but can't be bothered to mention "oh btw we cancelled your flight and you're now flying on the redeye via Adis Ababa"?

Mind you I've had an uphill battle arguing that last point on here before; apparently the average flyertalker checks their itineraries three times a day, just for fun. (Aw, who am I kidding? I do it too!)

It's not just the new United that is doing this with no email or phone call notification. I had this happen a few years ago on PMUA. My husband and I were flying CDG-ORD-BOS which would get my husband to 2P by a few miles and was cheaper than CDG-IAD-BOS. We showed up at CDG only to find ourselves rerouted via IAD and told that it was a "much better connection." Well, at least that part was true, but what if we had been traveling with someone else or meeting someone at ORD... Anyway, I stopped complaining once I realized that we were now in C. For some reason the agent failed to mention that and I realized it while in line for security. It all worked out well because we got the free upgrade to C as well as 1.5x EQM because we were rebooked as Y.

Rule 1 - When you get an unreasonable CSR, politely thank them, hang up and redial.

That said, all you were owed was transportation IAD-VIE. So long as that's what you got, your contract has been fulfilled.

And if United operates only within the letter of the contract, they will not be operating very long.

When it comes to serving the customer, United has lost all concept of what it takes to provide quality service. I don't know how they got here, but they are in desperate need of a new Iacoccoa-style leader.

You won't get an uphill battle from me. You're absolutely right that a big part of the problem is a lack of notification re the change. And as for having to recheck reservations regularly - that's good advice, but with almost any other service industry the obligation is on the company to make sure that the customer knows of any changes and to make things as right as possible if changes take place. That clearly wasn't the case in this instance.

Your Rule 1 is absolutely right, though note that the OP escalated to a supervisor who was similarly unhelpful.

As for your second point, the contract technically might have been fulfilled but the customer service was atrocious. UA had it in its power to make this right. It couldn't be bothered to do so.

As a customer of UA, I find it very depressing to read more and more stories like this.

So UA makes a unilateral change without telling the customer and then accuses the customer of having made a change, and refuses to help any further. Short of a lawsuit, is there anything that we can do to force UA to help fix the situation?

Doesn't anyone at UA give a d*mn anymore? :(

+1

Not only am I tired of reading about it, I'm tired of experiencing it first hand.

Yes vote with your feet (dollars).

Mike -

What have your personal experiences been like on UA?

I have never experienced anything like this (although I have had some problems).

The general rule of 'people with negative experiences are more vocal than satisfied customers' definitely holds true on FT.:.

Jeez, LarkSFO, you sound so reasonable, then you call out a "general rule", ???

The OP couldn't have written a more reasonable and clear description of a real failure of good service, from changing his flight without notice to just shutting him down when he had good options available.

That's your idea of whining? I don't get it. Are you complaining that FTers don't sufficiently report their successful flights from IAD-ORD, for example?

I have not had many bad experiences on UA, considering how often I have flown UA (probably 150K BIS on UA last year alone). My latest negative experience was in April, when I suffered a MX delay on a trip to FLR that cost me a whole day at my destination. I was satisfied with the compensation ($350 e-cert and $10 meal voucher for the 10-hour delay), at least until I was with a friend who got VDB'd and got nearly as much ($300 voucher and $20 meal voucher) for a 1-hour delay.

But what worries me is not so much the experiences I've had, but the increasingly negative experiences that I continue to read about. You're right that people are more likely to write about complaints than compliments, but when I read stories such as the OP's, I worry. What's to stop UA from treating me that poorly on my next trip? Just last year, I twice had segments disappear from my booking when partners cancelled flights. Thankfully I noticed, and I had no trouble getting UA to fix these. But I think I'd be livid if UA had accused me of lying and told me that I'd made a change that I didn't.

In the past, I have always felt as if UA had my back. But stories such as these make me feel that if something happens in the future, the new UA won't. And although I have moved the bulk of my travel to AA for other reasons, these stories make me want to avoid UA, even when flying on UA makes sense.

For forget, the new United's main business is trying to get you to buy one of the many credit cards that it offers. I am shocked by all the mailings I get, all of the advertising, etc for the damn credit cards. And some of the cards offer better perks than one who flies 100,000 miles a year.

I made reservations earlier this month. Had to speak to an agent. I was making US-Europe reservations and wanted to use GPU. On-line would not offer a fare that was upgradeable unless I gave it the exact fare code. No big deal - the agent who came from CO spent close to 30 minutes explaining to me while the old CO was superior to the old UA. She could not believe that UA customers were leaving because all of the bad customer service from the new UA.'

While pmUA was far from perfect, my post-merger experiences have included a number of disappointing phone and online interactions that I never had before, including IRROPs that took hours to sort out and that resulted in a 24-hour delay in my travel. Similar IRROPs in the past with UA and currently with AA have been resolved much more quickly and effectively.

The fact that people complain more than praise service is a given. The reality is that there is a lot more to complain and be concerned about now.

+1

To be fair, this isn't just a matter of customer service. With BMI no longer in *A, for UA to put OP on another routing, they would have to buy a ticket for him. It's one thing to hand someone a free drink coupon for an inconvenience, but before I would make a judgment here, I'd want to look at what OP paid for the ticket vs. what it would have cost UA to fly him on a routing of his choice.

Sometimes on the pax side, things we think of as simple or cheap for a carrier aren't. And, there's got to be some limit. If anyone has any insight on the cost-benefit here, would be helpful.

The best way to get a re-route/plane swap is to book "months in advance". I agree the change needs to be communicated but honestly I would be shocked if a flight booked "months in advance" did NOT change.

With all due respect, OP, this isn't really a new low.

It's a repeat of the same, old low. :p

It's darkest before dAAwn
 

Thanks for posting.

When I reach a pmCO agent (my guess) w/ a question or concern, usually say they can't do anything, trust the computer and just go to the airport. When I reach a pmUA agent (sometimes a guess, sometimes confirmed), they try to help, rather than simply get rid of me.

Supervisors have all (my guess) been pmCO, inferred from their sternly telling me that I have no rights and even tho, e.g., I'm not on the upgrade list when I should be, there's nothing to be done about it and just go to the airport and ask there (at which point it will be moot as no upgrades will be available).

My status match to EXP has gone thru, now trying to figure out how to get 30K miles on AA at reasonable cost by end of August.

May complete 100K on UA this year, but after that unlikely to do much flying on UA unless cashing in SWU's or award travel. If a lot of travel on UA seems likely, will get the appropriate credit card.

Agreed,
But do any of those leaders exist anymore?

I can't speak for the OP, but looking at OP's credentials, I would have to think the OP doesn't have any status with UA. If that is the case, the OP might have called the regular reservation number and you know what that means! Outsource reservation agents in India! You can never get any help from them! Maybe that is why the OP got nowhere with the agent or "supervisor". Safe Travels!:cool:

Absolutely. We just never hear about them because they're rarely in the news for screwing up.

Seriously, though, companies such as Zappos (and the parent, Amazon), Starbucks, Whole Foods, Costco, etc. all put the customers (and their employees, for that matter) first and the profits seem to take care of themselves. Yes, the airlines are a more competitive business, but attitude starts at the top.

Mike

My post was addressed to Mike. Not the OP. And Mike responded with a very detailed and much appreciated description of his flying experience (post 12).

I just wanted to remind Mike that FT is a small community with (11) vocal members. Getting 'depressed' about the state of UA because of comments you read on FT is really not the way to react to what you read here.

My experience on UA has been much more like Mike's: 'I have not had many bad experiences on UA, considering how often I have flown UA (probably 150K BIS on UA last year alone).'

Most of my colleagues and friends experiences that I have heard about have been mostly positive as well. Most don't even know anything more than "United and Continental merged".

So, yes, I feel for the OP. Sounds like an awful experience.

But I am not going to use his anecdotal experience to generalize about what everyone should expect to experience on UA.

Rechecked my itineraries and...
 

Well, after reading about this fiasco, I thought I'd better recheck my itineraries (which I don't quite do daily, but I do do fairly often... :) ) I had an SFO-PHL itinerary in May change repeatedly -- and all over the day too, not anywhere near the originally booked times -- and I didn't want to go through that again. I didn't call to try to fix it because I feared the reservation getting more screwed up than it already was. It ended up being okay in that case because I used SDC to get on the flights I wanted, but I had a nail biter of a time hoping those flights would still be available and have E+ seats.

Lo and behold, my SFO-BOS RT has had a schedule change that I was not notified of. I'm on a completely different return flight (6 pm BOS-SFO) than my originally booked flight (7:30 pm BOS-SFO) since the 7:30 pm flight no longer exists. Problem is I'm in meetings until 5:15 pm, so a 6 pm departure will not work...but since the schedule only changed by 90 minutes, it's outside of the "if your schedule changes by at least 2 hours, we can actually do something for you" guidance I've heard in the past.

Is it worth a call to UA, or will I just be shooting myself in the foot?

It's worth it to call.

Indeed...a 5 minute phone call, a very friendly and efficient agent, and the whole thing is solved with no change fee. I have to take a connection (IAD), but I can leave at 7:15 pm, so I'll still get home that same night instead of having to stay until the next morning.

Thanks, UA! ^^

I've been Silver for the past five years, but this year reached that milestone in May and I am now well on the way to Gold before the end of October...in this case, this mattered not at all.

But, really, why should it? Maybe I could expect my status to get me some better treatment in some minor ways (such as when the gate agent in MCI threw a family of non-elites in front of me out of the elite check-in line but was quite deferential to me, even taking my boarding info and checking me in herself at the kiosk because the elite check-in line was taking too long), but I really think that decent, respectful customer service, especially when it comes to fixing something that you've done to screw up the service you are meant to provide in the first place, should be accorded to anyone and everyone.

I had called a number that I thought was for people with status, but I also think I got dealt with by regular reservations. I rarely call for any reason since I can generally make my plans much in advance and usually do so.

I'm starting to think these sorts of issues will happen more and more, and I have two more trans-Atlantics booked for the next six weeks and will need to book four domestic flights in July and August.

So, I guess my next question would be: exactly what number SHOULD I call when I have these sorts of problems?

The only change (if any) that needed to be made was the last leg from LHR to VIE. I fly that route quite often and there are numerous flights daily on at least three *A partners that would have and could have worked. As I said earlier, I suspect the real reason for the change was to get me out of MCI on a different flight than the probably oversold one I had originally booked, and I even told them that I didn't care how I got to London (change anything you like, but just get me there)--they insisted I had no right to go to London just because I had booked a flight there. While probably technically and legally correct, it becomes absurd to think that if you book a flight with several specific legs because you have reasons to go to certain cities, you might have to cancel and rearrange your plans for the convenience of the people you are paying money to.

In the end, it was the refusal to even attempt to be of help (because "we don't have to") that bothers me the most, intensified by the increasingly transparent lies I was told by the supervisor to try to make it all seem my fault.

This is exactly why so many of us PMUA flyers are heartbroken over what is going on. In the past I was well taken care of by UA and had complete faith and trust that they would do right by me. Now I approach each interaction with a wary attitude, cultivated by too many errors on their part and conversations with clueless/unpleasant agents.

First, please accept my congratulations on makeing Silver and good luck reaching Gold. Yes, I do believe you spoke with reservations in India. They won't do anything for you, matter of fact it is the same with me. Years ago, I was flying to AMS via FRA due to upgrade availablity. Well the FRA plane was super delayed due to mechanical problems and I was put on the non-stop AMS flight. Unfortunatley my bags never made the flight and were left in Chicago. As I was there for only 2 days and needed things in my bags, so the trip was a bust. By the time I would have gotten my bags, I would be leaving the next day.

Well, I couldn't find my card with the International toll free number for 1K's so I called the local Dutch number for United and wound up with reservations in India. After the run around and being transferred to a "supervisor", I was told I would have to pay for any changes to change my iternary to return on the non-stop the next day and there was nothing they could do. I was like you, madder than heck! Good thing I was near a bar, because I needed a drink!

I called on my own expense to the 1k line in the US. Once I had a US agent, every problem was addressed. Not only did the agent put me on the next non stop to ORD, but she also moved me from C to F on the flight! She also had my bags held in ORD so I could pick them up when I landed. I just had to go over to Terminal 1- no biggie. She authorized a purchase of a change of clothes and United did send me a check for my purchase.

So I don't know if you have access to the US reservation agents, but if you do, I would try to call again. Ask them what call center they are in and if you get US agents, politely inform them of your problem and what if they can fix your problem. You never know what may happen.

I wish you the best of luck and as always, Safe Travels! :cool:

An excellent point. Done!

Can someone verify that the number is 800 225 8900? That's the number I used (just checked my records) and I don't think (by the unaccented American English) it was someone in India, but I didn't think to ask about that. I was actually in the USA at the time of making the call.

should be just a regular reservations line. Years ago it was for 1Ps but when PMUA when to routing by MP# the specialness of the phone number disappeared.

unfortunately there's no more elite desk. Just another enhancement since March 3 that doesn't make a lot of sense to most of us.

A good rule is the one given earlier, if you get a bad agent or one that seems unwilling or unable to assist, politely end the call and call again. Repeat as necessary. Don't stay on any longer than necessary to reach that point.

Some of the replies from my fellow FTers in this thread made me cringe. I hope you treat them the same way you should handle the bad phone agent. (ignore them and move on to the next reply.)

-David

IME a lot of PMUA agents want to have our backs but are crippled by the systems and rules they're dealing with now. I have had several very good agents today proactively helping me through irrops... but SHARES has meant each had to spend 15+ minutes on things PMUA did in 30 seconds before. It took two agents 20 minutes to issue me a BP for rerouted flights (after 45 on the phone); another took 15 minutes just to change seats.

+1

The system and business processes are just so slow to get anything done.

Even if I get things handled the way I want them, the time it takes is so unreasonable, and so much more than with PMUA. I don't even call UA unless I have an hour to kill on an issue (it usually takes less, but there's no such thing as a 5-minute call to resolve anything anymore).

So even with the most helpful, courteous, and compliant staff in the world, sadly, the customer service is still sub-par.

+1,000,000 It's really best in these cases to politely thank the agent for their time and hang up and call again. It sounds like you got domestic agents who weren't trained to do international flights.

+2

And of course, having such a lousy system drives other CSRs to display lousy attitudes, avoid being helpful, etc. I'm not excusing such attitudes and lack of helpfulness - it was not unheard of at pmUA - but it's more likely to happen when they don't know the complicated fix to a formerly simple problem, are daunted by the time it will take to deal with it, are reaching the end of their shift, etc.

+1

Of course, having defended the agents who helped me out today, I then came across one who could give the baggage agents at IAD a run for their money in terms of bad service. :mad:

At RIC, it seemed like they had only loaded about 1/4 of the plane's bags--funny seeing as how the flight was an hour delayed out of ORD; I guess they rushed it out of ORD. My bag only needed to go 4 gates over, but it didn't make it.

I get in line at the claim office and also get on the phone to the baggage service folks. Agent loudly tells me to "get out of the window" (??) and "step out of line if I am going to be on the phone." HUH?! I'm trying to avoid a possible lengthy wait and at least get the process rolling. She then lectures that it doesn't matter if we call, but that only the local office (her) can enter the claim.

Needless to say, I got my info to the phone agent and stormed out of the airport rather than wait around another hour with such a surly employee. :td:

I am happy to report a positive experience with a UA agent today - someone named "Cathy".

I didn't get her full name, but here's what happened.

1. I had a cancelled ticket with some value above the $150 change fee that I wanted to use. I tried to change it on the web site which wouldn't let me so what I needed to do, so I had to call.

2. I called the "1K line". To my surprise, "Cathy" answered "1K desk, how may I help you?"

3. I already had my new itinerary picked out, with the exact class, time, routing, etc. all figured out, so no complicated decision process on my part to hold up the call.

4. It was quite clear from the call that "Cathy" was professional, experienced, and knew what the heck she was talking about. The only thing that was holding up the reservation process was her computer. She occasionally let it slip that she was having a difficult time wrangling with the computer.

5. After some baiting about SHARES from me, she did tell me that if I ever visited Chicago, she would find a few of the PMUA agents crying over their computers.

6. After I got my tickets sorted out, I asked her to handle another lingering issue with some tickets that I had purchased for my brother-in-law's family vacation. "Cathy" couldn't fix that mess, but she researched the issue, then came back and explained clearly what the issues were, and why the 4 previous agents I had spoken to on the phone previously on the topic couldn't fix the issue. (3 of those 4 were completely clueless and useless)

7. After I hung up the phone, I was quite happy that at least I got someone that cared, and United's customer service wasn't completely dead yet. However, I was also a bit sad that I couldn't get someone like Cathy on the customer service line every time.