United Airlines writes the most sentimental apology letters
 

Check out this reddit post. Lots of comments.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comment...t_sentimental/

http://i.imgur.com/SgeZ6fB.jpg

Wow, how did they get a mailed letter?

I've gotten the fill-in-the-blanks thing by email.

I can see the BuzzFeed list now..."10 Ways You Know an Airline Doesn't Give a **** About You"

You know it's not complex IT work to have a net to catch things where the fill-in prompts are still in the letter before a letter gets sent/printed. Heck, Gmail will even tell you if it thinks that you wanted to attach something and forgot.

They probably selected "contact me via email only" in their profile.

Many of the posters there seem like some of the commenters here.

Then I read this one.

Yeah, the extra 5 hours I had to spend in Newark airport last weekend due to not one, but two broken planes was rewarded with a "sorry, here's $100 off your next ticket." Aka, you must spend more money on us if you want us to pretend we're sorry.


(BTW I had 2 plane delays today and 1 was because of a broken plane. Got in 3 hours late).

Ya, Reddit commentators are a whole level or two above FTers. FT = Platinum, Reddit = GS.

Yep, just saw this one.

i interviewed for an internship at United Airlines, and i'd like to reiterate how much of total ....ups they are.
[1] they flew me out there after a phone interview. after a series of questions, it was obvious that i was in no way qualified for the job. no big deal, free flight to chicago for me.
[2] my hotel reservation my first night there had been made for the wrong night. luckily there was ample room at the four seasons where they put me up.
[3] my return flight had been booked on the wrong date. fortunately, i still had a room at the four seasons. score!
[4] having a flight home on the wrong day, of course my meals were comped as part of the interview agreement. so, i got two free days and nights in chicago on UA's dime. not too bad!
[5] they kicked off the dude who was sitting next to me on the flight home because he was talking too loud while the flight steward was giving the speel about how to fasten seatbelts. it turns out that he was really old and couldn't hear. oh well, my carry on went into his seat and i got full leg room.
based on my experience, UA has a culture of ineptitude. they gave me a great two days though. And their office in the Willis Tower is sweet too, so they have that going for them, which is nice.

^

One Of these letters was posted by another FTer about 18mo ago. Search [specific item] and you'll find the thread.

Edit to add:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...omer-name.html

Moderator edit: newer thread combined with thread linked above. Ocn Vw 1K.

I'm sure UA is putting prospective interns at the Four Seasons when they cannot afford whole cashews...

Limes - the specific item is a fresh lime just for you....lol

Not entirely suprised but disappointed that they use a generic letter to respond to customer complaints. The person signing the letter probably had no clue what was your particular issue.

what blows my mind (well, not really, this is UA after all) is that they are having the exact same mail merge issue in 2014 as in 2012.

Not surprising - they're still having the same phone hold music/ads and non-IVR recognition that they had in 2012 as well. :td:

I had a similar situation in Dulles. AC was broken on first plane and they realized as we began to board. After 30 minutes, moved to another gate with another plane. That flight was delayed because plane was around 118F inside (no one thought that they should use a ground AC unit on it). After 60-90 minutes, the pilot realized that the co-pilot seat was broken. I switched to a flight the next day at this point. No one at United even seems to try anymore.

I did however get 10k miles awarded to my account, but they have devalued miles so much, they are worthless.

My favorite (so far):

"Save the voucher until time travel is invented. Travel back in time. Use it on the flight that gets delayed. Continue earning vouchers until all flights are free."