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I've been Global Services for 5 years and I'm looking elsewhere. Anyone else?

I've been Global Services for 5 years and I'm looking elsewhere. Anyone else?

Old Oct 20, 2017, 2:19 pm
  #121  
dll
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: LAX
Programs: AA Gold (prev. Ex Plat for 10 years); DL Plat; UA Gold; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 2,337
Originally Posted by greg99
IME, Twitter is far less useful with than 1Kvoice email or even calling reservations. I only tweet a question/request if I'm OK with a canned response. The only benefit is that you'll get a canned response faster.
It is a big difference from both AA and DL. But really the only time I need to use it is IRROPS, and the UA app can do a lot of that work.

AA of course is a very manual carrier when it comes to IRROPS and rebooking. Twitter+ExpertFlyer (to see options) is a survival tool there even as an ExPlt.
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Old Oct 20, 2017, 10:48 pm
  #122  
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: BOS
Programs: UA 1K (2MM); AA LT Gold (1.9 MM); SQ; WN; DL; "Bonvoy Ambassador""
Posts: 398
Originally Posted by feobrien
Have to chime in on the comment regarding UCs. It is all very airport dependent. I fly out of EWR and even before all of the construction finding a seat can be a challenge. There have been many times where I walk in, walk through the Club, then back out.
Exact same situation at the UC in IAH Terminal E (which is now closed for construction) and yes, I frequently take the escalator up, walk through the 2nd and 3rd floors and walk out.
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Old Oct 22, 2017, 8:36 pm
  #123  
 
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 8
GS people are always the slowest to board and put things in the overhead. Literally the worst of the "valued" travelers.
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Old Oct 22, 2017, 8:51 pm
  #124  
Moderator: Midwest, Las Vegas & Dining Buzz
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Posts: 17,965
Originally Posted by Amex Informant
GS people are always the slowest to board and put things in the overhead. Literally the worst of the "valued" travelers.
That's a good one. Any more jokes?
ContinentalFan likes this.
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Old Oct 23, 2017, 6:45 pm
  #125  
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 575
One thing that has frustrated me is some folks at the GS desk are amazing and others are absolutely terrible. The best of the GS agents are light years better than the 1k or premier agents. But the bad ones are pretty bad.

Example: aircraft swap and lost my 77W. This was a personal (ghasp) paid business class seat. Asked for a reroute and denied "We don't guarantee aircraft type, and the requested connection is not within the routing rules". it all gets documented so when the next swap happens and i call, they read back the notes and say "gee, that doesn't seem right, let me fix that for you" - thank you! but why should I have to go through so much stress?

Example: "I'm waitlisted for PN SYD-SFO and want to decide if I should switch to SYD-LAX instead, can you tell me how many people are on the PN list" "No, we don't have that information until 24 hours before the flight" "That's not true, I get this info all the time to decide which flights I should waitlist for" More back and forth ending with "Can you transfer me to another agent" "Hi, did the previous agent explain my question or do I need to start over" "You wanted to know something about the upgrade list" I repeat the question "No problem, there are 0 waitlisted on SYD SFO and 4 waitlisted on SYD LAX. SYD SFO only has X seats for sale but SYD LAX has Y seats for sale" Great! got a good agent, but I hate playing agent roulette.
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Old Oct 30, 2017, 8:11 am
  #126  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 35
@porciuscato -- That's exactly what I'm talking about. I have had that sort of outcome so many times in the last 18 months. It cheapens the whole thing. Why treat the top 1% of your revenue that way? What is there to gain? (Obvious answer being: it's an oligopoly, and largely we have no choice, so we are a captive customer.. haha.. so asked and answered. =])

@dll -- I would make the decision based on routing, tbh. Looks like they are all slipping.

What I'm able to glean from this thread after going back and re-reading it is that the people who are free agents seem to have the best mental health situation. No one to be beholden to. Never feeling betrayed. Keeping it a transaction.. every time. Not pretending you care about them.. (or expecting them to care about you).

I write this as I book my next flight on Singapore Airlines. Here goes nothing. Thanks all!

@flyerbaby19 -- I instructed my assistant to always call a minimum of 3 times. Always.

When she 'senses a dud', just call hang up and call back.

The variance in quality is, quite frankly, horrifying. Of course, I've never run a company with 16k+ employees. Cannot even imagine how hard it would be to begin firing someone in that role. Yuck.

Gotta assume that those people will stay in the role until retirement.

And yeah, it's sad.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Oct 30, 2017 at 11:42 am Reason: merging consecutive posts by same member
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Old Nov 23, 2017, 6:33 am
  #127  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 35
Circling back in case this is helpful...

Just wanting to provide some followup on my choices thus far.

I've decided to take a couple months of booking "whatever makes the most sense for my routing."

Emirates has made up the bulk of my travel in the last 4 weeks, and I have to say that I'm blown away by the hard product. Their customer service can be a bit hit or miss, but it's crazy to think that I've never had to wait on hold (and I have zero status there as of now.)

Their first class pod/enclosed-suite is really quite impressive. That's not to mention that the Henessy Paradis doesn't hurt. =]

I'll continue to loop back with what I decide, but my early leaning is to go free agent.

Thanks everyone for your guidance and feedback!
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Old Nov 23, 2017, 8:42 am
  #128  
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Programs: 6 year GS, now 2MM Jeff-ugee, *wood LTPlt, SkyPeso PLT
Posts: 6,526
Originally Posted by nauce
The variance in quality is, quite frankly, horrifying. Of course, I've never run a company with 16k+ employees. Cannot even imagine how hard it would be to begin firing someone in that role. Yuck.
Gotta assume that those people will stay in the role until retirement.
And yeah, it's sad.
I gotta defend the "senior" employees here. Before 2012 there was a dedicated system of routing to senior agents for GS and 1K. Most of the time you got a HNL or DTW agent, and they were great. As a GS in hundreads of calls over a number of years I never had a HUCA issue. in 2012 they combined the senior sCO agents and went to shares. I found the sCO agents were trained to say no, and I would HUCA trying to get someone in DTW or HNL, but then they were not as proficient with SHARES. Lots of hanging on the phone while they tried to do something. Also losts of "I know this is what fixes the problem, but we have been told expresssly not to do this, and I'll get written up".

That UA does not have great CS for GS (and 1Ks) is simply a management decision to save money. I'm sure in the spreadsheet world set up by the Smith Street Gang having GS and 1K go to regular agents (1) better used resources and (2) reduced the "expenses" that were being incurred by having agents who know how to fix issues fix them.

The problem at UA is not the employees, its the management.

Originally Posted by nauce
Just wanting to provide some followup on my choices thus far.
I've decided to take a couple months of booking "whatever makes the most sense for my routing."

Emirates has made up the bulk of my travel in the last 4 weeks, and I have to say that I'm blown away by the hard product. Their customer service can be a bit hit or miss, but it's crazy to think that I've never had to wait on hold (and I have zero status there as of now.)

Their first class pod/enclosed-suite is really quite impressive. That's not to mention that the Henessy Paradis doesn't hurt. =]

I'll continue to loop back with what I decide, but my early leaning is to go free agent.

Thanks everyone for your guidance and feedback!
And this is the end result of penny pinching management, loss of the pounds....
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Old Nov 23, 2017, 9:35 am
  #129  
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 57,253
Originally Posted by spin88
I gotta defend the "senior" employees here. Before 2012 there was a dedicated system of routing to senior agents for GS and 1K. Most of the time you got a HNL or DTW agent, and they were great. As a GS in hundreads of calls over a number of years I never had a HUCA issue. in 2012 they combined the senior sCO agents and went to shares. I found the sCO agents were trained to say no, and I would HUCA trying to get someone in DTW or HNL, but then they were not as proficient with SHARES. Lots of hanging on the phone while they tried to do something. Also losts of "I know this is what fixes the problem, but we have been told expresssly not to do this, and I'll get written up".

That UA does not have great CS for GS (and 1Ks) is simply a management decision to save money. I'm sure in the spreadsheet world set up by the Smith Street Gang having GS and 1K go to regular agents (1) better used resources and (2) reduced the "expenses" that were being incurred by having agents who know how to fix issues fix them.

The problem at UA is not the employees, its the management.

And this is the end result of penny pinching management, loss of the pounds....
This. Before the merger when I was a 1K, I never had to HUCA. Never. Now, it's a crapshoot. My last TATL is an excellent example. When I booked it a month out, there was no R available on either leg, so I waitlisted. Two weeks out, the outbound flight cleared. Had to call and get the flight re-ticketed. Chatting with the agent about the return flight, I asked what my chances were. She looked and said "doesn't look good, you are 10 on the UG list and there are only 14 seats available at the moment." Called a couple of times before I left to check, and both agents said "oh, I have no visibility on where you stand on the UG list. Three days before departure on my flight home, I realized it was time to change my flight to one that would get me upgraded, and called the premier line with the two alternatives I was sure were good for an UG, since they were R4 and R5. First two agents - "I'm sorry, I can't do that." Third agent took care of it without breaking a sweat.
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Old Nov 23, 2017, 12:39 pm
  #130  
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Carmel Valley(was Hawaii)
Programs: United 1K 2.7 MM
Posts: 1,166
Originally Posted by halls120
. Three days before departure on my flight home, I realized it was time to change my flight to one that would get me upgraded, and called the premier line with the two alternatives I was sure were good for an UG, since they were R4 and R5. First two agents - "I'm sorry, I can't do that." Third agent took care of it without breaking a sweat.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Did the agent switch you without a change fee? I've never tried to do this. Thanks
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Old Nov 23, 2017, 12:50 pm
  #131  
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 57,253
Originally Posted by mmack
Happy Thanksgiving.
Did the agent switch you without a change fee? I've never tried to do this. Thanks
It was 3 days out, so yes, I paid the change fee. It was worth it to go from Y on a 789 LHR-IAD to C on a 764 ZRH-IAD.
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Old Nov 23, 2017, 1:54 pm
  #132  
 
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: LAS
Programs: 3 MMer
Posts: 458
Originally Posted by spin88
I found the sCO agents were trained to say no, and I would HUCA trying to get someone in DTW or HNL,
Last night, trying to get an RPU reinstated. Over an hour and fifteen minutes debating whether I used it for the 4th leg LAX-LAS on an RJ, which I did not have applied to the itin. Lady was cool, but you would have thought that I was stealing all of United's Halloween candy for just asking for what I was entitled to get back. I knew she was in Houston because she told me so, and I agree with the above statement that they are trained to say, "NO" to everyone, from the get-go! Just before I ended the call because my family wanted to go out for dinner, I told her that these things were worthless anyway and after flying over 210,000 miles this year alone and only 40K away from a 3MM flyer, I know how to apply an RPU, and not apply an RPU. I explained that this entire conversation was {redacted} because I was getting hassled over a trivial matter that could be taken care of instantly if they trusted their loyal customers. I finally hung up after 40 mins on hold waiting for a super that was probably never to to pick up and talk to me anyway. Ten mins later, the RPU appeared, but I'm probably in the "BIG BOOK" in the sky reserved for trouble makers from the Old UA class.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Nov 23, 2017 at 2:25 pm Reason: Using symbols, spaces or other methods to mask vulgarities is not allowed.
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Old Nov 23, 2017, 7:23 pm
  #133  
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Programs: UA GS>1K>Nothing; DL PM 2MM; AS 75K>Nothing>MVP
Posts: 9,337
Originally Posted by spin88
I gotta defend the "senior" employees here. Before 2012 there was a dedicated system of routing to senior agents for GS and 1K. Most of the time you got a HNL or DTW agent, and they were great. As a GS in hundreads of calls over a number of years I never had a HUCA issue. in 2012 they combined the senior sCO agents and went to shares. I found the sCO agents were trained to say no, and I would HUCA trying to get someone in DTW or HNL, but then they were not as proficient with SHARES. Lots of hanging on the phone while they tried to do something. Also losts of "I know this is what fixes the problem, but we have been told expresssly not to do this, and I'll get written up".

That UA does not have great CS for GS (and 1Ks) is simply a management decision to save money. I'm sure in the spreadsheet world set up by the Smith Street Gang having GS and 1K go to regular agents (1) better used resources and (2) reduced the "expenses" that were being incurred by having agents who know how to fix issues fix them.

The problem at UA is not the employees, its the management.
+10,000 and it wasn't just CS. 10 years ago UA had a great premium (GF) international product and the service was typically extremely good. IMHO the biggest problem is that management has not figured out that maximizing the profitability on any given flight has consequences for longer term loyalty and revenue from their best premium customers. The quant jocks in IM have convinced management that anything that can't be measured is not important.
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Old Nov 25, 2017, 7:07 am
  #134  
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: NYC, LON
Programs: *
Posts: 2,754
Originally Posted by spin88
I gotta defend the "senior" employees here. Before 2012 there was a dedicated system of routing to senior agents for GS and 1K. Most of the time you got a HNL or DTW agent, and they were great. As a GS in hundreads of calls over a number of years I never had a HUCA issue. in 2012 they combined the senior sCO agents and went to shares. I found the sCO agents were trained to say no, and I would HUCA trying to get someone in DTW or HNL, but then they were not as proficient with SHARES. Lots of hanging on the phone while they tried to do something. Also losts of "I know this is what fixes the problem, but we have been told expresssly not to do this, and I'll get written up".

That UA does not have great CS for GS (and 1Ks) is simply a management decision to save money. I'm sure in the spreadsheet world set up by the Smith Street Gang having GS and 1K go to regular agents (1) better used resources and (2) reduced the "expenses" that were being incurred by having agents who know how to fix issues fix them.

The problem at UA is not the employees, its the management.



And this is the end result of penny pinching management, loss of the pounds....
Not sure I follow the logic - are you saying it is okay to dump poorly performing employees on general members and lower level elites? An airline should aim to have good customer service for all passengers, and expedited or concierge-type service for the most valued customers. I don't think the examples of poor service we have seen here are acceptable for anyone flying the airline. Many of us work in corporations that do not favor or discriminate amongst clients based on how much they spend - the aim is to treat everyone well and to minimize such gross variations in service. It should really not matter how much you spend to get the correct response to a question or problem. It is wrong that anyone needs to call 3 times to get something done - doesn't matter if one is GS or GM. I suppose it is still down to the management for poor training or not firing poor performers, but I don't think the solution to this problem is allocating the best agents to 1K and GS.
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Old Nov 25, 2017, 7:53 am
  #135  
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Colorado
Programs: Lifetime UA 1K, Lifetime Hilton Diamond, Lifetime Marriott Bonvoy Titanium
Posts: 1,261
Back to the original thread - while I'm not looking to another airline I really don't think the benefits of GS are that great anymore. Upgrades have basically disappeared (at least for me on the routes I fly) and if there are any seats left within 24 hours, GS means absolutely nothing and anyone can snag them with an RPU or miles.

With a few exceptions (e.g. converting T, boarding priority), the benefits of GS and 1K are the same.

It is funny that GS started going down the tubes about the time Scott Kirby joined United. Maybe a coincidence, but AA CK started getting better after he left and now appears to be a much better level than United GS. Everyone seems reluctant to criticize Oscar, but he is going to be the reason we all leave or stop spending to get to GS. Even Smisek understood the value of the GS fliers.

Given how few GS fliers there are, and the amount they spend (it is way harder to get to GS than CK), I think Scott and Oscar have completely lost their minds.
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