unitedbusiness

that’s certainly the United difference !!

AugustW

Turning a bad experience into a good one.
In order to make 1K I need 15 more segments in December. So this past weekend I flew EWR-IAD-MSY-IAH-LAS-IAH-SAT-IAH-FLL-IAD-EWR. I left Saturday morning at 8:10am and returned 11:31pm Sunday. Unbelievably 8 of 10 legs got upgraded. However, on the SAT-IAH leg I was sitting in 10C and the gate agent offered my upgrade to the gentleman in 10D who was traveling with his family and gave it to his elderly mother. When I realized what had happened I chose to let her stay in first. The flight attendant, Jeff, gave me a $125 credit for being denied the upgrade. I didn't ask for compensation and certainly didn't expect it but it really made my long journey feel a lot better. Thank you Jeff!

AW

DELee

Why was your MR a bad experience? What made it bad?

David

Kmxu

He expected to be upgraded 100% of the flights on this run. 😄

AugustW

The bad was having a gate agent give away the upgrade intended for me. For the record, I didn't expect to get upgraded as much as I did.

AW

BusinessCasualSport

I'm not sure on the exact specifics of the rules, but it does sound like that upgrade should've gone to you if the premier member didn't accept it. Although I don't think you should be too upset - some people never get a chance to fly first class in their lifetime. I'd take $125 over first class on a 1 hour flight any day!

IADdelayed

Absolutely terrific Houston-based crew on Thursday night's packed UAX (Mesa) DTW-IAD. Captain made his welcome announcement from the aisle and was upbeat and funny, like he was genuinely having a good time. From my seat at the very back, I could see that just about all the pax were actually looking at him, paying attention, and chuckling.

The FA working Y was warm and friendly with a good sense of humor, and also seemed to genuinely enjoy her job.

There was a young man about 16-17 in the row in front of me; he was flying with mom and two siblings. FA overheard mom checking on him (mom was sitting across the aisle). FA went over to them, asked if he was afraid of flying, and found out it was his first time on a plane since he was a toddler and he was a little nervous. FA talked to him a bit to calm his nerves until it was time for takeoff.

After we got in the air, she must've spoken with the Captain because she told mom to hang out for a bit after landing - Captain and crew were going to take photos with the young man so he could remember this trip. Absolute class act, the whole crew.

Does anyone know whether UA forwards kudos from post-flight surveys to the regional crews? I'd hate for them not to get the kudos they deserve.

lincolnjkc

That's an awesome experience (I love when the captain does the welcome PA from the cabin, but doing everything nervous flyer touch was above and beyond.

If you want to make sure kudos are not overlooked, send an email in in addition to the survey. I have no reason to believe that UA doesn't forward information to UAX carriers but I haven't had the first hand experience/evidence of it flowing down the way I've seen it with direct UA employees. I'd suggest sending it to both UA and Mesa to make sure ... but Mesa seems to not want to be easily contacted (if this were GoJet or CommutAir or Republic I could point you multiple official and unofficial directions...)

ExplorerWannabe

I'm glad you want to extend kudos. I think the FAs and CAs and GAs get far more complaints than kudos just because people are better at remembering when they want to complain.

In my experience, United CS has been delighted when I've emailed in kudos and promised to forward it to the appropriate individuals and their supervisors even when the individual was a sub like Mesa but I don't know first- or even second-hand whether said people ever actually got it. I hope they do.

lincolnjkc

For mainline, they absolutely, without a doubt get forwarded -- I've seen copies of my correspondence framed and given to agents, I've had agents (or their management) on subsequent encounters mention their thanks for things I've sent in and a few stations semi-routinely tweet photos of agents being presented with certificates based on customer compliments. Until the first time I saw it with my own eyes I always wondered if praise was going into a vacuum/a waste of time. I wonder no more

findark

Wow - that's great to know! I've definitely sent commendations like that but have never been a regular at a small enough station that I would be in a position to notice that. For me, it was usually FAs who went above and beyond.

IADdelayed

This is what I ended up doing. Also was able to find Mesa's passenger feedback form on their website, and filled that out as well. It's buried under About Us --> Passenger Info --> Passenger feedback (all the way at the bottom of the page).

llbad

Wife and I were returning from a spring break vacation out of country. We arrived back in the U.S. to find our domestic leg home was canceled due to technical issues. Not only that, but it would take an overnight + 14 hours of waiting and flying to get back. This is not what you look forward to after returning from a tropical vacation, but it's always a risk of flying.

After waiting in line for ~1hr to talk to the United desk. The kind lady there not only got us a hotel for the night, but also comped our entire return flight ($1500+) as flight credits, making the vacation essentially free (outbound flight was paid with miles).

As a silver member I didn't really expect this level of service, and frankly didn't even ask for the comp. Props to United for going above and beyond to make this one right though!

claire16

I stumbled upon this thread while looking for some other information, and it reminded me of an experience I had on United about 6 months ago. I was flying ORD-LGA, relatively cheap paid F, on a Friday night. This was an uneventful flight, and the main FA up front was very attentive on drink service. Towards the end of the flight he came over to my seat and asked if I was going to NYC for my birthday (it was the next day), and gave me a bottle of sparkling wine that was wrapped up in cellophane and tied closed. Of course it wasn't fancy champagne if they're serving it on this route, but I was absolutely shocked, and he made my night. This is a boring domestic short haul flight that I do monthly, as a lowly gold.

I've never heard of anything like this happening, and my small sample of 1k friends said the same. I thought about writing in a compliment for him, but decided not to because I thought he might actually get in trouble for going above and beyond... What does this group think? Complete fluke? Infrequent but normal? Should I send in a delayed compliment?

SFO 1K

This used to be more common before the merger (and I do not blame the merger). I used to get bottles of wine from time to time as recognition of my status. There was one time quite a while ago when two of us flew in F on DEN-KOA, a 767 in the two center seats in Row 1 - old recliners - and by the time we left the plane, we'd been given two sick bags full of Myers Rum. The purser knew we would be there for a week and she wanted to make sure we'd be able to have a Mai Tai a day for each of us. Very special and fun. Now the "Link" iPhones the crew has give them the ability to do surprise and delight events for things like birthdays and MileagePlus anniversaries. It's great that your FA took the time to look for a way to recognize passengers on the flight and gave you a treat.