jhayes_1780

Part of the frequent flyer "hall of shame"

http://www.elliott.org/blog/airline-...ve-complaints/


I thought his name was as recognizable as Gerrard Finnernan

N1120A

What a jerk. That said, most of us are not Mr. Yen.

jhayes_1780

Wouldn't suggest any of us are.

But it does make you wonder how many (not implicating FT'ers) exploited the system.

If it took $5K+almost 70K miles to figure out Mr Yen, how many were under the radar at 10% of those numbers?

N1120A

10% of those numbers would mean $500 and 7k mi in a 6 month period. Not out of the norm for someone flying monthly/semi-monthly/weekly, especially with certain known issues like: audio, catering (I've gotten one special meal in the last 2 years on domestic flights), video, poor condition of aircraft (especially with certain RJ operators), etc.

dsquared37

I've written to 1K desk 3 times this year. The only one that was never responded to was the one indicating I didn't want compensation. Of the other 2 one was a complaint and one a thank you for a great flight/cabin staff.

WIRunner

I'm gonna go out on a limb here. But customers fire companies all the time. (Who's changed wireless carriers? Or change from satellite to cable). Companies want their customers to be happy. Or at least satisfied. So for a customer to be fired by a company, no big deal. It is it a bad PR move. Yes.

Limiting compensation to 6 times over 6 months, again not a big deal for me anyway. I've sent 3 e-mails to UA over the past year and a half. And maybe one to Continental over the prior 2 years.

UA fliers have come to expect that they'll be comp'd for virtually anything that goes wrong. I can't see that as being a bad thing. There is obviously a revenue leak, and i'm going to guess that one of those areas is in compensation.

kb1992

Yeah, CO We Don't Care Unit knows more.

But I do agree with everything you said.

It's the tiny small percentage 0.1% abusers becoming the excuse of CO culture to screw the rest of us.

Few years ago, I was on $10,000 J ticket BOS-EWR-NRT. My luggage was delayed and damaged. All I got from CO was $75 voucher.

I never flown CO again since then. Sadly, CO and UA are merged.

Folks: Wake up. Next: $50 e-cert for a broken C seat on 15 hour flight.

squeakr

EX. Our LAX-LHR flight went mechanical a few months ago, got a hotel and meals over night plus a $500 voucher . Seemed fair more or less. If THAT kind of comp stopped I'd be mighty miffed.

mpw81

I'm on board with most posts here. I NEVER actually reauest compensation except for one instance on a BTV-ORD flight where the captain told us it was not a WX issue and UA tried to make it one and we missed our ORD-DEN last flight of the night and had to shack up at the marriott (technically I didn't ask for compensation, I requested reimbursement for the marriott because there were 200 people in line at ORD at 11pm and they closed the CSR line).

I write 1K voice maybe a dozen times a year, half are for great service and the other half are for concerns, all of which are always constructive and no matter how I have been wronged I almost always have a positive story to add to the email from a seperate portion of my UA experience from the trip. I get compensation some times, I usually feel it's adequate. I recieve skykits a couple of times a year as well and they are usually unwarranted. I got one last month for a non-working 767 ghetto bird F class screen not working on IAH-LIM. I got compensated $50 to NOT watch the new Tron which I had been avoiding like the plague to begin with.

I've been wronged by many an instance before, so I chalked it up to UA Karma. I also know of abusers and always caution other flyers I know to only write if it's worth it if you wouldn't get anything out of it. Sometimes they listen, sometimes not.

Ironically I am writing this email as the call timer on my cell phone passes 46 minutes as I wait for the CO web service call center to answer the phone because I can't check in for my LIM-EWR tomorrow... maybe I need a $350 ecert for that, right?

zombietooth

I have only ever gotten a dozen or so of the vouchers/skykits in my 20+ years with UA, and they were always for serious issues e.g. where connections were jeopardized or flights were missed because of incompetence, or for involuntary downgrades, or lost baggage, etc. On my last flight to Tokyo, two weeks ago on CO metal, my IFE didn't function at all for the entire flight and they ran out of meals for the main service, so I got no meal, but they brought me a couple of the mid-flight hamburgers (which suck). I was in Y, where I expect to suffer, so I didn't even bother to complain or tell the FAs about it so they could write a repair ticket. I tried to troubleshoot the problem in the IFE because I was once an electronic technician and, after experimenting for a while, I determined that the problem was most likely a loose/damaged wire or jack in the audio system because I could get one audio track sometimes, combined with a damaged controller, where some of the buttons did not function. This sort of damage is most consistent with abuse and, after reading above about the purposeful damage done in the name of voucher-mongering, I now believe that the damage to the IFE in that seat was purposeful.

I have had discussions with FT'ers on other threads where a discussion of the cpm yield that the average 1K generates for UA yielded a bunch of responses from Mileage Runners that indicated to me that they were nearly all trying to game the voucher system and using it to lower their cpm cost, in an effort to make 1K/1P with the smallest spend. So, I would have to disagree with others here who think that this activity is rare. I think that voucher-mongering is as prevalent as mileage running, if not more prevalent, because it would be more useful to the kettles to get a discount on air travel rather than trying to maximize their miles.

fastair

So some wanted the airline to read and have a rep on this board, and CO has had a more active role. One of the most popular threads is people bragging how much they got for trivial things on UA. I could see this coming a mile away. I think another great suggestion would be to post fares in the MR forum and by/sell/barter coupons and certs and miles in the CC forum, while others ask for airline participation on FT and hope that the airline includes more FT stuff in their world. One could even post a long thread on how to use ITA's to circumvent the fuel surcharge rules.

It's like having a kegger in the police station's parking lot and then peeling out before driving home. It would be foolish to expect someone not to act on such obvious actions.

mherdeg

For someone with my travel patterns, UA's recent compensation changes are essentially a fare hike and I'll treat them accordingly.

I travel enough to experience maybe one serious "actually United's problem" problem every two months (mechanical or crew-related delay or the very rare onboard service problem). In the past year I ended up with 3 e-certificates. I treat these as coupons which reduce the cost of travel by, on average over the years, about 5-10%.

For someone with my travel patterns, UA's compensation changes amount to a <10% fare hike -- which, to be honest, feels a little stingy and a little mean.

Today I pay a slight premium to fly UA versus AS or VX because (1) UA is great at rebooking during irrops and has a great route network, (2) even if something does go uncontrollably wrong, I'll know that United cares -- pre-merger UA owned up to its mistakes and said "sorry" in a meaningful way, and (3) my up-front price premium may in the long run carry a 5-10% discount.

The merger apparently gets me (1) SHARES, (2) lower standards for accountability in customer service, and (3) higher fares.

Those are all totally reasonable business decisions. Of course I also make a business decision: I pick a carrier every year. For the past several years, UA's awesome customer relations attitude has helped increase their expected value in my mind and made them the obvious best carrier for my travel patterns. These customer-unfriendly tactics will of course change the balance.

BaltimoreZ71

I am curious if this change is related to the new IDB amounts that were recently imposed by the government ($650/$1300). Maybe they are trying to offset future losses there by cutting back on other compensation?

caljr

That is an eye opener.

In general people shouldnt be having to grovel for comp in the first place. If meals should be provided, provide them. If IFE should work, it should work.

They need to fix the root causes of why people come to the comp window, not just cap comp.

anc-ord772

I receive between 2-4 vouchers a year as compensation for issues. I don't have a problem with limiting the amount, however I do agree with JetAway. It would be best for UACO to give consistently fair and good compensation when things really go wrong.

In addition, there were a lot of complaints that UA did not listen and would address problems with vouchers with little meaningful follow up. I have begun to receive responses from 1kvoice that make me think someone is actually reading my emails again, a plus in my playbook.

I also agree 100% with caljr, UACO must address the root causes of the complaints, not just the compensation structure.