kdobbins

i wish to email some usairway managers concerning 2 tickets that i purchased for a LHR flight in 02/2015. i have called and placed a complaint on their website, but would like to reach out to some people to see if i can get some assistance. thanks for any help that i can get..

sts603

What is the issue?

kdobbins

I have planned a trip to see London and to see Manchester United play Newcastle United in early March, 2015. I have been checking flights for months and started calling US Airways on June 26, at 3:35pm and spoke to an agent for 13 min. The agent was very pleasant and helped me relax over the thought of the ticket and my first overseas flight. I have US Airways miles that I have been accumulating over the past year with frequent trips to see my ill mother in Ohio that eventually pasted in April, 2014. I liked the idea of using miles and some money to upgrade a flight that normally is well out of my travel price range. I discussed the idea of the direct flight that leaves Phoenix at 8pm on a Friday night, arriving LHR at 12:45pm Saturday, and returning the following Saturday, leaving LHR at 2:05pm and returning to PHX at 5:45pm. I took a few days and called back to US Airways on June 30, 3:22pm and spoke to another agent for 21 minutes. Different agent, but great skills at putting me at ease on how easy this flight transaction will be and re-iterating that after I buy an economy ticket, I will be able to upgrade, (when available), each of 2 tickets with $600 and 60k miles per. I had put the transaction into my US Airways on-line account for weeks and had cancelled before paying and finally decided to take the plunge July 8, 2014. I went on-line to save a transaction fee but had problems paying for the flight and proceeded to call before making multiple charges on my US Airways MasterCard. An agent was glad to help finish the transaction and I finally had my 2 tickets to LHR, leaving February 27 and returning March 7, 2015. I then went on-line again and spent $1128.75 to buy some miles, just making sure that I had at least 120k for the upgrades when needed. I was also told by the agent to start calling around August to check on upgrades, but careful not to get my hopes up, the upgrades had to be available first, before I could use money and miles to upgrade. I almost made it to August and called July 23 and spoke to an agent and supervisor for 31 minutes. It was not a pleasant call in my eyes. I was informed that the flight that I had discussed with 2 prior calls to US Airways was not available for an upgrade. The supervisor explained to me your company policy and it was hard to take at first. She offered me a refund that I thought I had agreed to but was able to get me to take my economy seats, hope to upgrade the day of my travel and just eat $1000+ miles that I could use for something else. I grew angrier every minute afterwards and emailed British Airways for help. I understand their inability to help me, I have never flown British Airways, but I do fly US Airways. I do not want to fly economy to London as my first overseas vacation. I also had planned on buying my twin boys tickets to join us since their birthdays are in February.
I would like a manager to help me with my trip of a lifetime. I don’t care if I have to change carriers, fly from PHX to Charlotte and then to LHR or however I can use miles and money to upgrade my ticket. Or acquire a credit from BA that I can use on my flight. I know that the right person can make things happen. I will buy my 23 year old twins tickets with us, (US Airways MasterCard) to help with your airlines finances. I know that my ticket purchase, made incorrectly by me, was wrong for me, but if at any time, a US Airways agent would have notified me that by picking the non-stop flight operated by BA was not going to be upgraded by money and miles, I would have booked another flight operated by US Airways.

swag

So to sum up (that was a hard paragraph to read)

• You are buying a roundtrip coach ticket and want to have the chance to upgrade with miles plus copay.
• Due to some miscommunication about upgrade rules, you bought the BA-operated nonstops, which are not upgradable.
• You wish to change those flights to one of the available 1 stop connections on US metal (same dates) in order to have a chance to upgrade.
• I assume you don't want to pay the change fees.

Though it is bending the rules to waive the change fee, that request doesn't seem unreasonable to me, given the miscommunication. I would try calling US back and/or reaching out to US via Twitter. Only if that fails would I try to go through the exec offices.

sdix

Hopefully you can be clearer and more concise on the phone than in your post.

ibrandsguest

I see the weak points in your position as:

1. You were offered a refund but didn't take it.
2. Surely the phone agent read your itinerary to you, or it was emailed to you, and it stated, "Operated by British Airways".

With that, I would just keep trying US and would hope for a refund or a waiver of a change fee.

I would just explain, concisely, that you bought tickets to London, thinking that the flights were US, and you want to be able to upgrade, but were given tickets on BA, and so you'd like the change fee waived.

Often1

OP - You've already won. US offered you a full refund. Take it. Then go book the connection on US and upgrade it if space becomes available.

Nobody is going to pay attention to as long a description as you have given and it's close to impossible to decipher.

Three short sentences and that's it.

Or, call back. Take them up on the offer and be done with it.

kdobbins

Sorry for the book report, that was for a manger. What is the change fee that is referred to in the posts? I don't have a problem spending some more to fix this, don't want to, but will. I did notice that I did not see a return flight on March 7 that was operated by USAirways. Would I just buy an economy return on BA and use money to upgrade, or do you think the flights operated by American might be able to use my USAirways miles after the first of the year? Thanks for your help..

Dave Noble

If you want a manager to read it and do anything, it still wants to be concise and comprehensible

It sounds like you have been offered a refund, just take the refund and book on other flights which will allow you to use miles to upgrade

You wish to use miles to upgrade - there has to be availability in the appropriate booking class. If there isn't , then you will travel in economy

If you want to use US miles to upgrade , then the BA flight back will be of no use . If there is no suitable flight back, then your economy ticket will almost certainly have you in economy.