Used my last US DM Miles on Oz Trip - Coming Home
Jan 12, 2008, 3:59 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Arizona USA
Programs: NetJets Marquis, Southwest Moo, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 1,652
Used my last US DM Miles on Oz Trip - Coming Home
Over the past two years I've posted ad nauseum about our travails in trying to book three biz class DM tickets to Oz and back. We finally did it, but knew that we would have problems due to US' rotten Mexican International reservations group. For some reason they broke me away from my wife and son and we were never able to merge the two confirmations/itineraries back together. Hence me standing at the bottom of a hill with a very large outhouse at the peak.
We're headed back tomorrow morning: SYD/ICN/LA/PHX and surprise, the only problem is with US again. On the outbound my wife and son were properly UG to F (Int'l Biz class, wife a fake Gold) but the honest/real Gold (me) got stuck back in the heifer hauler section next to a couple of size. I received a very nasty case of mouth from a US cust svc agent up in the outbound PHX terminal even though I was practicing my best "be sooooo nice they have to help you". Got her name though she tried to hide it once she realized what I was doing.
On LAX/PHX I see we got moved out another hour (we're going to be sitting in LAX for 6 hrs!) so I called US from SYD to see if we could be moved to an earlier flight. No. Then I asked about my son and wife again being in F while I was in Coach and had to play some SHARES insider games to get me into F. It appears that US' mgmt or IT people have QIX doing some really stupid things that are overriding SHARES. I was in SHARES when the Res Agent did their thing and I'm seeing really weird stuff in there that never happened when it was HP and no US.
Will be home Sunday night and that'll be the last US flight ever for me. I'm going to donate the last 80k+ miles to a charity and wipe my hands clean of them.
Have to say that flying Virgin Blue and even JetStar in Oz is light years ahead of US. I'll take economy low fares in Oz over F in US any day. Our MEL/SYD JetStar flight had the same Purser as our SYD/CNS flight a few weeks ago. I mentioned that he got a nice haircut recently and he immediately replied that I apparently had taken to the SCUBA/snorkeling in Cairns since I had dropped 10 kg. (He's not far off, though I think he was joking!) Funny that he remembered us after only a 45 second discussion on the flight up to Cairns. (Our 6'6" 14 yr old does stand out....) All nice folks and obviously enjoying their careers. I've run into many very nice people at HP over the years, but it's becoming very apparent to me that the merger and the lack of good management is taking its toll on the employees. The difference between Virgin Blue/JetStar and US is extremely striking.
Who will I fly? Probably stick with AA for most everything I can, but will move to WN for some of the western flight segs that AA needs to do contortions around. And I will be spending mucho time in Oz the coming year, possibly near full time. Kev was a busy boy while on vacation, plenty of opportunity down here. And if you haven't caught my message, even flying to business meetings is not bad at all!
Good luck with everyone that is stuck in a US only origin. I sincerely hope that you get alternatives soon. I'll think about you while grinning on very comfortable flights in Oz. ^
We're headed back tomorrow morning: SYD/ICN/LA/PHX and surprise, the only problem is with US again. On the outbound my wife and son were properly UG to F (Int'l Biz class, wife a fake Gold) but the honest/real Gold (me) got stuck back in the heifer hauler section next to a couple of size. I received a very nasty case of mouth from a US cust svc agent up in the outbound PHX terminal even though I was practicing my best "be sooooo nice they have to help you". Got her name though she tried to hide it once she realized what I was doing.
On LAX/PHX I see we got moved out another hour (we're going to be sitting in LAX for 6 hrs!) so I called US from SYD to see if we could be moved to an earlier flight. No. Then I asked about my son and wife again being in F while I was in Coach and had to play some SHARES insider games to get me into F. It appears that US' mgmt or IT people have QIX doing some really stupid things that are overriding SHARES. I was in SHARES when the Res Agent did their thing and I'm seeing really weird stuff in there that never happened when it was HP and no US.
Will be home Sunday night and that'll be the last US flight ever for me. I'm going to donate the last 80k+ miles to a charity and wipe my hands clean of them.
Have to say that flying Virgin Blue and even JetStar in Oz is light years ahead of US. I'll take economy low fares in Oz over F in US any day. Our MEL/SYD JetStar flight had the same Purser as our SYD/CNS flight a few weeks ago. I mentioned that he got a nice haircut recently and he immediately replied that I apparently had taken to the SCUBA/snorkeling in Cairns since I had dropped 10 kg. (He's not far off, though I think he was joking!) Funny that he remembered us after only a 45 second discussion on the flight up to Cairns. (Our 6'6" 14 yr old does stand out....) All nice folks and obviously enjoying their careers. I've run into many very nice people at HP over the years, but it's becoming very apparent to me that the merger and the lack of good management is taking its toll on the employees. The difference between Virgin Blue/JetStar and US is extremely striking.
Who will I fly? Probably stick with AA for most everything I can, but will move to WN for some of the western flight segs that AA needs to do contortions around. And I will be spending mucho time in Oz the coming year, possibly near full time. Kev was a busy boy while on vacation, plenty of opportunity down here. And if you haven't caught my message, even flying to business meetings is not bad at all!
Good luck with everyone that is stuck in a US only origin. I sincerely hope that you get alternatives soon. I'll think about you while grinning on very comfortable flights in Oz. ^
Jan 12, 2008, 8:36 am
#2
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Programs: DL Silver, UA Silver, Marriott Lifetime Silver, IHG Plat, Hilton Silver
Posts: 5,695
See, those in AZ can pry themselves away! 
Glad you had a great trip (except for the US part)!
Glad you had a great trip (except for the US part)!
Jan 12, 2008, 11:15 pm
#3
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SFO
Programs: United 1kMM; AA EX Plat, Hilton Diamond and SPG Plat
Posts: 2,014
Good Luck with AA and WN. Curious about your 80 k miles, why not use on *A flights, like SQ or TG?
Jan 13, 2008, 2:02 pm
#4
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: PHL
Posts: 3,113
Given his routing, he must have been on other carriers for SYD-ICN-LAX (my guess is some combination of OZ and SQ). The only part actually on US was LAX-PHX.