rosarybjork

I fly US airways/republic almost every single time to MCO.
1. They have their own time system. Don't bother to book based on what time you want to get there, book based on what day you want to get there. Its called US airways time. Once you get used to it, its not so bad. They bump flights, shift things around, etc. Never pay more for a flight at a certain time. You will not get it. You gotta be casual on US airways like a slow southern drink. They have rocking chairs at Charlotte. Use them. The people in Charlotte are pretty nice too.
2. They have never damaged my luggage the way other airlines have. (Knock on wood)
3. They don't serve peanuts or crazy snack mixes. The lack of snacks makes the planes cleaner. No crunching down on stuff, or embeded crap in the seats.
4. I have had VERY honest people tell me the truth when I fly them. I appreciate the truth from staff. Are they easy to work for? Not now, especially with the pay cuts. Is it hard to work for less pay and be pleasant to customers? Depends on your job and the day.
5. The CEO on that undercover boss show seemed weak and detached from his airline. I was NOT impressed.
The web site sucks. Bad bad web site.

Also, they have done a piss poor job communicating to customers news about the merger.

resingl

I suppose this has been policy for quite some time, but I didn't realize I had to pay $75 per ticket when using miles less than 14 days before travel.

Seriously? What possible difference does it make to the airline? I grumbled about paying for sodas and bag fees (before I made Preferred), but could at least understand some connection (extra cost = extra fee).

I guess I've always known airline miles are a huge scam as it's really hard to redeem them for anything decent, but to pay extra for the privledge seems ridiculous.

AZ Travels the World

I believe that was the CEO of Frontier Airlines -- at least that's the show I saw.

Frontier again? It's been five years since a US merger.

NY-FLA

Um, just my experience, but;
I've often had DL rebook me on a later flight when my connection became questionable. Cancel the rest of the reservation when I make the original connection successfully and don't make the later flight? That's a "feature" unique to USAir.

And UA calls pre-emptively (even at 02:30AM) for cancelled flights and reschedules.

(Following is my summary of US's communications in this sad case.)
("Crickets")

You might want to keep the "roll-eyes" icon and other airlines comments for something you actually have personal experience with.

mfullmer

How did you get from his post(s) that he was blaming the airline for being late? It was subsequent, automated events that he is complaining about.

dcpatti

US will not split you to upgrade one of the party if there's only one seat; you have to ASK them to do that. It's fairly common knowledge that, once split, the PNR can't be merged back, just like you can't merge/link two PNR that didn't start out as one. There are abundant threads in this forum to that effect. It sounds like what you asked them to do to get the one F seat on the outbound resulted in a (more or less expected) negative experience.

apeortdz

I had wondered if this ever happened. I usually don't mess with the return flight until I have taken the outbound - so I will continue this practice.

dcpatti

Splitting up at the gate to get put on the stand by-for-upgrade list will do this too. It's the crapshoot of "do I increase my chances for an upgrade now at the expense of any companion upgrade further along on this trip?"

BOS2DCA

Nothing like overreacting.

Originally Posted by NY-FLA View Post
If USAir were consistently punctual, Mrs. NY-FLA's first flight would not have been late and would not have triggered this chain of events.

USAir's punctuality is subject to air traffic. That was all I was pointing out. Now take a deep breath and have a nice evening.

TiredOfTooMuchTravel

And how do you know or not know what my experience is with other airlines??

NY-FLA

OK; please tell me where or when you have experienced another airline assume the flight at 10:00 AM will not be made because the connection appears too tight, force rebook the pax on the 1:00 PM flight, then canx the rest of the itinerary when the pax does not/ can not show up for the 1:00 PM flight because they already left on the original, tight connecting 10:00AM flight. No other airline would do this, or let their automated system do this, yet you dismissively (and presumably sarcastically) say "the other airlines never do anything like this".
Because in a dozen years of top tier level travel on at least 2 domestic airlines, I have never seen another airline behave like this, but you maintain this is business as normal for "other" airlines, I have to conclude that either you have no idea what you are talking about, or have wrongly concluded that my rant was about punctuality, in which case, much like the poster who started rambling on about ATC, you have a complete lack of comprehension of the basics of this issue.

TiredOfTooMuchTravel

I dont even know where to get started with you....

You wanna talk about other airlines, rebooking,etc.?? Lets do it. They all have problems in one way or another.

Delta: 1) Flying via ATL. My inbound flight was delayed but still would be doable though very tight. Delta cancels out my originally booked connection, rebooks me on later connection 5 hours later (nothing else was available til that flight), and then refuses to board me when I make the connection. They had already started to clear stand by passengers on my original connection and filled it up even though I got to the gate in time (boarding was still going on).
2) Flying via SLC. I was headed into BUR. Inbound to SLC was delayed (my connection was also delayed) but the system wasnt smart enough so it still rebooked me. The system rebooks me but to LAX (even though there was still another BUR flight after the one I was booked on) and cancels me off the BUR flight. After a long back and forth with the Skywest agent in SLC, they got me back on the BUR flight but ended up having to offload a non-rev that they had boarded in my place.

United: 1) Flying via DEN. My 1st flight was canceled so I was rebooked on the next flight to DEN but never got rebooked for the connection.
2) Flying via PDX/SFO. My MFR to PDX flight was delayed so was rebooked on a MFR to SFO flight. However the system never took out the MFR/PDX/SFO segments so as a result it thought I no showed and canceled the rest of my itinerary.

Continental: 1) Flying into IAH on CO then connection to US. Went to check in for my flights for which I received boarding passes. The CO system f-ed up and ended up canceling me out from my US flight. This was proven via a printout of "messages" on my reservation showing a command from the CO system that canceled my reservation. CO refused to reaccom me even though it was their f-up. The screw up results in an overnight in IAH due to no more flights that evening. US even though it was not their fault, put me up in a hotel, rebooked me, etc. even though CO screwed up.

You wanna talk now about how these system problems only occurs on US???

iahphx

Resingl --

Almost all the USA airlines have this type of fee these days. I'm sure nobody likes it, but it makes tons of sense for an airline. Airlines make their money selling more-expensive last minute fares to biz travellers. So if you happen to need a ticket at the last minute, it's likely to be very expensive. Using your miles is often a great alternative -- even if you have to pay $75 for the privilege.

I would also note that it could be a significant revenue loss for an airline not to charge this fee, as biz travellers would be more inclined to redeem mileage for such trips than pay the higher fares.

Obviously, for most leisure travellers, it's really easy to plan 2 weeks ahead of time. And if you can't, $75 seems like a modest extra amount to pay. Of all the annoying airline fees out there, this one seems among the least objectionable.

CMK10

This stupid "Choice Seat" thing. I booked RDU-CLT-ORD for next week and was forced to select a middle seat on the first leg and no seat on the second leg. I know I can call and get moved to seats as a Star Gold but it's still really annoying.

NY-FLA

Well here's a hint, or at least a suggestion; Try a post without the rolleyes icon.


Yes. Although your anecdotes are rife with the all too frequent airline incompetence, I honestly don't see how your cases are relevant to the one I'm relating here. My case: Pax flies outbound portion of original itinerary as originally scheduled. makes a tight connection with absolutely no indication anything is amiss. When the return portion is later checked, said return has been canceled.
The fact that no communication, was made to the pax by USAir, that no USAir customer rep. could explain what had happened, (we had to figure this out for ourselves), combined with the attitude of the USAir customer service rep when it became clear I was upset at the inappropriate actions taken by USAir, make this a classic case of a USAir > 2 sigma negative deviation. When this black hole of communication combines with a complete lack of recovery strategy, it provides one of those classic reasons most FF's avoid US like a stinky diaper in a middle seat.
Although you may be so enamored of USAir there's no reaching you, others might want to learn from my wife's little travel hiccup.... If you have made a tight connection, check your return flights... Don't expect USAir to let you know they canceled you out.