Sutori - Stories Tagged With 'united'

The Star Alliance is neither Celestial nor Aligned

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:49:59 -0800

Take a strong dose of patience and allocate at least 30-60 minutes of phone time if you want to redeem any US airlines' frequent flier miles for an international flight which requires any or all portions to be provided by a member of the Star Alliance. Since you cannot book these reservations via United or USAirways' web sites, you must call and speak to an agent, and they will consume many minutes navigating their own and their so-called partners' reservation systems to find an appropriate routing. They will then have the audacity to charge you a phone booking fee even though you have no other way to conduct this transaction. You will still have to call the partner airline for your seat assignments and meal preferences, so you are again forced into another 20-30 minute call. There's little evidence that these airline alliances provide any benefit to passengers because they impose these inconveniences and require the customer to interact wiith each individual airline anyhow. If you fuss about the phone booking fee, they will send you a paper voucher for a future reservation which, surprise, you must conduct via the phone! No wonder airlines are the most despised businesses of all.

An airline and a cluetrain

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:45:04 -0800

I'm trying something a little different here.

This story is not something that happened to me. It's something that happened to someone I respect very much.

And because I trust and respect that person, the story affects the way I feel about this company. It has an impact on my goodwill towards them.

In this case, the company is United Airlines and the customer is David Weinberger, co-author of a book called the Cluetrain Manifesto—a book that laid the groundwork for Sutori with its vision of markets as conversations between customers and companies.

Here’s the story, as blogged by David . . .

After United Airline's online systems assured me as of 7pm that my 8:40 flight from Boston to DC was only 45 minutes late, I arrived at the airport to be told by the unhelpful person behind the counter that they'd actually cancelled the flight that afternoon. (I'd also checked with a living person over the telephone.)

But that's just your usual traffic snarl. Kafka didn't step in until I said that the subsitute flight they wanted to put me on at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon wouldn't work, but I still wanted to fly back with my ticket on Monday. Fine, said the unhelpful telephone support person, but that will have to be repriced up as a one way fare.

Ah, yes, that's how to develop customer loyalty!

So what do you think?

Does a “second hand” story like this belong on Sutori?

Should it carry as much weight as a first-hand experience?

United we do NOT stand

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:40:05 -0700

Took a business trip recently and flew via United Airlines. As any semi-frequent traveller will attest to, you are continually innundated with the "thank you for flying with us" and "sit back and enjoy your flight with us" messages. From now on, I'll be saying "no thank you" to flying on United.

Delayed out of Miami, I connected in Chicago (at 7:30pm EST) only to find out my last leg home was cancelled. Tired, hungry and anxious to get home, this was not a good sign. Especially when I saw the line up at the (non)Customer Service desk.

When I reached the counter (time check: 9:00pm), I learned the following:

Next available flight was 9:40am next day (13 hours away)
My luggage could not be retrieved for my overnight stay because the airport is 'too big' to figure out a complicated task like that. Great, no toiletries or change of clothes.
The 50% vouchers they offer for seedy motels in the area are all sold out. (Hey, let's not forget: "It's not their fault about the flight".
Better yet, there are NO hotels within 2hrs of the city due to 5 conference in town. Anyone who's been to Chicago knows that this happens way more frequently than should be humanly possible.
The airport food vendors were shutting down as we speak. No food.

The United rep at this point just sort of threw up his hands. Signs of problem-solving skills were undetectable (I mean, how important is that for this type of job, REALLY?). Fortunately I had some complemented with a little luck. I was able to get one of the last seats on the last flight out to Seattle. Arrived there after midnight PST to shuttle over to a nearby hotel, nap for 2 hours lying down (sleeping sitting up in airport terminals and on planes is brutal), shower, throw on my dirty clothes and head back to the airport at 4:00am for my last flight home.

A one-connection 10 hour trip turned into a 22 hour trip. Got my luggage two days later. Found out United Airlines spends little to no amount of time thinking about the United travel experience of their customers. I wonder why they didn't call me when I got home to say "thank you for flying with us" and "we hope you enjoyed your flight"????