Why do numerous airlines, including those aspiring to be among the world’s best, keep focusing on improving the in-flight experience, but don’t seem to care what kind of service their customers receive before they even step foot on a plane?
It’s high time they understood that travelers are getting smarter, and mediocre reservation agents won’t be tolerated much longer.
In April, I wrote about my disastrous experience with Singapore Airlines’ award-booking agents, who were so poorly trained they might as well have worked for a third-world carrier. In May, I mentioned British Airways’ arrogance and refusal to offer the slightest apology after losing the luggage of two First Class passengers who had paid $12,500 per ticket.
This month, it was Turkish Airlines’ turn. The Star Alliance member has improved significantly in recent years, and spent a lot of money on advertising and public relations. Actor Kevin Costner, who ironically flies mostly on his own private plane — and flew me on it a decade ago for a Financial Times story — was hired to do TV commercials for Turkish. So was NBA star Kobe Bryant. The carrier’s motto is “Globally yours.”
However, in many respects Turkish remains a rather backward regional airline. It’s not that its reservations agents are not well-trained — that’s the case with much more advanced carriers. The bad experience with Turkish begins as soon as you dial the number of its call center.
Even though the center is open only during U.S. business hours, all agents are in Istanbul. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, except that many of them have a very poor command of English, and the connection is so bad you’d think it’s 1950. It sounds as if the airline uses cheap Internet-based technology to keep costs low. Many companies around the world do that, but I haven’t experienced such poor quality in years.
I called Turkish to change the date of a flight, and I knew the original booking class wasn’t available on the new flight, so the ticket would have to be repriced in the higher class. There was no change fee, so only a $265 fare difference had to be paid.
The truly global airlines have a very simple procedure in such cases: The agent reprices the ticket and — often with the help of a supervisor or the rate and ticketing desks — reissues it within minutes. To my utter shock, however, a supervisor informed me that the Turkish reservations center is not capable of reissuing tickets. So the ticket in question could only be reissued at an airport, no later than two hours before departure for a $20 fee — and that’s full-fare Business Class.
Seriously, Turkish Airlines? What year do you think this is? Do you really want to increase lines at airport ticket counters when something this simple can be done over the phone? So much for spending millions of dollars (educated guess) on advertising and PR — you’d be much smarter to invest that money in a 21st century reservations center.
A few days before the above-described experience, I noticed that Turkish doesn’t allow seat assignments to be made on its website, even in long-haul Business Class, and even when a booking is created on the site. I posted that on the carrier’s Facebook page and was informed that seats can be assigned no earlier than seven days before departure.
Why? Isn’t it more complicated to set such artificial deadlines than just allow customers to get a seat as soon as they buy a ticket? This is not a question of charging for seat assignments, because Turkish doesn’t do that. But why waste time calling reservations only to get a seat? It’s not like you’ll have a pleasant experience.
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The transparency of raw airline data in recent years has been hugely important for our ability to secure the lowest fares and build the best itineraries. ExpertFlyer.com has been a pioneer in that endeavor, and now it has taken an extra step by showing government, military and other fares that have long been a mystery to most travelers.
I first began using ExpertFlyer soon after the website launched in 2005, and was happy to pay the $100 annual fee because it has helped me save thousands of dollars.
Last year, when I left the Washington Times and started teaching seminars, I naturally decided to use the site in my classes — and I received a complimentary subscription. In the interest of full disclosure, ExpertFlyer also donated $1,000 to the book tour I’m currently on. That said, I’m not at all obligated to promote the site in this column.
I’m writing about ExpertFlyer because of its usefulness to my readers. As I explain in my book, “Decoding Air Travel,” unless you are a travel agent or otherwise have access to a Global Distribution System (GDS), you are deprived of viewing raw airline data, such as fare tariffs and flight inventory, as it’s published by the carriers — but before it’s processed by automated booking engines.
This week, ExpertFlyer made available special government and military fares, as well as student and senior fares. The last two were not exactly secret in the past and could be searched on airline websites and online travel agencies, but having access to the raw data is no doubt very useful.
Being able to see government fare data, however, is a big deal. Only federal agencies can book tickets at those fares, but even if you never benefit from them, the information is rather revealing for an air travel geek like me.
The most significant feature of government fares is that they are usually much higher than the lowest regularly published fares, because they are fully refundable and changeable — but they are much lower than the normal full-fare prices available to businesses and consumers. Some companies do negotiate contracts with airlines, but the discount they get is typically between 5 and 15 percent.
Let’s look at the current government fare from Washington to Frankfurt on United — a heavily traveled route by federal employees. Because those flights are less than 14 hours long, only coach tickets are allowed. As of today, the base fare is $718 each way ($1,436 round trip) — the fare basis is YCA, which means it’s a full Y fare, earning 150 percent frequent-flier miles and requiring fewer miles to upgrade than discounted fares, and of course no cash “co-pays.”
Now let’s compare that to the lowest published Y base fare available to any of us — it’s $4,037 round trip. These are only the base fares, but as I learned a couple of months ago when I flew on a YCA fare for the first time, the government also enjoys a big discount on fuel surcharges, which run in the hundreds of dollars.
It’s worth noting that the lowest published United fare from Washington to Frankfurt as of today is $603 round trip, but it’s very restrictive and, of course, nonrefundable. United publishes the same transatlantic fares as Star Alliance partners Lufthansa, Air Canada and British Midland, but any flights on foreign carriers must be booked as United code-share numbers under the so-called Fly America Act. The same rule applies to American and its Oneworld partners, as well as Delta and other SkyTeam carriers.
In addition to the Y government fares, U.S. airlines have begun offering equally nonrestrictive fares with fare bases that book into discounted booking classes, such as L and K. Their downside is that they don’t earn bonus miles and upgrades on them are much pricier.
I’m still learning the government airfare system, but one thing I find hard to understand is why Carlson Wagonlit, the travel company that books travel for several federal agencies, charges almost $90 every time one of its agent touches a reservation — whether to issue a ticket, change it or cancel it. So much for “free” changes and cancellations.
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Today’s column is rather unusual. I’d like to use this space to introduce the world’s first company to bridge the widening gap between the services provided by travel agencies and the growing and diverse needs of the sophisticated modern air traveler.
The launch of a brand-new website means that Kralev International LLC, the company I founded recently, is now officially open for business.
Kralev International is a very different travel consulting and training company. Its mission is to improve its clients’ travel life in ways they never thought possible. It helps both businesses and consumers significantly reduce travel costs, increase convenience, comfort and luxury, and generally navigate the increasingly complex air travel system more effectively.
We are aware of the limitations of a travel agency and the frustrations they cause a busy traveler, who wants much more than an airline booking. We’ve all had questions a travel agent couldn’t answer: Why did I find a lower fare online? How do I secure an upgrade? What’s the best frequent-flier program? How many miles will I earn? Which airlines have flat beds in Business Class to Europe? What’s the best Star Alliance lounge in Tokyo?
Why don’t travel agents have those answers? Because their job is largely limited to booking tickets in an office — not traveling. They have never been in your shoes, globe-trotting and living on the fly, so they don’t truly know your needs. We live your jet-setting life, so we do have those answers.
Our corporate services include strategic travel planning and cost-saving, exclusive air travel intelligence, flight upgrade strategies and tactics, securing elite airline status and frequent-flier account management. We offer both one-time and recurring training sessions, as well as per-trip and retainer-based Executive Privilege consulting services.
Even though we are not a travel agency, we do book complex international itineraries, because we can save you hundreds of dollars per ticket. For consumers, we have customized in-person and web training, and our unique Travel Angel consulting service, which includes frequent-flier account management, upgrade strategies, securing elite-status and booking airline award tickets.
At the bottom of the new site’s homepage, there is a section called “Challenge us.” Anyone planning a trip can take advantage of it. Tell us about the lowest fare you found and challenge us to beat it. We have saved clients up to $1,300 per person in coach and almost $5,000 in Business Class. The biggest savings, of course, are on international tickets.
If you have comments on the new site, which was designed by Blue Water Media in Washington, we’d love to hear your feedback.
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Airlines are consistently among the most criticized companies by both the public and the media. While much of the criticism is deserved, does some of it amount to nothing more than badmouthing that helps no one? Isn’t it time for fliers to learn the air travel system’s ins and outs, and not blame the airlines for all their ills on the road?
In this column, I’ve denounced certain airline practices, such as the fictitious “direct” flights that are simply two flights with the same number but nothing else in common. There is no question the industry has made the system very complex, mostly for financial reasons, and it’s profiting from customers’ lack of knowledge.
However, the system is what it is, and there isn’t much we can do to change it to our liking. What we can do is invest some time and effort in learning its intricacies, rules and restrictions, so we don’t feel like we got screwed next time we fly and make sure we don’t miss a wedding or a funeral, or let an airline ruin our vacation.
I talked about this on Peter Greenberg’s syndicated radio show last weekend, though I probably did too much complaining before I got to the point. Greenberg used to be the travel editor for NBC’s “Today” show but moved to CBS last year.
There are certainly times when criticism — or constructive customer feedback — does make a difference. Take just one issue with United Airlines. Last year, it announced it would do away with advance domestic upgrade certificates for top elites, but after an outcry it reversed its decision. Earlier this month, the carrier said it would reduce the number of certificates elite fliers get annually — another outcry followed, and the implementation of the new policy was delayed by a year.
Contrast that to the experience of Michelle Renee, about which I wrote last year. She decided to skip a flight on her ticketed itinerary from Los Angeles to Australia on United, but she didn’t tell the airline and was shocked to find out at the Sydney airport that the change would incur a fee. She wrote a blistering blog post against United on the Huffington Post. Had she known that if you miss a ticketed flight voluntarily, the rest of your itinerary is automatically voided, she would have thanked the agent who salvaged her ticket.
Is it the airlines’ job to educate passengers about the rules they impose or are travelers responsible for learning those rules on their own? Do most of us buy plane tickets blindly, without reading and understanding the conditions and restrictions that come with them?
In a more recent Huffington Post blog, another United critic, Tamar Abrams, wrote about being mistreated by an employee after her flight from Singapore to Tokyo was canceled. The agent’s behavior aside, I suggested to Abrams that she didn’t have to put herself in that agent’s hands. In fact, she could have known about the cancellation about 12 hours earlier, before she had gone to bed, because her plane didn’t make it to Singapore from Tokyo the previous night. She could have called United then and got rebooked, even before getting to the airport.
Was it Abrams’ responsibility to track her plane and predict the cancellation? No, but it would have helped her a lot and saved her hassle and an unpleasant experience. United usually contacts passengers regarding flight disruptions, though Abrams said she didn’t get notified in advance.
The ease with which anyone can book a plane ticket online gives the wrong impression that modern air travel is a piece of cake. Yet, most fliers don’t know the meaning of a code-share flight or the difference between a nonstop and a direct flight.
Next time, before you spend $1,000 on a ticket, it might be a good idea to learn exactly what you are buying and what it entitles you to. After all, travel should be an exciting experience, not a nuisance we dread.
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There are many things about today’s air travel system that annoy the most patient people — passengers and airline employees alike. It’s easy to encounter rudeness on both sides. I’ve learned to block out most of the noise and avoid hassle or stress, but I realized during a trip this week that I have my own pet peeves list.
1. Passengers demanding upgrades from gate agents, because they are on a “full fare” or have elite status — except that their ticket’s booking class is nowhere near Y or B, and they have the lowest status level.
2. Airport lounge gatekeepers wrongly denying you access and insisting they are correct when you confront them with the actual rules. Worse yet, they find a supervisor who agrees with them — as if repeating a mistake twice makes it right.
3. Passengers trying to hide a bag they put on the floor of an exit row, not to be seen by the flight attendant who warned them that luggage is not allowed there.
4. Flight attendants holding your glass with their fingers on the rim — I don’t fancy putting my lips there, especially after I’ve seen the attendant running those fingers through her hair.
5. Passengers trying to talk to you when you are making it clear you’d rather be left alone.
6. Airline agents making up rules.
7. Passengers blaming the airline for ruining their trip, when whatever happened to them could have been avoided only if they had been better educated about the basic rules of airfares and tickets.
8. Flight attendants showing how much they dislike their job.
9. Passengers treating flight attendants like servants.
10. Passengers going to the lavatory without their shoes on — or without in-flight footwear provided by the airline in first and business class.
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