Customer Service
How do you know that an airline agent is trying to charge you much more than necessary to change a ticket? Two agents attempted that on me just yesterday, but they quickly realized they were messing with the wrong guy and retreated from their positions. The difference was thousands of dollars.
In my book, I explain why it helps to know what exactly you want before calling an airline, and more importantly, to know the outcome of an agent’s actions. I never trust agents to tell me how much I need to pay for anything — I call them simply to accomplish something I can’t do online.
A couple of months ago, I issued a Business Class ticket for a client who flew the outbound portion but had to cancel the return. I called the airline to take him off that flight and said I wasn’t ready to rebook yet but would call back when I was. The agent said, fine, call us then.
That’s what I did yesterday, but the agent I got was told by the rate desk that the new flight had to be booked at the same time the original segment was canceled — in other words, it was too late. That was the biggest claptrap I’d heard in a long time, so I hung up. After all, what was the alternative? Buying a new ticket?
I immediately called again to speak to another agent, but in the one minute that took, the first agent had managed to notate the record that changes weren’t allowed. As calm as I try to stay with reservations on the phone, spiteful agents like that one annoy me hugely. Naturally, I asked for a supervisor to make my case that the rate-desk person was wrong.
First, even if the change had to be made at the same time as the original cancellation, I should have been informed of that when I made the cancellation, if that would leave the ticket with no value — not when it was too late.
Second, the fare rules said the following: “Original reservations are cancelled prior to the original scheduled flight and the new intended travel is scheduled.” If the authors of that sentence meant that both actions had to be completed at the same time, they would have put “and the new intended travel is scheduled” before the words “prior to the original scheduled flight.” In that case, both actions would have been covered by “prior to…” — as I understand it here, the first action does need to take place “prior to…,” but not the second.
The supervisor didn’t even argue with me. She deleted the spiteful notes and authorized the change.
But the rate desk’s shenanigans were far from over. The original Z booking class wasn’t eligible for an upgrade to First Class, which was available on the new flight and my client wanted it, so he had to buy up to the higher D class. I’d looked at the airline’s tariff and determined that the difference in fare would be about $1,000.
However, the rate desk wanted to charge $4,000. Customers don’t have access to the rate desk, so I had to reason with a reservation agent. I pointed out what I’d seen on the tariff and explained that the rate desk wanted to charge a one-way D fare, but this was a round-trip ticket, and they should be charing half of the lower round-trip D fare.
The agent suggested that perhaps the lower D fare was not combinable with the Z fare on the already flown outbound flight. I had an answer to that, too: The last three letters of both fare-basis codes were the same, so they were indeed combinable. I could also prove that by booking a new reservation in Z class on the outbound and D class on the return.
She went back to the rate desk and quickly returned with the news that I was right and the fare difference would be about $1,000.
Was this incompetence or did they try to take me for a ride? I don’t know — what I do know is that something that should have taken 10 minutes took instead more than an hour to accomplish.
So make sure you do your homework and don’t trust agents, even if they tell you that they have 20 years of experience.
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While most U.S. airlines have learned to be relatively honest with their best customers, many of their foreign peers have not yet realized that travelers are not as stupid as to fall for their PR spin and questionable practices.
It’s time for those carriers to wake up to the fact that it’s the end of 2011, and much in the airline industry is rather transparent to those of us who pay attention. Trying to persuade customers that bad news is actually good may be an essential PR trick, but in today’s hyper-connected world, it’s not hard to figure out someone’s true intentions.
Among the airlines still using the old playbook is British Airways, which is surprising for such a major and quite good global carrier. Last month, it drastically devalued its award redemption chart, but it tried to present that negative change as a positive one.
The clue came with the usage of the world “revitalizing” to describe the changes to the carrier’s frequent-flier program, Executive Club. At least they steered clear of “enhancement,” which is what many U.S. carriers used in the past, inviting much derision from frequent fliers.
British Airways announced a few weeks before the changes took effect that they were coming, but what those changes actually were going to be remained a secret until the very day they were implemented. That move showed gross disrespect for the company’s best customers who deserved much better for their loyalty.
In contrast, many U.S. airlines and hotel companies publish their new charts, as well as other program changes, months in advance. One recent exception was Delta Airlines, which didn’t really have an official global chart for more than a year, until it finally published one in February, effective immediately — actually, much of it was already in use unofficially.
Apparently, British Airways was afraid that many Executive Club members would rush to burn their miles before the last change — after all, there were plenty of miles on its books, partly thanks to its giving away 100,000 miles as a credit-card sign-up bonus. So it said that the number of award miles required for “97 percent of our routes” will stay the same or even go down.
In fact, that turned out to be false. In an attempt to save face when the new chart came out, the airline said it had meant 97 percent of the nonstop routes out of London.
While some of those nonstop routes have indeed become cheaper, there are many Executive Club members outside London who earned their miles hoping to use them for trips to cities other than London. Unfortunately, they are the big losers — the increases in those cases can be over 80 percent. Substantial premiums have been added to connecting and partner flights across the board.
Those changes, along with the huge amounts British Airways charges in taxes and fees on award tickets, have drastically devalued its miles. Just this week, I booked award tickets to Asia for two clients, and I really wanted to help them burn their British Airways miles. However, that particular award had almost doubled in price, and the taxes were over $1,200 per person. So I booked with another airline for nearly half the miles and $85 in taxes.
British Airways in certainly not alone in thinking that customers are stupid. Air Canada quietly started charging fuel surcharges on some partner award tickets earlier this fall. Did it hope no one would notice that they were asked to pay hundreds of dollars more than before? Finally, after Air Canada was exposed on various blogs, it admitted what it was doing and said that even more partner flights would be included in the new program.
And then there is the scandalous behavior of the United Arab Emirates’ Etihad Airways last month.
For two days in October, it advertised a First Class fare from Spain to Australia on its website for less than 400 euro. According to Spanish media reports, about 300 people bought tickets. The first of them traveled 10 days later, when an agent in Brussels noticed the fare and alerted the appropriate department. It was then determined that the fare was a mistake, and the passenger was downgraded to coach without any compensation. The rest of the tickets were canceled.
I’ve written about mistake fares before, but the issue here is not whether Etihad was wrong not to honor the tickets. I said scandalous because of a letter the airline sent to the passengers who decided to put up a fight and wanted to defend their rights through the media.
Etihad hired a law firm in Spain that in no uncertain terms threatened those customers in writing with litigation, if they dared to go to the media. The last time I checked, Spain was a democracy with freedom of speech, and the United Arab Emirates was something quite different. I don’t believe anything has changed since.
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The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks this week reminded me of how much can go wrong in the airline industry to no fault of its own. Despite everything outside the airlines’ control, there are many reasons to criticize their performance. But how much slack should we cut them?
I’ve written several times about the increased scrutiny of the airlines by both the media and the public, compared to other industries, simply because of the nature of their business. A commercial carrier has more front-line employees than almost any other company, and it’s easier to complain about a person we see in front of us than about an invisible — and sometimes anonymous — representative.
In addition, the airline industry gets more media attention than other types of businesses by default, as many more people are believed to be interested in aviation than in the workings of a cable company or the food industry, for example — even though the latter two affect no fewer consumers than airlines do.
Let’s face it, an aircraft in any position — sitting on ground, soaring in the sky or, God forbid, engulfed in flames — makes for much better photos and video than a food-processing chain.
Bashing the airlines has been common for decades, but it has become even easier in recent years, thanks for social media and the travel blogs that have mushroomed on the Internet.
All that attention has improved customer service, as well as other parts of the airlines’ performance. I’m not talking about the on-board service, which no longer includes free drinks, meals, pillows, blankets, etc. I mean employees’ desire and ability to resolve problems. There are certainly still those who just shrug shoulders and pass you on to someone else, but the helpful ones seem to be more these days.
As my book, “Decoding Air Travel,” and all my columns can testify, I’m by no means an apologist for the airlines. I criticize them and expose their dishonest practices when they deserve it, but I also praise them when they do things right. I’ve also urged other consumer-oriented businesses to learn from the customer-friendly policies of many airlines.
So I’m more than willing to cut the airline industry some slack — not only in situations beyond its control, but also when honest mistakes have been made. For example, late last month, I had a schedule change on a future ticket, which had to be reissued. The agent I spoke with on the phone was supposed to send the reservation to a certain “queue,” but as I learned a few days later, she sent it to the refund queue. As a result, the entire itinerary was canceled, and of course no one notified me. Good thing I called back.
Things happen, so I didn’t get angry in this case. This week, however, I did get mad at US Airways for its failure to invest in a modern website — not a new issue, about which I’ve also written before. That site is probably one of the worst in the industry.
I tried to check in online for a flight from Washington Reagan National Airport (DCA) to New York’s LaGuardia (LGA). Before that, I had attempted to get a seat assignment, but that’s not allowed on shuttle flights until check-in, even in First Class. I did see on the seat map, however, that my preferred 2F was available. So I began the check-in process, but the seat map didn’t open. I tried several times, to no avail. I finally exited, only to find out that the system had automatically assigned me seat 1F.
I didn’t want the bulkhead, but there was no way to change the seat I had. Web support couldn’t help, either, telling me it could only be done at the airport. Of course, by the time I got there the next day, all other seats were gone.
Why is it so difficult for US Airways to offer a working seat map during online check-in? Why is it so hard to allow changes to seat assignments? Why can the websites of United, American and many other airlines provide that service? Is it really rocket science? Almost every airline website has its problems, but US Airways’ beats them all. Its CEO, Doug Parker, needs to realize that it’s 2011.
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There must be very few things more embarrassing to an airline than losing the luggage of a passenger who paid more than $12,000 for a First Class ticket. Even more shockingly, British Airways, which did just that last week, didn’t try to right the screamingly obvious wrong and offer some sort of a good-will gesture.
Many of us often wonder who would pay $10,000 or $15,000 for a plane ticket, but let me assure you, there are such people. Premium travel has staged a remarkable recovery in recent months. As I look at flight inventory, I’m amazed every day by how full Business and First Class cabins are on various carriers.
The case in point was actually very close to home, as the passenger was a colleague whom I’d helped book his ticket. Another curious detail was that, after the ticket was issued, he needed to move his return flight a day earlier, and British Airways imposed a $750 penalty for the change — yes, on a $12,000 ticket.
He had one connection — in London, of course — on his way to another European city. Not too complicated, one might think. However, when he arrived at his final destination, his luggage was missing. It was eventually discovered in London, but although British Airways had several more flights to the city where he was that day, the luggage wasn’t delivered at his hotel until 1 a.m. the following day — 12 hours after his arrival.
Not too bad, you might say. Many passengers wait days for their bags, and some never see them again.
I may have agreed with such an attitude had the airline not collected $12,000 from the passenger for this trip. How could any self-respecting carrier not take all necessary measures to ensure that such customers’ luggage arrives on time at the right place? In the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t a huge problem, but it speaks ill of the airline — and it certainly ruins the First Class experience.
What makes things much worse is that, a week after the incident, British Airways, which is a member of the Oneworld alliance, has offered no compensation, good-will gesture or whatever one might call it. Moreover, when the customer asked for a token of appreciation in the Concorde Room, the carrier’s First Class lounge at Heathrow Airport, on his return journey, his request was rejected.
Instead, he was advised to contact Customer Relations. While that may be considered a standard procedure in the airline industry, the airport agent could have been much more helpful and not passed the responsibility to someone else.
After all, the people who pay $12,000 for a plane ticket are not that many. Any airline should try really hard to keep them as customers.
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American Airlines has been trying to cut booking costs by fighting to reduce the power of the Global Distribution Systems (GDS) — and the high fees they charge. However, its own ticketing process remains surprisingly outdated for one of the world’s largest carriers, and far from being cost-efficient.
It wouldn’t be difficult for American to save millions of dollars a year. All it needs to do is implement instant ticketing, which most other major airlines have had for years. The carrier says it plans to introduce instant ticketing on its website later this year, but it has no intention to allow phone reservation agents to issue tickets at this time.
“Several technology improvement processes are currently underway, which will ultimately allow instant ticketing for various functions. It won’t happen all at once, but will phase in during the second half of this year, with everything completed by the end of the year under the present schedule,” American spokesman Tim Smith said in an e-mail message.
“For now, our reservations group and its agents will continue to use their existing ticketing system,” he added. “They will, of course, monitor the situation once it’s up and running on AA.com to determine whether any changes are needed with the reservations ticketing model.”
Currently, when you purchase a ticket on AA.com or by phone, your reservation is queued up for ticketing by a dedicated department, which is the only one authorized to process credit cards. If your card is rejected, an employee is supposed to call you and let you know.
That happened to me last month — sort of. I bought a ticket on a Friday on AA.com for travel on the following Tuesday, which should have given it priority in the pipeline before reservations for later dates. But six hours later, the ticket wasn’t issued. I called American and was told there was a problem with the credit card. How was I supposed to know that? No one called or e-mailed to tell me. After I gave the agent a new credit card, it took another eight hours for the ticket to be issued.
In contrast, when you buy a ticket from other major airlines, including United, Emirates and British Airways, you get a ticket number right on the spot — both from phone agents and on their websites. If your credit card doesn’t go through, you are told immediately, so you can react. Just yesterday, I issued a ticket on the Emirates website — it took about 10 seconds.
Imagine how much money American would save if it eliminated the middleman — the so-called ticketing department — in every single purchase. Of course, every airline needs and has a ticketing department. But all those other carriers use it only in special cases, mostly when manual ticketing is required as a result of changing an existing ticket or when the computer fails to price out a ticket automatically.
There is actually another middleman when issuing American award tickets. After you make a purchase online or with an agent, it’s queued up first to the AAdvantage Customer Service. Why? Because that department deducts the miles from your account and verifies that your award complies with routing and other rules. Apparently, American has no trust in its dedicated AAdvantage agents or its automated computer system. Only after that is the reservation queued up to the ticketing department.
Last week, it took American four days to issue an award ticket. I was told that the AAdvantage Customer Service is closed on weekends. About the same time, I got a United award ticket — it took the United agent about five seconds to issue it.
Part of me is glad that many people have jobs, but the other part wonders why American is wasting so much money on creating work for two or three people when those functions can be easily accomplished by one employee.
“Any additional costs associated with our current system is offset by a different aspect of cost-savings for both the airline, the card issuer, and the cardholders,” said Smith, the spokesman. “The current process allows us to do additional card verification and transaction analysis that benefits all parties and help keep costs down. Simply put, less cost from fraud.”
Obviously, fraud is a major issue, but other airlines and companies have found more efficient ways to deal with it. Apparently, American recognizes that, too, since it plans to implement instant ticketing on its website.
Why does it matter when a ticket is issued? I’m told the American system is programmed to hold a reservation for seven days before it gets canceled, which is plenty of time. But what if a booking falls through the cracks, especially if there is a credit-card problem? In addition, if the itinerary includes flights on partner-carriers, those airlines may cancel their seats if they don’t get a ticket number from American by a certain deadline.
One huge advantage of AA.com is that it allows customers to hold a reservation for 24 hours for free before buying it. United’s decision last year to remove that option from its site has caused immense inconvenience to numerous customers. Most airlines, of course, don’t provide a “hold” option online, while others charge a fee for it. Sure, many carriers permit free refunds within 24 hours of ticketing, but that’s not the same thing.
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