Schedules
Have you been surprised to discover that your flight itinerary has little to do with your originally booked routing or departure and arrival times? Did you accept the changes, even though you didn’t like them? Next time, you could probably do better.
Schedule changes — those made by airline planning departments in advance, not those resulting from irregular operations — have always existed in the industry, but they used to be relatively rare and caused few major disruptions.
In recent years, however, they have become so common that I’m actually surprised when a week passes without changes in any of my future trips — I usually have about a half-dozen booked at a time…
Continue reading about Flight schedule changes overwhelm agents, travelers
This was supposed to be a column critical of US Airways’ rather peculiar Web site, which is unable to perform basic functions, such as retrieving valid and active tickets. But it also became an appreciation of the carrier’s willingness to explain some of those issues and even try to resolve them.
Every airline’s Web site has limitations and various quirks that annoy travelers — some offer odd routings when you search for flights, others show confusing or even misleading prices, and yet others try to get you to buy things you don’t need instead of taking you straight to the final purchase page.
However, if you simply want to display your itinerary by providing your reservation or ticket number, no major carrier will fail you. Except US Airways. In the past couple of years, I’ve had several tickets with flights on that airline that its Web site was unable to find…
Are you one of those airline junkies who not only do for themselves almost everything a travel agent does, but also often help friends and colleagues — or even people they barely know? Have you reached the point of frustration that eventually comes with anything time-consuming one does for free?
I’ve been close to that point for a few months now, for years having booked trips for others, checked them in for flights online, kept an eye on departure times and helped them redeem miles for “award” tickets. I suppose the frequency of those free services hasn’t become abusive quite yet, so I haven’t changed my ways.
But some other fellow junkies who also write about travel have had enough. They happen to be bloggers who, along with commenting on various airline news items, offer travel advice — including responses to e-mail inquiries about airfares, flight delays and resolving post-travel issues…
