As United and Continental prepare to become one airline, they are making changes that, though necessary, are affecting negatively their customers. One consequence is that upgrades on international flights will be harder to get in the short run, and more expensive in the long run.
The carriers announced last month that they would begin “cross-fleeting” — swapping routes in each other’s network — and some of those changes have already been loaded in their schedules. Both United and Continental will be serving certain routes in the next several months, but each of them is taking over other routes entirely.
For example, all Anchorage flying goes to Continental, as do the Washington-Paris and Washington-Amsterdam routes, now operated by United. The current Continental flights from Newark to Zurich and Brussels, as well as its Houston-Lima flights, will be flown by United.
That practice is not unusual in airline pre-merger situations. While the United-Continental merger was legally completed late last year, they will be operating as separate airlines until they secure a single certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is expected to happen by early next year.
However, United and Continental are implementing the route changes before resolving some technical issues that will harm their customers.
If you are a United 1K flier and have system-wide upgrade certificates, you can’t use them on the previously United flights now operated by Continental — and the other way around. The same applies to your confirmed regional upgrade certificates on domestic flights. As of now, it’s technically impossible for the carriers’ reservations systems to accept upgrade certificates from the other airline’s frequent-flier program.
Mary Clark, a Continental spokeswoman in Houston, confirmed that certificates will be “carrier-specific” for the time being. “We are in the process of aligning the programs, and changes to the current policies will be announced as they are rolled out throughout the year. We aim to fully combine the programs by 2012.”
United is expected to adopt Continental’s reservations system eventually, but until then, there may be another way to resolve the issue. The carriers announced this week that miles can now be transferred between United and Continental accounts. I wonder if they can make it possible for upgrades to be transferred as well. It’s unclear if they looking into such an option yet.
There is another issue with the United system-wide upgrades whose impact is just now becoming apparent. For years, they have been allowed only on tickets booked in W class or higher, which makes S, T, L and K classes ineligible. Continental recently adopted the same rules.
This means that customers often have to spend hundreds of dollars more than the lowest available fare, just to qualify for an upgrade request — and if the upgrade doesn’t clear, they are left with a lot less money and the same coach seat they would have had if they had paid much less for it.
Things are getting even worse. In January, because of the merger, United added a 14th coach booking class, G, which was a regular published booking class on Continental, but on United it was previously an unpublished travel-industry discount class — it didn’t earn miles and was ineligible for upgrades.
Now, instead of four, there are five booking classes ineligible for system-wide upgrades. So what? you might ask — just a small technicality. Not quite. As a result of this change, W fares are getting more expensive. For example, a base fare of $800 that might have booked in W class before, now books in S or T. A few days ago, I helped a friend with a ticket from Washington to Bangkok, and the W base fare was more than $1,400 round trip — including taxes and surcharged, it came up to $1,900.
There is no question that fares have been going up for some time. A few years ago, a W fare to Bangkok was about $900, including taxes. In 2002, an H fare was $900. So the trend is clear and it didn’t start yesterday. But adding one more booking class makes things even worse.
It’s worth pointing out that American Airlines system-wide upgrades are allowed on all published booking classes.
Another negative change as a result of the United-Continental merger is that, similarly to the upgrades, discount vouchers from one airline cannot be used on the other. So if you want to use a United voucher for a ticket to Anchorage, you can’t, because United has given its seasonal service to Continental.
This week, the United website seems to be including Continental flights in electronic certificate-discounted itineraries, but the official policy hasn’t changed. It may be a website glitch, given that it also allows Lufthansa flights, and the vouchers’ terms and conditions specifically say that they are not valid on code-share flights.
One positive merger-related change is that United customers can now avoid StarNet blocking — it has diminished but still exists — by transferring their miles to Continental, which doesn’t block Star Alliance partner award seats.
NOTE: Several months after this column was published, United and Continental made it possible to use upgrades on flights operated by the other airline, including on mixed itineraries.
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Delta Airlines has cemented its status as the network U.S. carrier with the worst frequent-flier program, further devaluing its long-cheapened SkyMiles. The leadership of the program or the airline — or perhaps both — doesn’t seem to understand what the loyalty business in 2011 is about. It may be time for a new team at the top.
For more than a year, Delta failed to publish an award redemption chart for most of the world, resulting in lack of transparency about how many miles were really needed for an award ticket.
When it finally unveiled a chart this week, the mileage rates on many routes were increased significantly. Many loyal SkyMiles members felt cheated and disrespected, calling Delta’s move a “stunt” in comments posted on FlyerTalk, the largest online travel community.
If you wondered why Delta announced last week the elimination of miles’ expiration, my guess is that it tried to soften the blow of what was coming — and to claim that it cares about its customers. In reality, almost everything SkyMiles has done in recent years has been decidedly customer-unfriendly. I’m not an active SkyMiles member and have no dog in this flight, but I’ve been appalled enough to write about it.
In comparison to its two largest competitors, American and United, Delta’s upgrade and award policies are the most restrictive and inflexible. Its system-wide upgrade certificates are only valid on tickets booked in Y, B and M class, and are not transferable. American’s upgrades can be used on just about any fare and gifted to other people. United’s certificates exclude only the lowest booking classes and can also be transferred.
In 2008, Delta devalued its miles by adding a third award tier, in an attempt to mask its very poor award availability at the lowest level. A year later, it devalued its elite status when it introduced a fourth tier, Diamond, on top of Silver, Gold and Platinum. If that’s not bad enough, Delta also charges some fees that are hard to justify, such as $50 for booking an award originating outside the United States.
The main reason frequent-flier programs exist is not to make customers happy, but to make money — and most of them do. I’ve never considered that a problem. A successful business deserves all the rewards it can get. My problem has been with the way airlines have been trying to make money through their so-called loyalty businesses. For decades, they have had an utterly peculiar philosophy, which can be best described at a “screw the customer” approach, which I explain with a misguided view of what the loyalty business is about.
Fortunately, a few airline executives recently saw the light, and things are starting to change. I’ve written several times about what Graham Atkinson did when he was president of United Mileage Plus for less than two years, beginning in the fall of 2008. He understood the essence of customer loyalty and showed that what’s good for the company doesn’t necessarily have to be bad for customers. While he wasn’t able to end StarNet blocking, he actually listened to customers and reversed decisions based on their feedback.
American’s AAdvantage program also has progressive leadership that rewards top fliers appropriately and has tried to make it easier for members to use their miles. There is still a lot to be desired, but it’s on the right track.
Delta, on the other hand, has been stuck in the 20th century. It seems it’s working hard to perfect the “screw the customer” approach.
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US Airways has denied recent suspicion that it has begun to block award seats made available by its Star Alliance partners for mileage redemption by members of its Dividend Miles program — a practice pioneered by United Airlines, which I first exposed in 2008.
The airline has been silent on the issue since reports about apparent blocking surfaced last fall. Many travelers said they found award inventory on various Star carriers, using one or more of the publicly available sources — the websites of All Nippon Airways, Continental Airlines and Air Canada — but US Airways agents were unable to see those available seats.
To some of us, that looked very much like StarNet blocking — manipulating the alliance’s award “middleware,” which provides access to any Star partner’s inventory on a first-come-first-served basis, to avoid paying other carriers for seats booked on their flights. The patterns resembled those on United, with the most filtering applied to Business and First Class cabins, though some fliers stumbled on coach seats as well. The most affected availability appeared to be on Lufthansa, but also on Swiss, United and others.
In addition, it made financial sense for US Airways to be limiting access to premium partner awards. In the last couple of years, it has in effect been printing miles with lightening speed, as a result of extraordinary promotions it has had, including selling miles at 100-percent bonus. Many Dividend Miles members bought miles and redeemed them for Business and First Class on partner flights, which likely weighed heavily on US Airways’ budget.
Several travel bloggers wrote about the issue, including Gary Leff on “View from the Wing” and Ben Schlappig on “One Mile at a Times.” Leff was more inclined to give the airline the benefit of the doubt, suggesting the problem might have been caused by technical glitches, as well as US Airways agents’ ignorance that some of their partners have First Class in addition to Business.
I’m not a big Dividend Miles fan, though I did help my sister buy miles for a trip to Europe with her family last summer, so it took me some time to look into the issue. I finally got around to it and alerted a US Airways contact at its Phoenix headquarters who has been very helpful in the past — Valerie Wunder, associate manager of media relations. She asked the powers that be and gave me the following response:
“We don’t block award inventory on other airlines, nor do we do the inverse — other Star partners block us from seeing their inventory to maximize their revenues.”
Probably the most frequent difficulty Dividend Miles members have been experiencing has to do with intercontinental First Class awards on Lufthansa, Swiss and others, so I asked Wunder if US Airways may be trying to restrict access to those specific seats.
“We have no restrictions on redemptions, regardless of class,” she said.
However, she offered no explanation for the problem. The mystery continues.
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There are so many travel-industry rankings at year’s end, it’s hard to keep track. It’s even harder to figure out which — if any — of them are credible and meaningful. Looking at some of the results, one has to wonder when some of the respondents last flew on the airlines and through the airports they assessed.
Rankings are usually administered by various magazines — one exception are the new Frequent Traveler Awards. In the last several years, I’ve made it a habit to look at the Global Traveler Magazine‘s so-called Tested Awards, most of which make sense. However, as I was reading this year’s results during a flight last week, I couldn’t help but gasp in astonishment at some of the results.
Many of the categories are certainly subjective, and different people’s experiences could easily be different. For example, the in-flight service on the same airline could vary depending on the cabin crew — or even your particular flight attendant.
Still, Lufthansa’s second place for best First Class is surprising. For comparison, Emirates is fifth, Korean Air sixth, and Singapore Airlines eighth. Seriously? Lufthansa is a great airline and it deserves to be in the top 10 — it came out fifth overall in the “Best Airline in the World” category.
But anyone who has flown in Lufthansa First Class in the last couple of years knows that its hard product lags behind most of its competitors. The most glaring example of that is the tiny TV screen. On the carrier’s Boeing 747 aircraft, First Class is on the upper deck, with 16 seats in a 2-2 configuration, which is the standard for Business Class on most other airlines operating the same aircraft type.
To its credit, Lufthansa has recognized the limits of its product and has undertaken steps to improve it. The above-mentioned 2-2 configuration is about to change to 1-1, which will no doubt disappoint some fliers because it will reduce the number of First Class seats by half, but eight seats is the industry standard and makes a lot of sense.
Lufthansa has finally come out with a new First Class seat on its Airbus 380 planes. Could it be that Global Traveler readers were evaluating those seats? No, because surveys were collected between January and August, and the first Airbus 380 didn’t enter service until late August.
There is one First Class feature on Lufthansa that beats all other airlines to the punch: its First Class Terminal in Frankfurt. But it’s used almost exclusively by Frankfurt-originating passengers, so it’s unlikely its weight in assessing the overall product was predominant for all survey respondents.
Lufthansa was also ranked fifth for best Business Class. Again, if you’ve had a chance to compare its hard product with other Business cabins, you’d probably disagree. One could argue that Lufthansa’s service is better than that of United Airlines, but United’s truly flat seats are among the best in the industry. Lufthansa made the short-sighted decision to install the old Business seats on the Airbus 380, but later announced it would roll out a new hard product next year.
United is the only U.S. carrier in the top 10 of any of the leading overall global categories, taking 10th place for best Business Class and best Business seat design, and fourth place for best First Class design. Its “new” hard product, which was first introduced three years ago, has so far been installed on less than 60 percent of its long-haul fleet.
Deservedly, Lufthansa is missing from the top 10 in any of the best-seat categories. But another perplexing presence in the best Business seat category — ahead of United — is South Korea’s Asiana Airlines. Not only are its current seats not truly flat, but they are less comfortable than comparable products on other carriers, such as Thai Airways. Asiana’s service is, of course, superb, but this is strictly a seat-related category.
In the best global airport category, another surprising result: in third place, Amsterdam has beat out Hong Kong and Munich. In North America, Atlanta came out ahead of San Francisco. Really?
Oh, and did you know that Delta Airlines has the best airport lounges in the world? That’s right, and Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines have been shut out of the top 10 completely. If that’s not madness, I don’t know what is.
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It’s one of the unavoidable realities of airline customer service that three agents will often give you three different answers to the same question. But I recently discovered a more rare phenomenon: Dozens of agents consistently doing something the wrong way. Was it lack of knowledge or deliberately ignoring the rules?
Before I continue, let me say that there are numerous superb airline agents to whom I’m grateful for unknowingly teaching me the ropes of the complex air travel system for years by satisfying my insatiable curiosity. I’ve also praised U.S. agents for handling rebooking during irregular operations better than their colleagues at foreign airlines.
As with any profession or company, all agents undergo various levels of training and professional development. It’s only human that they don’t remember everything they are taught, as long as they know where to find the answer when they need it. It’s also natural that different agents remember certain parts of the material better than others.
However, the examples of agents convinced they have the right answer when they don’t — and not bothering to check it — are more than I care to count. One of the most common is not knowing the rules of airport business lounge access, and turning away customers who have every right to be there. That happened to me last month in Phoenix, where an agent called a supervisor who agreed with her. Of course, I asked to speak with the supervisor, and when he arrived, all he had to do was read the rules taped on the agent’s desk — then he told me I was right.
Now that I know the system inside out and teach seminars about it — I’ve been told by reservations supervisors that I know much more than most of their agents — I’ve learned how to straighten out an ignorant agent politely and as patiently as time allows. Sometimes, if they are stubborn and I know they are wrong, I resort to one of my cardinal rules: Hang up and call again.
But it turns out there was something even I wasn’t aware of — because no agent I’ve dealt with has ever done it correctly.
In April, I wrote about the numerous airline schedule changes that significantly affect customers’ travel plans and waste them — as well as airline employees — considerable amount of time. One of the issues when a flight is taken off the schedule or you misconnect is what happens to your upgrade.
As regular readers of this column know, I mostly fly on United Airlines, because I’ve had top elite status (1K) for a decade. This year alone, I’ve had dozens of serious schedule changes that have necessitated rebooking and rerouting. If an upgrade has been previously confirmed, the United system automatically rebooks you in the upgraded class — the codes are NF for First Class and NC for Business — even if there is no upgrade space on your new flight.
This is all done by a computer, without human intervention. Very often, however, I don’t like the new routing the system has suggested, so I call reservations to get booked on more sensible flights. For years, agents have said, “We can put you on that flight, but you’d be waitlisted for the upgrade.” Not one, including supervisors, has ever offered to open up an upgrade seat, even when the cabin was completely empty.
Last week, I happened to look at the so-called Rule 260, which governs schedule changes, for a different purpose. I was surprised to read the following under “Protection guidelines” (SD refers to service director, the first supervisory level):
UPGRADED PSGRS AFFECTED BY A SCHEDULE CHANGE SHOULD BE PROTECTED IN THE UPGRADED CLASS IF AVAILABLE.
IF NF/NC IS NOT AVAILABLE — PROTECT CUSTOMER IN F/C IF AVAILABLE AND CONTACT SD FOR CONVERSION.
So as long as the airline is still selling revenue seats in the premium cabin, you are entitled to your upgrade, even if upgrade space is currently not available. In essence, a seat should be opened up for you, provided you had a confirmed upgrade on your original flight that was affected by the schedule change.
When I saw this rule, I called United to clear a waitlist I’d been put on after a schedule change a week earlier. The agent sounded unaware of the rule, but he found it on his computer, booked an F seat and called a service director to convert it to NF, as instructed in Rule 260.
Is it possible that no agent knew about this? Could it be that their training doesn’t cover this particular detail? If it does, are they told not to offer such protection to customers proactively?
When I asked those questions, I was told that agents should know the rule — and that a message was sent to the service director who had waitlisted me the week before to make sure she knows the right procedure.
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