Customer Service and American Airlines - NOT AGAIN!!!

Just when you think you may be out of the woods???

I can't believe it... Let me get this straight, you call support to have them help you right? So here I am, back on the phone with American Airlines - who, I think I have it figured out now. You need to go to aa.com support when dealing with the internet. Anyway, I have been trying to book a flight on line for about 20 minutes. I am redeeming miles but I still have the pay the $60 fee for god knows what. When I get to the page to "purchase" the ticket, there is no "purchase" button. Instead is tells me if I am from a foreign country or based outside the US that I have to "hold" the ticket. I do so, figuring I can then go in an purchase my ticket via another screen. I search for another 20 minutes and cannot figure out how to "purchase" my ticket, so yes, you guessed it, I call support. After speaking with them for 30 minutes and them telling me that they are logged in as me and they do see a "purchase" button, yet I don't. I walk through the process of telling them how I created my ticket and the "foreign country" disclaimer at the bottom and they tell me that this may be an issue. They proceed to tell me that the system shows that I have changed my address to Afghanistan and then ask if I am not in the country. I tell them that I am in the country and I have never tried to change my address so I am unclear why this would be the case. (Keep in mind, I have had issues buying tickets over the web now for over a year.) They still can't understand why I can't purchase tickets, but they can for me. I reiterate to them that I have already kept them on the phone for more time than the $5 they are going to charge me for this ticket and if they insist on charging me because the issue "has nothing to do with them" as it is "my server serving up this page" (not sure where they get their technician but this is humorous to me, that I will keep them on the phone for at least $10 more worth of time. They proceed to put me on hold for 30 minutes and "claim" they test this on 5 different computers and it works with my login. They also decided to give me the: "Oh, you need to reboot" "Oh, you need to change your Internet Explorer settings" "Oh, you need to use IE because Firefox isn't supported" You know, all the things, non-technical people tell you to do when trying solve an issue where they can't figure it out. None of these worked. So, while I was on hold, I went to check my profile. Sure enough they had me as being located in Brookline, MA Afghanistan. I changed it to USA, relogged in and went to my itinerary and sure enough I could "purchase" my ticket. As I have always said, its not necessarily about the poor service, but the fact that the poor service takes 1 hour away from my day of being productive...

Will this be the last time???

Customer Service and American Airlines - Tripple Play

Okay, it happened.

In my last rant about American Airlines I had to bash Northwest for screwing up a few years ago trying to get me home to San Jose, CA from Atlanta.Today I have a beef with US Air. Only three days after American Airlines rips the door off my plane, I am now experiencing the worst customer service I have seen in any industry. Apparently, some folks in the airport in Philadelphia, traveling on US Air headed to Florida were told to go to “gate 21” and talk to the ticket agent about what to do in order to get on the proper flight to Florida. Gate 21 also happened to be the gate I was boarding on to head back to Boston. These folks waited in line for over 20 minutes. When they reached the counter the gate agent barked at them “Don’t you listen, we are boarding for Boston. When we get done this process, in the next half hour, we may be able to help you.” To which the passengers were shocked. Then one lady pipes up, “Okay then, why did they tell us to come to this gate for help then? ” Well, the gate agent lifts her head up, looks her in the eye and says, “How the hell should I know lady!” “You know what, if you really want help, go to the US Air Service Desk near gate 25 and get out of the way!” I was shocked.

The group of passengers left and then the gate agent decides to speak to her colleague in a voice loud enough for everyone in the lounge to hear, “Well, I guess I am just a person on the street now.” “Don’t people understand we are tying to do a job here.” And then had more negative things to say about her job and the people (who fly and pay her salary).Well, there you have it. Three big name airlines, all with just incredible stories of bad service. So I guess in my earlier rants I should have been a little more easy on American Airlines, they all suck.

Now it is time to try some of these new air lines that are independently owned and operated and seem to be having some success. I know Jet Blue and Southwest will get my money on my next trip. I only hope they do better than the big guys.

Customer Service and American Airlines - Take 2

Why Can’t American Airlines Get it Right?

Okay, so I am new at this whole “blogging” thing, so I don’t know if it appropriate to append my last blog about American Airlines or begin a new one. I guess, since this is like a journal, I will just start a new one…

So, here it is, a continuation of my last rant about American Airlines…

First, I have to say that in order for any company to provide good customer support one of the main characteristics is to be consistent. What do I mean by this? I mean that in my last rant I discussed the fact that my wife and I had decided to consolidate our clothes into one piece of luggage. Doing so made our luggage weigh 7 lbs more that the allotted weight. Even though we were two travelers (allowed to carry 100 lbs combined) carrying only 57 lbs, we were required to pay $25 each way for the “heavier” bag. Now, like I said in the last rant, I didn’t get the memo, but if this is the new policy, then I will remember this going forward and pack appropriately.

Here is my issue. I am in line today in Orlando and a passenger throws his bag on the scales and what do you know, it comes to 57 lbs. Now I am standing back just waiting to see what is going to happen when they tell him that he has pay for the heavier bag. I wait, patiently, waiting, and the passenger walks off with his ticket and a smile. I am dumbfounded, so I have to ask the passenger if they charged him extra for his bag? He looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. Okay, so there is my answer, no he was not charged. I was, of course, irate, but hey, what could I do.

I will tell you what American can do, they can be consistent in the processes so when I see stuff like this, it doesn’t want to make me jump out of my skin.

Next up on the block, oh and you all are going to love this. I am in Boston getting ready to head south to Orlando. Everything is going well, we are loading up fine, we are on time and are ready to go… We think. I hear the door at the front of the aircraft close and I can feel the “tug” locking up to our wheel in order to push us back. At the same time this is happening, the gate agent decides that we should let one more person on our plane and the front door to the aircraft opens. As it does, a passenger walks onto the plane and just moments later, the plane begins to push back, with the door still open. The next thing we hear is a loud crash and a violent jerk of the aircraft which sends the flight attendant at the front of the aircraft into the middle of the first class section.

Upon inspection, the door hit the jet bridge and both were damaged pretty bad. Additionally, neither could move. If the jet bridge moved, the plane would jerk around too much with the passengers on it and they felt that wasn’t safe. If they moved the plane they would damage the door even more and drag the jet bridge and ruin that as well. What a conundrum.

The guy in the isle seat across from me says, well, looks like we not going to Orlando on this plane today.

Sure enough, just 55 minutes later, we are disembarking from the aircraft via a moving stair case at the door just behind first class (bummer, I really wanted to try out the slide – which I was informed later that evening at a bar, in Orlando, that every time people disembark from a full aircraft, 4 people end up injured). We were shuttled, without notice of what to do for instructions, back into the terminal to wait.

There was a stewardess on the plane stating that “… if we were in Dallas or Chicago where there are typically extra planes, then we could probably get out tonight, but they don’t have extra planes in Boston so we will probably not be going anywhere…”

She must have really believed this because, a couple of hours later, American did find a plane and our 2:30 flight was ready at 4:00 ready with pilots at a new gate. The only issue was, we had to wait almost 50 minutes for the flight crew to show up so we could board the plane and take off to Orlando. Wow, another fiasco. I got to know, how in the world does American rip a door off its plane prior to take off. With all the safety we passengers deal with these days, this shouldn’t happen.

Now, here I am getting ready to return to Boston. At the check-in counter I ask the person checking me in if I can have the bulkhead row. She say, “I will put you on the list, however, these seats are reserved for the gate agent to give out.” Again, I missed the memo. This has never happened to me. If the seats are free, they give them out. I say, with a smile, okay and proceed to the gate. I get to the gate, I wait for the gate agent to show up, a line has formed and I am second or third in line. I get to the counter and tell the gate agent I would like to see if the bulkhead row is available. The woman says to me, “Oh, I wish you would have been up here earlier, I just gave those seats to another couple.” I asked, “Did you see that I was on the ‘list’ for these seats?” The gate agent checks again to see that she didn’t look to see that there was a “list” for the seats and said she forgot and apologized but there was nothing she could do.
This reminds me of a Sinfield episode. “See, they are able to take the reservation, but they can’t keep the reservation. So what is the point?”

A few years ago I had ONE issue with another carrier I few frequently, Northwest. I wont go into the details of the issue, but they made a stupid mistake that cost me an overnight layover in MN on my way from Atlanta, GA to San Jose, CA. I wrote them a letter and said, I don’t want frequent flyer miles as “pay back” for your mistake. I want an apology in writing and wanted to know what they were going to do about the TIME they took away from me being with my family?

I got 5000 miles… Another good thing for customer service, listen to reasonable requests from your customers and accommodate them as long as the request isn’t out of this world. I was even letting them come up with how they were going to pay me back. You know, a free trip with my spouse anywhere in the continental US to make up for the time I lost with her would have been nice. Nope, 1/5 of a free trip is what I got.

This makes me want to start a list of what I would like in return for me being a loyal customer and dealing with their inconsistencies and hassles I have had to deal with this year.
I would like to be an Executive Platinum member for life. (I have been Platinum in the past and was for about four years running at one point.) I am a Gold member now.

I would like a life time member to the Admirals Club. Quite frankly I don’t know what all the allure is. I mean once you are back there you still have to pay for food and drinks.
I would like two round trip tickets to anywhere American flies – first class with no restrictions for my wife and I to take a vacation.

I am sure as more issues keep happening, I will want more. The question is, when do I give up and start flying another airline? How long will I put up with this? I am nervous that if I switch, the experience will be the same as this is probably and industry thing (but at least with another airline my expectations will be lower). Or, I switch and everything is way better and I have no more funny stories to tell. Well, perhaps I could tell stories of how everything went well. Nah, that would be no fun.

Funny thing is, I can’t send these rants to American. I have tried. I still get timeout errors on their web support site and to top it off, when I can get to the screen where they let you enter your complaint; I can only type in 500 words. Not nearly enough to describe all their screw ups.

Customer Service and American Airlines

This whole rant starts with lost bags in Peru... Now if you have ever traveled to a 3rd world country you know the trip getting there is a journey. My wife and I left on Christmas day and headed to Peru with a connection in Miami. We left on time, but for whatever reason, we had to sprint to make our connection which left us without our baggage when we landed in Peru. All we wanted to do was land, get our bags, get to the hotel and shower and sleep. But noooooo.... we have to wait in line with all the other Boston to Miami customers who were missing bags, explain in English to Spanish employees at American all the details on their report such that we could get our bags at some point. I thought they were required to give you at least an hour and a half on international connections? What is up with that? The next issue came about 18 days later. My wife and I brought her niece and nephew back to the states with us from Peru. They were then going to go home with my wife's mom who goes to Peru every year. They all speak Spanish and get a little nervous when it comes to traveling. I brought my mother-in-law and the kids to the airport to see them on their way. I remember a few years ago, I had seen a small child traveling and his mom had asked for a "pass" to walk the child down to his gate and the lady behind the airline counter gave the woman a "pass" to go through security and make sure the child (12 yrs. old) got on the plane okay. I decided to try to use this to help my mother-in-law, the children and all their carry on bags for the long journey. The woman at the American Airlines counter in Boston wouldn't give me a pass to walk them to the gate. Well, sure enough, 4 hours later I got a call from my mother-in-law saying that "...they were unable to get on the plane." The reason, they didn't have seats together, so in an effort by my mother-in-law to get them together on the plane, she gave the gate agent her tickets and was asked to sit down and wait. She, not knowing, didn't realize, as the plane was boarding and she didn't have her tickets, to approach the gate agent. They shut the door and their they sat. Of course my mother-in-law was very upset and made a stink. Well, now due to inclement weather, they were unable to get out for 3 more days. Poor customer service on their part cost to them, 3 round trip international tickets plus food and this blog about how bad American Airlines customer service is and is getting. Next, it is now April and my wife and I are going to travel to Phoenix. My wife and I love to travel and making it as easy as possible is kind of a challenge for us. This trip we decide to bring a small carry on each for personal items and one bag for our clothes (to check) to save space and make it easier for us. The bag was 7 pounds over the 50 lb limit and so they charged us $25, each way. But we only brought one bag, doesn't anyone see the irony with this? I don't get it. How about a $25 reimbursement (each way) for making the baggage handling easier for them? And to top it off, the guy behind the desk was rude when I tried to ask, "Why again is there a charge?", "When were we notified that this was taking effect?" I mean, I am a Gold traveler (have been Platinum) with American and I didn't get the memo. Lastly, and this is the real killer. This past weekend my wife gets an e-vite for a friend who is having a wedding in Corpus Christie, Texas in July. So, me being the tech savvy shopper, I hop on the internet (Memorial weekend) to try to take advantage of the 125,000 frequent flyer miles I have with American to book our free flight. As I am trying to book my reservations, I am trying to get to the screen that lists the available flights on the give date that I want to travel and I keep getting a message that says "Request Timed Out". This only means one thing; their servers are swamped on this holiday weekend. On top of that, they tell me when I call to try to book my tickets that if I don't use the internet, that it will cost me $5 per ticket. So, I finally get through and I am in the process of booking my tickets when I tell the woman that I am not going to pay the $5 per ticket because I tried to use the internet, yet their site cannot handle my request. The woman proceeds to tell me that she is sorry and has to transfer met to "Technical Support" then in order to try to understand the problem but she is not authorized to wave the $5. I ask to speak to her supervisor and after another 10 minutes of explaining, she too tells me that she cannot wave the $5 and I have to talk to Technical Support. I say, "okay, but only under one condition, that they can fix my internet issue and wave the $5." They say, they can, so I let them transfer me. After working with the technician for about 20 minutes, I have had it. She starts going to the ...I am not an technically savvy person so I will start asking dumb questions sheet... just to bug me. She starts to ask questions such as, am I using a wireless device. I tell her that I have made hundreds of reservations sitting in this exact same spot, with the exact same computer with the same damn IP address (yes, that is right, I said IP address, I am a technical person) and that being on a wireless device doesn't matter. I then ask to speak to her supervisor to which she tells me that they can't do that but one can call me back in an hour. I get a call back in one hour from someone who starts asking all the same questions. I tell the manager that American needs to start at this moment providing good customer service, forego the 10 bucks, make my reservation and move on. The woman says okay, but since she can access the internet (mind you in the same building where the datacenter is) she can't wave the $10. I give up and say "fine", lets just book the flight. I tell her that not waving the $10 is going to cost her a letter to the travel editor at the Boston Globe, NY Times and anyone else that will listen and she doesn't seem to care. Now I am in the process of booking my tickets when she tells me, she can get me to Corpus Christie on the day I want to go, but can't get me home until 3 days after I need to come home using frequent flyer miles, unless that is, of course, I want to use 50,000 miles per trip... You have to be kidding me..... all that for this? Now, this last part I believe is becoming a larger issue. The Airlines can't afford to give up any free seats these days so they are screwing their customers by saying they don't have seats when in fact they just can't give as many away. It's too bad really.