One Mans Blog
Specialization is for Insects.
Posted on May 19, 2007 - 4:53am by John P. in Reviews, Travel
When I booked a flight on American Airlines to travel to San Francisco for my wife and myself for vacation in a couple of weeks, I had no idea the hassle I was signing up for.
I made the booking about 3 weeks ago directly on AA.com, and at the time I was certain that I had signed up for the 9:45am flight. Well, today as I was booking travel back and forth to D.C. for the next few weeks I decided to take a look at that old reservation because I’ll be traveling back from DC the night before we are scheduled to leave the next morning.
So, I opened the reservation to take a look only to discover that there is an error. The flight was supposed to be in the morning, but instead it’s listed in the evening!
Initially I was trying to figure out how this happened? I know there were multiple flights presented to me at the time and I was talking to my wife, and my brother and his fiance (who were on a Skype Video chat session) about what I was seeing and I’m certain I chose the morning flight so we could all meet in San Francisco at the same time. So what happened? As you can see from the attached image AA.com presents multiple groupings and you have to scroll up and down the page repeatedly to choose the ones you want.
So I decided to give AA a call to let them know what was going on and to get the issue rectified. I initially spoke with a guy who informed me politely that there was nothing he could do to help me other than to charge me a $100 change fee on each ticket, plus $175 more for the current price differential between what I paid for the existing flight and what the going rate is, which he claimed is $470 - on each ticket. This adds up to around $500 in “change fees”.
This shocked me and I told him I was going to have to think about it and then call back later.
After giving it some thought, and before calling back I took the liberty of checking the pricing online to better understand what was going on, as well as checking the current availability on each of the flights. It turns out that the pricing online for the tickets the agent claimed was $470 was only $420 online. In addition, there are at least 10 free seats available on the flight I need to be on.
I then called back in and asked the woman who answered to let me speak to a supervisor. She asked me to briefly describe the issue, which I did, and then informed me that no one there could take care of this problem and that I should talk to the AA.com technical support desk. She then hurriedly transferred me and upon arrival I was greeted with a recording stating that they were closed.
So I called back a third time, this time reaching an agent by the name of Gabe Martinez. I again immediately requested to speak to a manager, but he also made me relate the story once again. Gabe however took a very adversarial approach with me that only proved to make me angry. I felt his tone was rude, demeaning and accusatory and he made a point of stating that this was all my fault.
Finally after he got me quite angry I demanded a manager and he then came back with one. As he had me on hold I was wishing that I had recorded my conversation with him, so I pulled out my recorder and captured the discussion with the supervisor, Dee Mason in Tuscon.
If you choose not to listen to all 16 minutes of it I don’t blame you. Here are a few highlights:
Dee Mason:“First of all, the inventory you booked on the 28th of April is no longer available…”
John P.: “…your talking to me about inventory. And I’m a customer, and when I get on your airplane I only see two kinds of seats. I see the first class seats, and I see the other seats. So every seat on the plane looks identical to me.”John P.: “Can you see how someone might book online with the wrong AM/PM time frame accidentally?”
Dee Mason: “Well sure.”Dee Mason: “We really at this point see it … as a voluntary change, not as a mistake.”
Dee Mason: “When a passenger takes it upon them-self to become their own travel agent and uses AA.com or any booking source, then you’re responsible for the changes after that point. And just as a courtesy to passengers who use AA.com we instilled the 24 hour rule where you can give us a call back within 24 hours if you make an error it doesn’t matter, if you decide to make a change it’s OK, but as long as you call us within 24 hours to do so. But beyond that point it’s considered a voluntary change.”
Major issues I have with what happened:
The bottom line is:
I can’t wait till the Wright Amendment is fully abolished in Dallas and Southwest can start kicking AA’s ass. Maybe then they’ll remember what it means to actually care about their customer’s needs.
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John,
I made a reservation through AA’s on-line service and decided to reserve it for 24 hours because I wasn’t sure about it. The webpage stated that it would hold the seat and pricing. Yet, when I went back, within the alloted time, the price had gone from $495 to $534! I sent an email complaining, and got back an automatic reply stating that someone would review my complaint, and never heard from them again. This was about a week and a half ago. I am also very annoyed. And they wonder why people want to use Southwest.
Peggy,
That suck! On top of all of these issues AA is doing everything they can to erode the way we view their service. They don’t even hand out a bag of peanuts now, but they’ll sell you a bag of chips for $3!
They are overselling more flights than ever now, and a lot of flights seem to be delayed and 100% packed - and they won’t add more routes!
Add to all of that the fact that they’ve got a stranglehold on DFW and charge us more than similar flights from other cities and it makes for a distaste that runs deep. They are going to be very badly impacted when Wright is completely lifted, and in fact after all this crap occurred last night I booked a flight on Southwest to D.C even though I have to actually change planes in STL.
John
John,
AA’s customer service is terrible. This is the same reason why I would never go with AA. If Southwest is in Dallas, AA would certainly be out of the picture. KP and I have had to call into Southwest for issues like these before, changing flights, etc., their people have always been very helpful. This is another perk for living in Houston
So, after all this, I hope you’re still going to San Fran.
Jenny
You sounds like an intelligence person, you do recording of calls.. i am scared from you now
But i am really sorry to hear about all this trouble..
Any updates about your flight?
Jenny - Don’t worry… we’re still on for San Fran!
ROR Guy - You know, when you call American Airlines they tell you right up front that they are recording the calls, so I figured… if you’re going to record them, so will I!
I haven’t had time to actually decide how to handle the flight issue yet. I’m still pissed off about it since I discovered it just yesterday. But I’ll share an update whenever I make a decision about how to handle this…
John
What happened in the end? Did you pay extra charge fees or what?
That was an interesting conversation. Hats off for recording it!
I’m going to venture being stoned here, but I sympathize with the airline. They have a policy on flight changes after a given amount of time and (apparently) advertise this policy on their site.
However, considering that you’re a regular customer — I agree with you — that’s bad service. It’s really saddening when companies gets too “large” to care about the welfare of their individual customers.
Believe me, I understand the fact that they have a “policy” regarding this type of situation, but it is the policy that I take issue with.
The problem is that none of the other airlines would treat you this way, so comparatively this sucks.
John
My sister-in-law booked on AA for a 6:00 am flight from Minneapolis to Houston in order to take a cruise. At 2:00 am, she got a call at home from AA: the RECORDING announced the flight was cancelled for insufficient passengers. (Nice of them to wait until 2 am to tell her), and she was being rebooked on a 5 PM flight. I.e., miss the cruise. She tried to call AA, but of course, no one answered. I checked their website and found nothing about their policy re cancellations. Worse on the “customer relations” page THERE IS NO PHONE NUMBER FOR CUSTOMER RELATIONS!! They encourage folks to email, or fax their comments.
She was forced to buy an $800 ticket to get a flight out at 7 am that would get her to Houston in time for the cruise departure. My wife shouldn’t have had to bookbe online finding a flight for someone - that is American’s job.
Boo AA. Booooo.
I think that if you don’t check your email confirmation within 24 hrs to make sure you booked correctly, AA has every right to charge you the change fee. Sorry, but seats are a time-sensitive product so changes do affect the airline’s bottom line. Why can’t EVERYONE just call up and say whoops, I booked wrong. Please fix it. Yeah, Southwest has no penalties for changing flights, but you also have to be herded like cattle with no assigned seats… a real trade off.
Also, for the person who wrote that the price changed after holding the seats, “D’uh”, it states this very clearly… you’ve got the seats, but the price could and sometimes does go up. American Airlines is actually one of the better airlines at keeping customer informed.
Larry
I guess what impresses me the most about this thread are the number of people that “sympathise” with American Airlines. You people are the reason they are able to treat us this way (or you must be AA’s PR employees).
Seriously, think about it. We are talking about a company that posted over $400 million in profits in just the first half of 2007. This is the same company that has the worst on-time rate in the entire industry, has a major problem with overbooking, and has maintained a stranglehold on the people of Dallas for 20 years by supporting the patently criminal Wright Amendment to eliminate competition in this market from SouthWest.
Meanwhile the airlines are starting to charge $2 per bag for curbside checkin at many airports (not including tips), they are beginning to upsell the exit row seats for at least $15 per seat more, they are removing room between the rows to squeeze humans into undiginfied spaces, they are eliminating flights, and stranding customers for days when flights get canceled (because overbooking prevents putting them on the next flight).
If this were any other industry US consumers would be freaking out! So what are you people talking about “…well they’ve got a policy…”?!?
Oh, and by the way Larry - AA is horrible at keeping us informed. I could give so many instances of bad, bad service from them that it is pathetic. In fact, they gave me (when I hit Gold, and when I hit Platinum) about 20 of these special “coupons” to hand out when I experience excellent customer service and I’ve only ever given out one! And guess what, that was more or less a bribe to get a lady to help me get home after having 2 flights cancelled back to back and being stranded out of town for 3 days trying to get home. And believe me I want to give these things out. I’m the kind of person that really appreciates good customer service.
Oh, and they didn’t do jack for me when they cancelled two flights on me and stranded me out of town for 3 days equating to $750 more in hotel/car charges. But you think it’s OK that they then stick it to me for getting the AM and PM mixed up on a trip a couple of weeks later??? I can’t wait till something like this happens to you and then we’ll see if you feel the same way.
In summary, if all you look at is one little isolated policy and make a judgement that “well, that seems acceptable” then you’re missing the big picture. Every inch we collectively give is adding up to record profits for an industry that already has us by the balls. Flying now is an absolutely miserable experience as compared to any time in the past. The airlines use every excuse in the books (9/11, price of oil, etc.) to strip us of amenities, services, and even our dignity.
And what the hell are our politicians doing about it? Nothing. They probably get complimentary upgrades to first class and courteous service to keep them quiet.
John
PS - I own AA stock. So if you all enjoy getting reamed, it’s fine by me. I’m making money off of your tolerance.
I think that both the airlines rep and John P are to be commended for maintaining calm concise discussion. I do sympathize with the customer; I know I have made the same mistake when booking as well, but I caught it on the confirmation and changed it immediately at no charge.
The policy in this case seems wholly reasonable, I believe the customer should just take this as a learning experience to double check your flight confirmations EVERY time you book, otherwise, it may just happen again.
I also sympathize with the airline supervisor who likely has to deal with unhappy customers all day long. By the time the call goes to a supervisor, I’m sure that 95% of them are very unhappy customers. Sure, thats what supervisors get paid to do, but I have respect for that because but its a job I could never handle.(dealing with irate customers all day)
I think its unreasonable to expect supervisors to just ‘fix it’ every time a customer has a problem. I know if I were the first agent on the call, and tasked with sticking to the airline policies, it would be frustrating to explain the policies every time, and then the customer just asks for a supervisor who in effect tells the customer that the policy doesn’t matter and won’t be followed. As a company, either you should either have a policy or not have one, rather than have a policy that customers can routinely get around.
Once again, I commend both parties for maintaining calm discussion, something that there is a clear lack of (from both customers AND employees) in the air travel industry these days.
AA sucks anyway you look at it. There is absolutely nothing good about this line whatsoever. Something really stinks in the air…
There are so many airline horror stories, I think all airlines must have to be bad to get an aviation license…
Here in Philippines we have a recent upcomer: Cebu Pacific… They have grown way too fast for their own good resulting is massive delays and horrible service.
My driver missed last checkin time by 5 minutes on our last flight and was denied checkin… EVEN though the plane was 2 hours DELAYED and the rest of us just sat on the other side of the glass dividing checkin and waiting area for 2 more hours… So plenty of time…
Another example is a friend of mine here, he booked a flight with Cebu Pacific from Philippines to Singapore… He cleared Immigration and customs and after waiting forever in the waiting area the flight was cancelled… Now this can of course happen for several valid reasons… But all passengers were now stranded after clearing immigration, nobody could give them proper information and they were told to leave the airport for the night.
No immigration personnel left in the airport to stamp them back in to the country, so the whole flight was going back in to the Philippines illegally. In this country it is extremely important to have an entry stamp and an exit stamp for each visit. Of course provisions were taken to make sure they got back in to the airport the next day, but how about the passengers who now did not need the flight because they missed whatever they were going to? Or passengers getting ill overnight and not being able to get back on that flight… I can see a lot of people trying to bribe immigration officers to get a new entry stamp…
Just another sample of horrible airline service….
Anyways, what happneed? did you end up paying?
Kim:)
American airlines is just getting out of hand. I’ve flown with them most of my life, and the service is just getting worse. Then they start charging money for bags? It’s just unreal. On a recent trip to San Francisco, my family and I chose to fly with Southwest for a change.
Midway Airport is a whole different atmosphere than O’Hare. It was small, not too busy, and very easy to get to and from your gate. Grant it, 4 1/2 hours on a tight Boeing 737 is a little tough, but for $250 roundtrip, I’ll do it anytime.
John…you should really try it!