Airline Heaven?

So in yesterday's post I ranted and bitched and moaned about how impossible United Airlines was to deal with to make reservations, right?

Well guess what - it seems they would rather not have you do business with them. After all, if you don't fly with them, they don't have to go to all that trouble of getting a plane to the gate, and cleaning, and all that other nuisance stuff.

I got into work yesterday. About thirty minutes later the woman who asked me to make the reservations said things had changed. There's a new call on her time so she can't make the trip after all. She was very apologetic, because she had heard about my nightmare on Thursday, but I said, honestly, 'don't worry about it'. After all, it is part of my job, one of the reasons it's called 'work'. So I will do whatever it takes.

Because the tickets were non-refundable, that was the first call I made, to make sure I was in the twenty-four hour window. What a world of difference between trying to make the reservations and cancelling them!

On Thursday, three flight reservations literally took all afternoon. From about 1:30 pm local time to just before 5:00 pm local time. Phone calls, waiting on hold - it was a nightmare.

Today, I called the 800 number. At the end of it I was dazed and confused. What is wrong with this picture?

I called. I told the automated system I wanted to cancel. The hardest part was getting the ruddy thing to recognize the name of the passengers. I got through that, after a bit of a fight. From there, the entire rest of the process took about ten minutes. Only ten minutes to cancel v. almost four hours to make.

What does that say about United Airlines? I'll let you mull that over.

Hotel was a breeze. Went online to the reservation portal and wham-bam-thank-ya ma'am I was done. All three took less than five minutes, and I got immediate e-mail confirmation that the rooms have been canceled.

Called the rental car company. I ended up in India speaking to a man whose accent was so thick I could hardly understand him. I asked him to repeat his name twice but no joy. Whatever. He assured me the reservation is cancelled and since I didn't use a credit card to hold it, it doesn't really matter, anyway. It was a courtesy. That one took about five minutes.

So, start to finish, the hotel and the car agency took a total of about twenty minutes to reserve and cancel - it was easy as could be.

Now, back to United. What is it with them? They make it almost impossible to make reservations but happily cancel the ones you make? Where is the profit in that?

I'm debating sending a note to their SVP of Customers, just to let her know how messed up their system is. Then again, do I think she'll care? Nah, probably not.

And I've decided that when the time comes for my bucket trip, I am not going to fly any of the domestic airlines. From SFO I can easily take one of the other airlines - Lufthansa, Swiss Air, Air France, British Airways, Virgin. Any one of those has got to be better than United.

Oh - and as for the reason why making flight reservations is just next door to impossible and why cancelling is the easiest thing since falling? My hubby posits that it's because there are so many people lining up to make flights that the airlines don't care about incoming passengers. After all, if the flight isn't sold out or close to being sold out, they'll just cancel it. And I think that might be right...

Hope your flying time is easy and safe!

Best~
Philippa

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