381–390 of 433 posts
One might argue that having such a list constitutes bad faith. 1) It's dishonest to not inform your customers that they are to be systematically treated differently based on a secretly kept score. 2) Such a score kept changes the relationship between parties after a contract has been established, thereby negating value of the contract. Given that good faith requires honesty, such a thing should be regarded as unethic…
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Absolutely not. Not ever. Their service is fine, but the last thing I want to do is have to pay extra or race to checkin at the exact right time to get the right boarding group to stand in the right place to fight for a seat. I want my seat to be there, waiting for me, when I feel like getting on the plane. I don't even go to movie theaters that force me to have seat anxiety. I'm sure not gonna do it on an airline.
You prefer climbing over people and/or being climbed over? I like assigned seats, too, but they make me time anxious.
These days, I just don't fly unless I absolutely have to.
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Unless you live in the EU apparently. Not that I think it's right.
It's not really a right. It's a law that someone "can't". There really is a big difference. I'm not saying it's wrong, but the deliberate abuse of terminology undermines the discussion of real rights.
The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…
Tangent: Are there other people here who just refuse to sign up for any of these programs? I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction. I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, s…
I don't bother with the rewards programs I'd hardly use or with rewards programs which have "burned" me in the past.
Example 1: If I don't go to your movie theatre chain very often, I'm not signing up for your "CineGreat Program" or whatever you call yours this year. I'm also not a Frequent Flyer -- and airlines buy and sell each other in and out of bankruptcy so often that who knows that rats nest of points anyway on top of that. But the grocery store I shop at regularly down the street? Sure thing sign me up.
Example 2: AAA hotel discounts might be nice, but when you can't help me on the side of the road at midnight when that was the exact reason why I signed up then you can nevermind that renewal for the rest of my life.
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> letting everyone check two bags for “free” is a cost drag on everyone Not necessarily. More checked bags -> fewer carry-ons -> faster boarding as people aren't trying to cram their bags into the overhead and giving up and gate-checking -> shorter turnaround time -> higher aircraft utilization, cheaper airport fees -> cheaper tickets
> faster boarding as people aren't trying to cram their bags Checking and loading baggage takes way longer, not to mention the unloading and waiting at the other end.
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You're not wrong, but I feel like they're chasing diminishing returns. Every other segment of the economy has shown us that people are willing to pay a premium (20%? 50%?) to be treated like a human and get a better service/product. On airlines, you have to pay 100% more just to get a refundable fare. 300% for premium economy (a slightly wider seat with slightly more legroom). 500% for business class. It's insane, an…
The price differences are not as stark as you say. Business class in particular has gotten quite cheap these days. In the past few months, I flew round-trip California to Beijing 3 times for $1,900 in business class. That's affordable to many people, and quite reasonable. There are a lot of perks even when you don't get an upgrade. The intangibles (being taken care of when issues arise — I've received amazing service…
Domestically, business is usually 3x. I just booked my first ever paid-for-with-real-money business class domestic flight SFO-CLE for thanksgiving; it's not that it's cheap, it's just that thanksgiving demand drove coach fares up so much that business starts to look reasonable -- 1500 vs 750.
The perks are invaluable? No, I think they can be valued, and I don't think hardly anyone paying their own dollars values them at even the price the airlines ask for, let alone infinite.
My friends who travel to China on company business brag about "only" paying $3000 of company money for Business because they have such discounted fares through their employer, where it would normally cost $5k. $1900 is virtually unheard of, congrats to you, but it's far from normal.
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Absolutely not. Not ever. Their service is fine, but the last thing I want to do is have to pay extra or race to checkin at the exact right time to get the right boarding group to stand in the right place to fight for a seat. I want my seat to be there, waiting for me, when I feel like getting on the plane. I don't even go to movie theaters that force me to have seat anxiety. I'm sure not gonna do it on an airline.
You prefer climbing over people and/or being climbed over? I like assigned seats, too, but they make me time anxious.
I wouldn't worry about it so much if you can help it; I think it's just normal to have to get in to a window seat. If it bothers you, perhaps select the aisle and comfort yourself that you're being nice by boarding last :)
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>I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, I suppose it depends on the business but at my Fortune 50 we're required to use "lowest logical airfare". You can force a choice of Southwest over United by choosing one airport over another, and there's enough wiggle room to let…
What? There’s a whole cottage industry of helping business travelers accumulate miles and award tiers. And the vast majority of heavy business travelers are just rank and file employees. It’s definitely not only highly placed executives.
I had 3 trips from North America to South America in the space of a year for recruiting, hiring and training and it nudged me into United's bottom tier, Silver. One more trip might have pushed me into Gold. Considering there's three tiers above that when you include 1K and Global Services and you can see other than possibly boarding in Group 2 there's not much point in the frequent flyer program. I requested upgrade on a flight from SFO to IAH recently just to see what would happen. I was something like number 58 on a 70+ person list. Again - all just anecdata.
Could someone jumpstart the process by getting some status tier via credit card? No doubt. Can they push it further using mileage runs? Of course! There's a flyertalk forum dedicated to it. But airlines are on to those shenanigans and the days of mileage running yourself into top tier status without a great deal of effort including getting one's employer to book flights that aren't the bottom-most fare classes as those yield the least in rewards. In fact there is at least one fare class (N) that gives no mileage or points at all.
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Once you get a real person, the word "chargeback" also can sometimes get them onto a different track.
I once said 'freedom of information' on a call with my bank, and magically all the insurmountable problems went away and I got a call back (a real call back!) within minutes.
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Also: does anyone see these programs and think wow, this airline UX is so awful I want to show them my loyalty so that eventually they'll stop trying so hard to make me unhappy? I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, where this decision costs the shareholders a little b…
>I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, I suppose it depends on the business but at my Fortune 50 we're required to use "lowest logical airfare". You can force a choice of Southwest over United by choosing one airport over another, and there's enough wiggle room to let…