61–70 of 133 posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_largest_airlines Notice that a search for "Virgin" on this page yields zero results. Being the David and being the Goliath involve completely different strategies. *edit: HN trims the apostrophe from "World's". Manually add it if you want to visit the page.
...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks. Then don't. Ever. Here's why: It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time. You also complained about customer…
Guess what industry is even more regulated, rule-bound, complex than the airline industry? Banking and payments. A startup already has a high hurdles related to people being conservative with their money; being an iconoclast isn't exactly what people want when it comes to a finance manager.
Here's what they should do. You miss your first leg, they send you an email/text/call saying, "Hey you missed your first leg. As you know our policy is that you must fly all legs. To fly the second leg, please pay $XYZ".
And $XYZ is maximum arbitrage opportunity that existed for the flight (you can also be more generous and just do it for the time the flight was booked). If there was no arbitrage opportunity there is no cost, but then the query is just to see if you're coming to the next leg, otherwise they can use the seat.
This would solve the issue the airlines have with people gaming their game. And solves the issue that less regular flyers have with getting caught off guard. And I bet a good amount of the time $XYZ is $0 or very low.
I am so starving. http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-am-so-starving-vs-i-am-so... We get it, flying is frustrating. Sometimes you have to wait four hours in an airport. Sometimes, the airlines don't treat you like the important person you are convinced you are. Write your rant, and delete it. Just don't publish it under the color of "advice", it makes you look like a whiney little kid.
Actually, I don't find flying particularly frustrating. Waiting on the runway, getting kicked off my flight because it's overbooked, getting stuck in the airport - it goes with the territory, and I am okay with that. My grudge with United (and subsequent love affair with Virgin) was about the way they treat their customers.
We're so used to being treated like crap that we take it for granted and accept it.
If you have six widget, and you sell seven, you have to give the 7th a refund, otherwise it's fraud.
When an airline has six seats and sells 8, the extra two buyers get the shaft, and that's ok?
When I miss a flight I stand in line waiting for someone to help me.
Every single time, I'm shocked at how rude the people ahead of me in line are. They've missed their flights, and they're being rude to the United rep.
I'm really not surprised when I read stories of horrific customer services any more. I know how rude people are, and they often deserve how unaccommodating customer services may be.
Be nice. Or even, just don't be rude, and you'll get good customer service and they'll do all sorts of awesome stuff for you.
If you would like the European equivalent of this customer experience, I warmly recommend you try out Air France. If you want even worse, try Ryanair. They actually pride themselves on treating their customers like cattle, dumb-ass sheep to be fleeced at every opportunity.
http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-half-year-profits-ris...
Looks like they've found a formula that works for them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main reason is really to try to maintain their market segmentation by prohibiting people from buying tickets other than exactly the ones they choose to fly. If they allowed this, it'd be impossible for them to charge more for one-way tickets than round-trip tickets, as many airlines do. Other prohibited things include: buying a one-stop "A->B->C" ticket and then getting off in B, because you really wanted to go A…
Getting in trouble for interlocking round trips is exceedingly rare, and you can always just book on multiple carriers. Burning the return leg of a roundtrip is usually also totally penalty free. Getting off at a stopover is much more borderline, and it's almost impossible to get your luggage checked only to the stopover destination.
...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks. Then don't. Ever. Here's why: It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time. You also complained about customer…
this blog is completely justified, and it shows that wepay stands behind its commitment of customer service. you know they won't screw up customer service because 1) they blogged expressing dissatisfaction against bad customer service, 2) people will start calling them "UnitedPay.com" as soon as their customer service slips.
...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks. Then don't. Ever. Here's why: It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years. You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time. You also complained about customer…
Really? This is the first time I've ever heard this.
> But your mistake was using your company blog, unintentionally transferring your ineptness to your company
I think it makes WePay seem human. Furthermore, whether or not it's true, this blog post makes me feel like WePay is saying 'we value our customers; we will never treat you like UAL does, and we will try to act as much like Zappos or Virgin as possible.'
I'm curious if he's ever flown much before. Missing the first leg of a discount coach r/t canceling the entire reservation has been standard since at least 1980. Yes, their online systems should be better at explaining what happens once you've missed a flight, but fundamentally the web apps for airlines are dirty hacks layered on top of mainframe systems, and don't handle exceptions particularly well. Airline pricing…
I think the system specifically told him that his flight was okay; he got the advance check in. To me, that's more of a flat out lie than a bad job of explaining the situation. I guess what I'm trying to say is, the sentence I quoted should say "do a job at explaining", not a "better" job.