Dancing With The Airlines...

[DandyDon]

Get the USAir FF account and miles so you can combine them later: American Airlines, US Airways Merger In Works; Unions To Support Deal: Report [CORRECTION] I dislike AA so much that I have over 30,000 FF-miles with them I've accumulated when I needed to, that I don't want to use.

Delta used to be my only airline, but they left west Texas, and now have only some really crappy connections from Lubbock to Memphis to Atlanta to wherever I really want to go. I've got 4 Million Mile status with them doing nothing for me, and 5 worthless tickets in miles. Then I like Continental for years, until they merged United. Now they are crazy! Looks like I'll earn more AA miles going to Coz, but yeah - they jerk you around on time changes.

I'll never book another trip through one of those travel companies like Orbitz or Expedia. Nothing but problems for my husband and me trying to leave for our honeymoon. We ended up canceling our trip and booking directly through the resort. It was $400 cheaper (even last minute), but we still ended up paying $600 in fees to cancel (no fault of our own...our passports got lost in the mail).

There are a lot of details to watch for sure. I book thru Orbitz, then contact the airline to fix my seat assignment and email & text notifications - then watch closely as I don't trust any of them. I also confirm arrangements with the booked hotel early and often.

 

[robint]

I took your dare, went to usairways.com and clicked on Contact Us to reveal a host of 800 numbers. It took all of 5 seconds to prove you wrong. You can try it too:

US Airways | Phone/email

(Not that I'm a fan of US Air by any means. They have no entertainment on 5-hour transcon flights and their flight attendants can be so surly one of them threatened to have me arrested on one flight. But they do have a phone number.)

It does look like ONE of those numbers is for Reservations, the other numbers are hotels, rental cars, or paging, etc. I didn't call the Reservations number, but i would guess it is a recording. I had that problem recently with a stupid bank... only a recorded message, no human to be found or way to leave a message.

 

[azscubadude]

I took your dare, went to usairways.com and clicked on Contact Us to reveal a host of 800 numbers. It took all of 5 seconds to prove you wrong. You can try it too:

US Airways | Phone/email

Sorry, but you are totally wrong. Here are your numbers, not a Customer Service / Relations number anywhere.

Here is their Customers Service / Relations web page, not a number anywhere, just a Fax number and U.S. Mail address. I would suggest you not be in such a hurry to chastise someone that was trying to help you.

You can choose to believe me or not, that is your choice, but from experience I know what I am talking about.

You wasted 5 seconds (and bragged about it), my 3 weeks of chasing them around for a cancelled flight that left me standing at the airport and almost $600.00 worth of lost hotel and convention reservations knows a lot more about it than you do my friend !!!

OH, they did offer to compensate me for all my problems and hundreds of dollars in lost reservations.. almost 3 weeks after the fact (and in an email) they offered 1000 flight miles for all my troubles (on their worthless airline). I told them to shove it !!

ps.. don't believe their promise to respond to your letter or email in 3-4 days, it is not only a JOKE but doesn't do you much good if you are standing at an airport with NO flight !!!

 

[Mossman]

It does look like ONE of those numbers is for Reservations, the other numbers are hotels, rental cars, or paging, etc. I didn't call the Reservations number, but i would guess it is a recording. I had that problem recently with a stupid bank... only a recorded message, no human to be found or way to leave a message.

OK, I did call it. Pressed 0 to bypass all the recorded BS. In less than a minute from the time I dialed, a real person came on the line, "Hi this is Marsha, how can I help you". I embarassingly told her I had the wrong number and hung up.

Sorry, but the best way to disprove a spurious claim is to test it. I did. Claim is proven false. US Air not only has a toll-free number but you can actually speak with a real person in less than a minute.

Their airport clubs suck (I got a voucher for 2 free drinks because I was a CO member, but otherwise you have to pay for anything more than beer). And I still think their FAs are surly. But I can't fault their customer service. The only time I ever got a real person on the line that quick with CO was back when I was a platinum.

---------- Post added April 20th, 2012 at 08:58 AM ----------

Sorry, but you are totally wrong. Here are your numbers, not a Customer Service / Relations number anywhere.

I managed to speak with a real person in the less than a minute. Call the reservations number. Duh!

(Edited in case that sounded harsh. Reservations is the line that deals with "new" reservations and "existing" reservations. When you call reservations about an existing reservation and talk to a real person, you are basically dealing with customer service/relations since you are talking to a real person about your existing reservation. Duh!)

 

[WOODMAN]

Airlines reschedule flights all the time, sometimes to the inconvenience of their passengers. This is nothing new. But to the OP: I would definitely write a letter to demand the miles you would have received on your original flight. The customer service rep has no control over that, but they're pretty liberal about giving you miles if you write them. After all, it doesn't really cost them anything. I had a foul up on a trip to Bali on CO that was supposed to be via HNL and GUM, but the flight was delayed 4 hours leaving LAX which meant missing the connection to GUM and then our twice-weekly flight to Bali. They offered to fly us on Cathay Pacific, but only in coach (we had used miles to upgrade to biz class on the CO flights) so I ended up paying for two one-way biz class tickets out of pocket ($2400 each) but figured CO at least owed me the miles that I would have earned if I had flown them (the coach tix I had originally paid for before using miles to upgrade) and also owed me the luggage fees I had to pay extra on CP since they only allowed 2 bags instead of the 3 we were each bringing on CO. I did get my miles and my luggage reimbursement which was a small consolation given that I was out $4800 on air fare!

Interesting idea.. I did bring this up to the people on the phone when we were "negotiating" (cue William Shatner image), and they essentially blew me off. Of course, they also initially told me that it was not possible to accommodate me on another carrier. I am reminded by this that you get far more from these guys with a proper E-mail letter (if you have time!) than anything you do on the phone. This is a basic principle that I learned from Chris Elliott (reference his amazing web site on travel troubleshooting), and I suppose I eventually would have thought of lodging a formal complaint myself, but have been too busy right now to consider such things. However, those FF miles AND the increased baggage charges with USAir (AA gives me the first bag to Mexico free -so far..) are nothing to sneeze at. I will see you on the boat with Living Underwater and we will discuss this, no doubt. In the meantime, I suppose the other posters above are right, and this will all work out eventually. It is a PITA while you are working through it, though. Woody

---------- Post added April 20th, 2012 at 12:08 PM ----------

Woody Next time use sun country. Nonstop to coz, on the beach by noon. Their package prices are sometimes better on their own site than orbitz,etc. last month 400 per person cheaper.

I often use SunCountry, but this time AA blew them away on the air/hotel package. Little did I know... Woody

 

[Mossman]

Interesting idea.. I did bring this up to the people on the phone when we were "negotiating" (cue William Shatner image), and they essentially blew me off. Of course, they also initially told me that it was not possible to accommodate me on another carrier. I am reminded by this that you get far more from these guys with a proper E-mail letter (if you have time!) than anything you do on the phone. This is a basic principle that I learned from Chris Elliott (reference his amazing web site on travel troubleshooting), and I suppose I eventually would have thought of lodging a formal complaint myself, but have been too busy right now to consider such things. However, those FF miles AND the increased baggage charges with USAir (AA gives me the first bag to Mexico free -so far..) are nothing to sneeze at. I will see you on the boat with Living Underwater and we will discuss this, no doubt. In the meantime, I suppose the other posters above are right, and this will all work out eventually. It is a PITA while you are working through it, though. Woody

Thanks for reminding me, we will be talking about this in person! Only two more days for me, exactly around this time Sunday my plane will be in the sky, a friendly United FA already asking me what I want for my second drink after the screwdriver I guzzled down before takeoff (I'm only going as far as Houston on Sunday and I don't have to drive!).

I'll check out the Chris Elliott site. When I got CO to reimburse me the lost miles and baggage fees I went old school: certified snail mail. It took forever and a day to get a response, but I got what I asked for and then kicked myself for not demanding more. I'll see you on the boat soon, unless CO (er, United) screws up my flight. Hope your travels there go well.

 

[Reef Tank]

You paid $4800 because you didn't want to fly coach?

They offered to fly us on Cathay Pacific, but only in coach (we had used miles to upgrade to biz class on the CO flights) so I ended up paying for two one-way biz class tickets out of pocket ($2400 each) ...

---------- Post added April 20th, 2012 at 12:39 PM ----------

Get the USAir FF account and miles so you can combine them later: American Airlines, US Airways Merger In Works; Unions To Support Deal: Report [CORRECTION] I dislike AA so much that I have over 30,000 FF-miles with them I've accumulated when I needed to, that I don't want to use.

I'll send you a PM with my PII so you can book a flight for me.

 

[cvchief]

one of them threatened to have me arrested on one flight.

:shocked2: Really?

 

[ggunn]

:shocked2: Really?

Didn't surprise me.

 

[Mossman]

You paid $4800 because you didn't want to fly coach?

I had more money than sense back then, what can I say? We had biz class tix, were planning on flying biz class, so yeah, we didn't want to fly coach. It's a 15-hour flight to Hong Kong and my shoulders, just the bones so no fat jokes please, happen to be a few inches wider than the average coach seat so the only way I fit in coach is when I lean the entire time toward the aisle. Leaning on long flights screws up my back. I don't like dive vacations when my back is screwed up because I'm in pain most of the time. When I'm on vacation, I prefer not to be in pain.

I really do envy little people who can fit in those little coach seats.

---------- Post added April 20th, 2012 at 06:20 PM ----------

:shocked2: Really?

All I was doing was having a mini temper tantrum kicking my seat rest because it was broken and wouldn't go back down when I pressed the darn button. She never confronted me, threatened J instead when I went to the head. (I love how that rhymes.)

According to J, FA told her that if she couldn't shut me up, she'd have me arrested. Then a nicer FA came over to help me with my seat, came to the same realization that I had that it was broken (though she didn't bother to kick test it), and made me move to a working seat for landing. And then she brought me another drink. I think FAs soothe customers better with honey than vinegar (or in my case gin & tonic), but I still think it would have been cool to be escorted off the plane by an air marshall while wearing those plastic handcuffs. Maybe next time.