November 14, 2007
Since the customer service representative that I was corresponding with so graciously admitted that the circumstances of my complaint were not of the usual sort, I’ve been awaiting to see what my “goodwill offer” had swelled (or not) to. Originally offered 2000 miles, I countered with a bid for 10000 and have been given 5000.
Yea or bleah? All depends on how you look at it. 5000 miles is a third of a short-haul award ticket, or one fifth of a standard ticket. It approximately meets the crime of making me stand for nearly one fifth of my flight to New York, and more satisfyingly, means that not settling for the first offer has paid off in the form of 1.5 times the original price United was willing to pay. Not that giving me a handful of miles actually costs much, for them.
November 8, 2007
*yawn* That’s about the best reaction I can muster for United’s response to my recent grumble about their flight attendants’s behavior on my red-eye flight to NY. They had started the beverage service when I was in the bathroom, and refused to back up two lousy rows for me to get back to my seat. They made me wait until they served 17 rows, ie: 45 minutes, of passengers before I could sit down again.
No happy flier was I. After the outrage had somewhat subsided, I wrote a complaint letter admonishing United for their poorly trained flight attendants and was offered a piddly 2000 miles to soothe my irritation. Meh. Are you kidding? In any poor customer service situation I’ve ever encountered, I’ve never been offered less than 10,000 points or miles as restitution. I mean, 2,000 miles? I wouldn’t even be a quarter of the way to a discounted, short-haul award flight. Even those require 15,000 miles, much less a standard 25,000-50,000 mile redemption.
Yes, I do think that offering someone points or miles in the case of poor customer service should be a means of encouraging them to easily return to the business in question, not a pittance! It’s not like they have the ability to do-over, they should at least make a serious offer.
I’m going to ask for more. It probably won’t happen, but at least I’ll have asked.