The Wandering Salesman

There’s a thread over on Flyertalk which talks about a United customer service email which a heap of us received recently.

The email goes like this…

Dear Wandering Salesman:

Thank you for engaging with us by responding to ualsurvey.com.  We are working to achieve industry-leading performance and reputation by focusing on: safety; on-time performance; having a clean, workable product; providing courteous and respectful service.

In 2009, we took our first significant step by being the #1 airline in on-time arrivals as compared against America’s five largest global carriers.  We know we have more to accomplish.

In your recent survey response, you answered that you “Would recommend United to a friend or acquaintance.”  What would it have taken to motivate you to respond that you “Definitely would” recommend us?  A member of our leadership team would like to discuss your assessment and understand any suggestions you might have to improve our service.  Please reply to this email with the phone number we can use to contact you and some times that are convenient for us to speak with you.  If more convenient, you can provide us feedback directly by replying to this email.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on how best to make you a United “promoter.”

Sincerely,

Rob Bradford

Managing Director – Customer Solutions

After a healthy dose of cynicism on subsequent FT posts, we all decided that it was thinly veiled attempt by someone in IT to prove to his bosses that he had worked out how to use the mail merge function on his pc.

But a funny thing happened late this afternoon.

My phone rings and there’s a Japanese speaking woman on the other end of the phone.

“Holy shit…” I thought to myself. I was sure I paid that last bar tab in Tokyo.

The nice lady proceeded to tell me that she was A Very Important Person from Customer Service at UA in Tokyo. “Go on”, I ventured.

She then went on to tell me that she was following up from one Mr. Lobert Bladflord…

When I realised she was legit and not same scam to get me to subscribe to some dodgy porn service, I got quite excited and then proceeded to tell her to grab a coffee, pull up a chair, and cancel the rest of the day because we were going to get busy and I was about to unleash the mother of all “How I would run your airline” speech.

Or something like this.

Forty minutes later and I had told her everything from the wine they serve in Business Class is dogwash, the food barely edible, complained about Starnet blocking (even though I have never experienced this before and even though I booked a J class long haul award last month between Singapore and Vancouver and it took all of 10-mins on the phone), complained about the lack of in seat video in long haul Y, and proceeded to rant like a banshee about people who complained about their SWU’s not clearing on W class fares should be told to piss off and fly Delta.

Or something like that.

She’s probably drinking heavily by now. And wishing she hadn’t drawn the short straw in last week’s karaoke competition, which resulted in her having to call all the losers like me.

But on a somewhat serious note, I was impressed that UA had bothered to follow this up. The fact that someone from Japan called a mentally unstable Aussie who happens to live in Singapore and who was sitting at home with nothing better to do was probably not part of their grand plan.

But it was a start.

I can’t wait until the next phone call. Hopefully it will be some tool from Continental promising that it will be “business as usual” after they take over. As if.

Bravo UA. Bravo.

It truly does appear that you might be listening…

*Image courtesy Gaping Void, Hugh McLeod

This will no doubt piss off quite a few FlyerTalkers.

So be it…

Probably the single biggest reason I continue to remain loyal to UA is as a result of receiving 6 System-Wide Upgrade certificates each and every year.

Let me explain to the uninitiated.

When you achieve 1K status on UA, these certificates are posted to your account. It’s a simple process. And the most value you can obtain from these certificates is by redeeming (or applying them) to an international itinerary.

Lets assume I book a Singapore to New York (JFK) flight. Providing that a, I book an upgradeable fare, and b, there are seats available, United will move me from the class I originally booked to the next class up. So from Economy to Business. or from Business to First.

It is easily the number one retention tool UA has in its marketing arsenal.

Now here’s the rub.

If, like me, you hang out on frequent flyer forums such as FlyerTalk (and you specifically “lurk” or participate in the UA forum) you will quickly learn that there are a lot of angry people. People who need to clearly get out more. People who clearly have unresolved issues with their parents.

Or something like that.

(more…)

I don’t think I will ever get to that point where I’ll do “proper” trip reports, take pictures of the food they serve onboard, photos of the seat, the toilet, the way they set the table and all that other shit.

I would rather have a prostate exam. And I’ve had one before so I know what it’s like.

Anyway, yesterday was one of those travel days. If it wasn’t at the end of a week on the road, I would probably have said to UA, “you know what, today isn’t a good day for you. How about I go home and we start all over again tomorrow”.

Or something like that.

But since I have just attended a UA Mileage Run Seminar, my fellow attendees wouldn’t be pleased if I didn’t post my UDU results.

For those not brainwashed into the Mileage Plus cult, UDU stands for Unlimited Domestic Upgrades. Which means, if you hold status (ie Premier, Premier Executive, 1K or Global Services), UA will essentially give you a little bit better seat (for free) if there’s one available. At least, that’s the theory.

They call it an upgrade into First Class. I call it “you’re arse wont be quite as sore by the end of the trip…”

(more…)

Flight Report: EWR-ORD Sat 7th August UA651

If Newark Airport was a person, it would be fat, ugly and most likely have a mildly annoying case of herpes.

Or something like that.

In the 14-years of regular travel to the US and to the East Coast, I don’t think Newark has changed in that time. And if it has, I cant see where.

According to the Newark website, the Port Authority has spent more than US$3.9 billion on the place. If that’s true, then a lot of contractors, architects, engineers etc must be living in villa’s in the south of France, snorting cocaine every minute and driving Bugatti Veyrons.

I reckon it has the same shitty terminals as it has always had. The same shitty decor. And the place looks like it could do with a good wash.

(more…)

This was a first for me. To be honest, the whole experience was a little perplexing.

I flew on UA’s P.S service from SFO to JFK the other day and obviously was intrigued to see how good the inflight wi-fi would be, having never used it before.

Being based in Asia, we are spoilt for the quality of both the hard and soft products – so it’s strange that the Asian carriers lag the US ones in terms of what many regard as essential (ie inflight wi-fi).

With the advent of carriers deploying wi-fi (and soon, offering the ability to use your mobile in the air), there’s been a whole of lot of pissing and moaning about the fact that for many, jumping aboard a aeroplane is the last sanctuary of peace. But then again, these comments are typically made by old farts.

Don’t get me wrong. Airlines aren’t offering wi-fi to make friends with us. This is a genuine revenue stream for them.

So as soon as the plane levelled out and I had pushed the bloody mary to one side, I grabbed the laptop. My Mac detected the signal immediately, I put in my credit card details and voila, connection established.

Man, I was impressed. For the next 5-hours, I had excellent service. Speed was good, I had multiple tabs open in Safari and had no issue with the US$13 bucks they took from me. Now admittedly, I didn’t see how well GoGo did with streaming video, only because the streaming video I like might have caused me to be banned from all future use within the continental US.

If you were doing the coast to coast run every month or more, then inflight wi-fi is essential.

And I’m pleased to say, that GoGo by Aircell is a cracker of a service.

I’ve always wondered why people sleep in airports (apart from the obvious).

I mean, assuming you’ve had the means to get organised and buy an international plane ticket, then surely you would think when you looked at your final itinerary “gee whizz, look at this itinerary – it looks like we have a layover of 8+ hours in Changi. Lets worry about where we’ll sleep later”

Or something like that.

I mean have a look at this guy. Does he really look comfortable? This is about 4.30am in the morning.

And as I wandered through Changi airport at o’dark hundred this morning, there were people everywhere. I had no idea that there was a whole other side to plane travel. But more on that later.

Maybe I’m getting too old. But I’ll tell you what I’m getting too old for. It’s the itinerary I’m on right now.

SIN-MEL-SIN-HKG-SFO-JFK

To the travel newbies and to explain the above routing, I flew from Singapore to Melbourne for a 2-hr presentation, turned straight around and went back to Singapore, transited for 6-hrs, and then jumped on a flight to New York, via Hong Kong and San Francisco.

(more…)

This is a first for me.

On this trip to the US, I’m attending my first FT event. It’s put on by one of the more experienced members of the UA forum.

There’s over 160 people attending (80 on the Saturday and 80 on the Sunday).

People flying into the Windy City to talk about all things frequent flyer-ish.

God I hope it doesn’t turn out to be an Amway meeting in disguise…

More later…

Next week, I’m heading to the US.

This is the only picture worth anything to me when I travel.

I haven’t paid for a business class fare in a long-time. My outbound upgrade cleared a week prior to departure and the return cleared a day ago, which is nearly 2-weeks prior. I used SWU (System Wide Upgrade) certificates for both the outbound and return.

Because UA are getting tougher on upgrades, I decided to try and different approach. I had a couple of options when I booked the ticket.

1. Book the cheapest Z class fare (which is business) – SGD$5500 to the West Coast (SFO)

2. Book the cheapest upgradeable fare available at the time (which was around SGD$1700) and probably have to wait until day of departure to find out if the upgrade was going to clear

3. Buy a B class fare (nearly full fare economy) and give myself close to the best possible chance. Cost SGD$2700. Which was $1000 more, but now I have a Business Class return ticket for half the cheapest possible Business Class I could have bought.

Which is what I did.

And if you want a comparison, most business class fares from Singapore to the West Coast are going to run SGD$8000 to SGD$10,000, depending on routing and carrier.

I’m working on a detailed post on how the upgrade process works on UA. Standby.

This never ceases to amaze me.

First off, if you’re any sort of road warrior, your plans will have come to grief at some point in your flying career. It’s only normal. And to be expected.

How you handle the “inconvenience” and the level of compensation you get is quite another thing.

If you want to get a glimpse into the insanity of human behaviour, head on over to FlyerTalk and start trawling around any of the airline forums and do a search for “never flying X airline again”, or “I was treated like a criminal” or “X airline ruined my life and as a result of our lost bags episode, my wife/best friend/gay lover ran off with a hamster”

Or something like that.

Here’s an example of what not to do. Reading this nearly made me lose the will to live. (more…)

This was so traumatic I don’t even know where to start.

I was in Korea this week. Booked into the Westin Chosun, Seoul. All pretty standard stuff. You know, the normal Asian trip.

Anyway, for those of you who haven’t been to Seoul, the Koreans have built a new airport. It’s a cracker. Regularly competes with Hong Kong and Singapore and according to Skytrax, Incheon has won best airport in the world for the past 6-years running.

Although I am a bit dubious about the fact that the majority of people who vote for these types of awards are always drunk British expats.

Or something like that.

(more…)