It has been pointed out to me by Michael Woods (site editor) and Adam (that Printmode.net guy) that I really don’t use this blog like a blog. It is more of an archive for the Jim Raffel’s Golden Nugget’s e-mail marketing campaign I created to promote ColorMetrix Technologies, LLC. This entry, however, will be a true blog entry.
If and when I have a choice between any airline (and I mean any) and United, I will NOT choose United. First, a bit of background; about three weeks ago my wife and I both got stuck in Denver International Airport waiting for delayed flights due to extreme fog conditions. Cheryl was flying United, and since I had tagged along as a trophy husband on one of her business trips I was flying on Midwest Airlines on a free ticket. During almost eight hours of delays, I was kept well informed by Midwest, and interacted personally with the very professional and courteous ground staff several times. During the same eight hours Cheryl’s gate was changed about six times and was never announced. She found out by watching the monitors. On one occasion we even tried to speak to a customer service agent, and quite frankly got yelled at for having the nerve to wait in line to speak to her when she was busy helping people from canceled flights (we waited in the same line the same length of time to ask a simple question).
Now, onto my experience with United today. I did succeed in getting home within an hour of my scheduled arrival time today, but it was absolutely no thanks to the worst customer service staff in the airline industry over at United. Knowing that Milwaukee (my home base for those of you that don’t know) was getting hit by a 3-4 day winter storm ( blizzard warnings and the whole deal) I began calling United customer service two days prior to my return. My hope was to reach a human (make sure to set a minimum of 20 minutes aside for this task) and explain that I was pretty sure the Milwaukee airport would be closed Sunday most of the day (it has been) and that I would like to reschedule my flights to Monday. Of course by the time I had the time to wait on hold forever it was 11pm Sat night, and United had canceled well over 200 flights due to weather in Chicago. By this time my one option for Monday was 6am departure with a connection in Denver (for the geographically challenged…this is not a real efficient way to get to Milwaukee).
So, I took my chances and went to the airport (somewhere in Florida) Sunday morning. Sure enough by the time I hit the automated kiosk to check in my Chicago-Milwaukee flight was canceled (imagine my surprise at this moment) and the automated kiosk instructed me to go wait in line for 30 minutes to talk to a human. The female (not quite civil enough to be called human) was pleased to tell me my flight to Milwaukee was canceled but they could still get me to Chicago. Now, I know Chicago is only 90 miles from Milwaukee but I am 1000 miles away where it is warm and I have no idea how good or bad the roads are between the two. I’m like OK, can you put me on a later Chicago Milwaukee flight? Sure, standby on the 3 remaining scheduled flights (5 had already been canceled) and a confirmed seat on the 2:18pm flight MONDAY! Oh yippee I am happy now. I did at least get a window seat to Chicago.
Upon arrival in Chicago I waited a short 1 hour in the customer service line to confirm what I already knew (I was not flying to Milwaukee Sunday). Now, I had 3 real options; 1. Take the blue line to downtown Chicago and then catch an Amtrak train to the Milwaukee airport; 2. Pick-up the Avis rental car I had reserved by phone with the spare hour I had while waiting in like to speak with the lack of customer service person in Chicago; 3. Take the USACoach bus from Chicago to Milwaukee airport. I decided to try the bus for financial reasons. Upon arriving at the waiting area for the bus I determined very quickly that all morning buses had been canceled and a pretty good chunk of the people in the waiting area would be fighting for first come first serve seats on the 12:10 bus (2 hour wait for me). To make long story short…Avis DOES try harder and came through with a one way rental thanks to my preferred status (I watched them turn down a lot of one way rental requests). The roads turned out to not be so bad, and I got to the Milwaukee airport where I picked up my car and made it home about an hour later than planned.
Somewhere along the way I was informed that because I was unable to use the Chicago-Milwaukee portion of my ticket, that it could be refunded if I called customer service before midnight. So, after a few tries to call customer service which resulted in being disconnected, I finally reached a very polite human (yes, I will give credit where it is due). This gentleman, however, who tried to help me was unable to and suggested I call a different toll-free number dedicated to refunds. That department is of course only open M-F 8-4:30, so I will have to update this entry once I figure out if I actually get my refund.
Well, imagine that, the refund process went well. I called about 11:00am Monday morning, and was speaking to a very pleasant woman (no sarcasm here) name Annie within 18 minutes. About five minutes after that the refund amount was credited to my credit card. Of course, we will need to wait and see if the credit shows up, but I am optimistic. United seems better at giving money back than providing service that leads to not needing to give the money back. - Thanks Annie!
The best part of the whole experience was watching the expressions of the people around me while waiting in line in Chicago as I explained to my wife how to start the snow blower. I must have given good instructions, because the driveway was nice and clear and I was able to pull in the garage when I arrived home.