Traveling all this week doing site inspections for the in-cinema version of the Newsbreaker game and I'm just astounded at the lack of hospitality in the travel industry. I blogged last week about my experience at the Hampton Inn Pittsburgh and they just keep getting worse.
I rented a car from Enterprise, where I usually have a very good experience, and paid a $100 fee to drop off the car at JFK instead of returning the car to Montclair. We told them that at least 3 times and you think that at least once they would have mentioned that their rental car return isn't at the airport. It wasn't really a huge deal, but it was pretty annoying to have to drive around and then call them to find that out.
Because of last minute booking, I also got stuck with a middle seat, which just blows when you're flying JFK to LAX. I was flying Delta and they told me to get to the gate early and they would try to help. In rare form for me, I was the first person at the gate and was even there as the gate attendent logged into the system. I suggested that perhaps I could leave my name on a list or something and got a very huffy response. She suggested that I just keep checking back with her, which, BTW, I did.
As it got closer to departure time, it became a fiasco, with just a mob at the counter. About 20 - 30 people all standing around in the hopes of changing our seats. It could have been so simple if she just took a list of names, but that was going to be too much work for her. To be fare, it was a seriously full flight and she was the only one working the gate. Plus the in coming plane was late and that made things worse.
But, instead of letting us relax and not having to pester her by hovering around the counter, that's what we did. I'm sure annoying her a great deal to boot. The simple list would have made everyone's life that much better, including hers, but she just didn't want to make that little effort. And why they would let one person handle all of the boarding for a completely full flight is just beyond me. Surely they were making enough money off of a full flight to put the second person on duty! The end note to this story is that the flight was way packed and despite what I was told about being in a more roomy exit row, I wasn't really. I was packed into that middle seat for what is certainly going to be a long and very uncomfortable flight. And then they made the dreaded "light snack" announcement. For Pete's sake. I'm flying cross country, leaving at 4:40 PM and arriving at 9 PM and they're offering me a light snack. Come on folks, how about providing some services for us poor dopes who paid stupid money for a last minute ticket. Had I not used mileage, this ticket would have cost $868 and you know what, for that fee, I should get a damn meal. I should've used my miles to upgrade to 1st class or I should've flown a carrier that treats their guests better. Lesson learned.
Lastly, I left all of my keys in my Alamo rental car in Pittsburgh and they had to send them to me. Somehow, I thought it was a good idea to clip the rental keys to my keys and I can certainly tell you I learned my lesson about doing that! Since it was all of my keys, I asked them to send them via overnight and just charge it to my credit card. They sent them out on Monday, but they didn't show up on Tuesday. On Wednesday I called and they thought they would be on their way back to me for Thursday (today). Today I got a call saying that the package had come back to DHL, but it was empty!
What did I have in the package, they asked. I was like all of my keys, including my house keys and if someone took them, they have my home address too! Don't worry, I was told, we're several hundred miles away! Seriously, was that supposed to make me feel better? What, like if someone took my keys they couldn't just ship them to someone in my neck of the woods? And now, even if I don't worry about them using the keys to steal my car or break into my house, I still have to spend a chunk of change to get all new keys. And those stupid car door openers are expensive.
But while the person I spoke to said that they would pay for my new keys, the person my wife spoke to said we'd have to file a claim and they'd make a decision about paying it. After all, maybe we packed it wrong, so they couldn't just take the responsibility. Well, if they hadn't lost it for several days to begin with, I might be more forgiving. But it's three days late and they don't really know where it's been, so I'm not sure trying to push the blame to us is really their best move.
I'll let you all know how it all turns out.
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