I've spent this last week dealing with airlines trying to add Sydney to my trip to Orlando this weekend. I wanted to use miles, but they were out of miles seats for the return flight. So, she could fly home with me, it would just cost almost $400 for her one way ticket. With all of the changes happening in any industry dealing with consumers, the airlines are one really stuck in an incredibly archaic way of doing things. Worse then that, our taxpayer subsudized bailouts just help the airlines deliver the worst experiences of any hospitality industry. I mean, very few people have great airline experiences overall. Sure, you get the occassional superstar employee, but most airlines just suck at delivering anything close to good customer service. I've even had really crappy experiences on Jetblue, usually one of the top ranked airlines for customer service.
What's astounding to me is how much we, the customers paying for this crappy experience, put up with their bad service! We spend years in their loyalty programs only to be treated like we're a pain-in-their-ass when we try to redeem our miles. For the most part, they sure don't seem happy that we're using their service!
I'd like to propose a national day of boycotting air travel. Maybe that'll get their attention. Maybe all of those surley, unhappy and sometimes outright rude, airline companies might understand better that we pay the bills.
Maybe I'm just tired and cranky, but isn't it time we said We're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore! You can't tell me that you haven't had similar negative thoughts when you've been traveling!
Have you had really good or bad experiences? Want to give a shout out to a great employee? We'll pass it along if you do.
Hello-We hear comments such as yours daily from frequent fliers. I wanted to inform you of a new service called LoyaltyMatch.com. We are a new solution focused on eliminating the challenge of too many miles chasing too few frequent flier seats. Our service has been reviewed by frequent flier consumer advocates including Tim Winship at Smarter Travel. We launched our service into beta a few days ago at http://www.loyaltymatch.com.
Our goal is simple: A way to manage your loyalty programs and assist members in converting points and miles into cash. LoyaltyMatch enables shoppers to find you and pay cash to you for rewards from your programs. You can then use the cash to buy travel services when and where you want, or be prudent and pay off debt or simply use it to have some fun.
Give us a look. Test drive us for free. Let us know how we are doing.
Thanks, David Howatson, Director
Posted by: David Howatson | February 22, 2008 at 10:03 AM
David - if the economic aftermath of 9/11 didn't change things, do you think anything will?
Posted by: Peter Kim | February 23, 2008 at 01:34 PM