We love to fly you off the handle

[tahnan]

I hate airlines. It's fair, because airlines hate me; I'm not a very good customer.

I don't care what I "accepted" when I bought a restricted-fare ticket. It grates on me at a very fundamental level that they're allowed to change the time of my ticket without asking me for no penalty at all, but I can't change it without paying them $50.

Even if they change the time 15 minutes earlier, which could (as I explained to the man who very possibly is sitting in a cubicle in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and only has that heavy South Asian accent because he's a recent immigrant) literally be the difference between me being able to make the flight and me not being able to.

And what grates even more is spending half an hour talking to this gentleman who could well be in Green Bay, and having him tell me, repeatedly, "Well, sir, that's a very difficult question for me to answer, but our policy is..." And to get the same stock line, without being transferred, when I respond with, "All right, can I talk to someone for whom it would be easy to answer?"

Let me stress that, in spite of the snarky Green Bay comment, it's not the (probable) outsourcing that bothers me. It's the fact that, whether Delta had me talking to someone from Outer Fredonia who learned English yesterday or to the guy who grew up next door to me, their script is such that it's more or less their policy not to help me.

Comments

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

I share your bile (eew), but I also can't help but question the wisdom of booking a flight with timing so tight that a 15-minute change means you'd miss it. Life, traffic, and airline security being what they are, it seems you'd have a decent chance of missing the old one too, no?

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, "could" was the operative word here. In truth, it's not more than a nuisance. It just galls me on principle.

[cazique.livejournal.com]

the first law of talking to airline people is, if you don't like the answer you get, (1) politely thank the person and end the call, and (2) call back and try your question with someone else. repeat till you get the answer you like.

on my airline of choice (American) you will generally be entitled to a waived fee if a schedule change effects a non-legal connection time. I have no idea if Delta has the same policy, and a very cursory website search didn't find out for me either. If you want to post (or email me) flight details, I'm happy to do some digging for you with Delta and elsewhere. I would want to know the flight numbers and cities involved, date of flight and times (both original and changed).

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Well...as noted above, this wasn't so much about literal connection time worries. In truth, we had booked an 8:15 flight because we didn't know if I'd have to be back for an exam Monday afternoon; it then turned out I wouldn't, so we wanted to fly later.

It just, as I said, galls me that they can change the time and I can't. Indeed, it galls me that I can't, since (as Michelle pointed out) they could easily put us on a half-full 2pm flight and sell our 8am Monday morning seats to a businessman for a huge amount more.

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

I found out about a week before I went to IndyCon that my flight had been cancelled and that I was put on another flight over 2 hours later. What can ya do.* (At least it was the second leg of the trip.)

* Well besides spending all that time getting well oiled at an airport bar.