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Tags: The Inhumanity of Airlines Today / Track Suit Guy / Corkers / Fashion / Airlines / United Airlines / Track Suits / Dress Codes / First Class Travel / → All Tags
United Was Wrong to Deny Track Suit Guy His First Class Seat, But Still, a Track Suit?
Did you hear the one about the guy who was denied a first class seat on a United Airlines flight because he was wearing a track suit? It's a corker. Armando Alvarez (not pictured), an executive at Best Buy, used his frequent flier miles to upgrade to the front of the cabin for a flight from Washington Dulles to Connecticut on October 26, but a gate agent took one look at his Puma getup and deemed him unworthy of the fancy seats, insisting he sit in coach with the riffraff instead. United has come out and said it was all a big misunderstanding, and that the agent apparently thought Alvarez was an airline employee - and thus required to follow a dress code - but not before the story became the latest example of the inhumanity of airlines today.
Tags: Checked Baggage Fees / United Airlines / No Fly List / → All Tags
No-Fly List Drama And Baggage Fee Trauma At United's 'Easy Check-in'
Easy check-in, huh? Not so easy if you're name happens to be (innocently) on the No Fly List.
We've told you before our thoughts on the perils of The No Fly List when folks with similar names to those on the No Fly List are prevented from checking their bags online. Meaning they have to show up to the airport early and wait in line to check-in (the kiosks will not suffice) where an agent will then verify their birth date and address.
As you can imagine, this is a huge pain and adds at least an extra hour to your travel time. But in this new dark age of checked baggage fees, airlines now charge you MORE to check your bags at the airport instead of online. Grandma and Grandpa who don't have internet connections will find themselves paying more. So will folks who spend the day before their flight doing activities out of cellphone and internet range (God forbid!). Also, an an innocent person whose name is similar to someone else's on the No Fly list is, for lack of a better expression, screwed.
Tags: Snapshot / Checked Baggage Fees / OGG / United Airlines / Travel Hell / → All Tags
Pack an Extra Duffle: United Airlines Charges $125 for Overweight Bags
We've already expressed our repulsion at the baggage fees that airlines keep piling on passengers these days but we were appalled at this fee that we saw United Airlines leveraging on passengers at the Kahului Airport (OGG) in Maui, Hawaii yesterday.
The sign says,
$125 charge for checked bags over 50lbs.
Usually, we understand that overweight bags should be dinged for their heftiness but $125? That is just thievery. And according to United's website, oversized baggage costs $175. Ugh. Better consider shipping that luggage instead.
Got an outrageous checked baggage fee experience? Unlike the stone-faced check-in agents, Jaunted is ready to listen to you! Send us your story.
Related Stories:
· The Airlines Are Just Not That Into Us: New Baggage Fees Announced [Jaunted]
· Oversized, overweight and excess baggage [United Airlines]
Tags: Airlines / United Airlines / Delta Airlines / Code Shares / Passenger Complaints / → All Tags
United and Delta Get Off Easy in Codeshare and Denied-Boarding Violations
Chris Elliott has the scoop on the latest fines that the Department of Transportation issued to United Airlines (who was already having a bad week, thanks to the broken guitar video) and Delta Airlines for failing to notify passengers of codesharing flights and for denied-boarding violations. Elliott reports:
United Airlines faces $80,000 in penalties for neglecting to inform travelers that certain flights were operated by another airline. And Delta Air Lines is being fined $375,000 for bumping passengers from its flights without compensation.
The investigation of United declared that phone reservations agents were not disclosing the codeshare partners while Delta's investigation was based on passenger complaint records. But these fines are extremely minor as Elliott points out that each airline will probably only pay half so long as they promise to not to do it again. (In our best Church Lady voice) Wellll, isn't that special?
Related Stories:
· All Together Now: 'United Breaks Guitars' [Jaunted]
· Delta and United face steep fines for codesharing, denied-boarding violations [Elliott.org]
[Photo: Paul Brady]
Tags: Tweet of the Day / Twitter / United Airlines / Airport Lounges / → All Tags
Do Not Tweet Your Theft Of Airline Lounge Food, Lest You Be Publicly Mocked
We've been after you for months to start following the Twitter pages of airlines (to say nothing of, achem, following our account). You no doubt already know that LCC's like Virgin, JetBlue and Southwest tweet deals every day and are more than worth your time. But what about the big boys?
United is one of the major airlines with a regularly updated Twitter account, which they also use to announce Twitter-only deals. Keep that in mind as our story unfolds.
Tags: HOWTO / Travel Tips / Customer Service / United Airlines / → All Tags
How to Receive Better Customer Service at the Airport
So we missed our LAX to O'Hare flight this morning. The details aren't really important. They involve the Hilton's long term self-park lot, a hotel shuttle, and the lax relationship that Italian tourists have to concepts like "not holding up a bus for 25 minutes by refusing to obey passenger limit restrictions."
Anyway, when United says that they won't let you check in if you're even 90 seconds late on their 45-minute cutoff, they mean that literally. Like we said, not really important.
What is important is that the well-known rule of customer service - "find the people who can say 'Yes'" - is as true inside airports as anywhere else.
We tried to check in, failed, and then waited in that understaffed line that airlines keep open for people who don't use kiosks. After a 40-minute wait, the United employee kindly informed us that she would be happy to put us on standby. Only problem: as of 6:30am all of United's flights, up through late afternoon, were already overbooked. Her best alternative: a $150 fee for a confirmed seat some time after 4pm, an option that would also preclude us from waiting standby on any of the earlier flights. Obviously we accepted the rolling standby and proceeded to mope our way through the metal detectors and into the terminal.
