The Background
Bryn recently returned from a business trip to the UK. Originally the trip was scheduled for early May, and I planned to tag along and play tourist. After I bought my ticket, the date for her trip was pushed back a month. So I call United and the fun begins.
I ask if I can change my ticket to the new dates (same flights, same days of the week, just a month later.) No, it is non-transferable and non-refundable, but out of the goodness of their hearts they understand plans change so for a $250 change fee plus the difference in fare, I could change my ticket. June is apparently a more popular time to go to London so the total extra cost to change was over $500. No thanks.
I don’t have a problem with any of this, I understand the risks of buying of plane tickets. United simply followed their policy. However, if the phone reservation agent had been granted the leeway to bend the policy to be more customer-friendly, she could have created a Raving Fan. That was opportunity #1.
Then the Iceland volcano blew up, and grounded all air traffic to Europe. While this was terrible news for thousands of stranded travelers, I thought it could be a golden opportunity for me. Even though my scheduled flight was still a couple weeks out, I called United and said I was scared to fly because of the ash cloud, and asked if I could cancel and get a refund. Maybe the agent called my bluff, or maybe he saw a record of my previous call, but he wasn’t having it. I could cancel but I’d still eat the $250 change fee. That was opportunity #2.
Finally I bite the bullet and cancel the flight, leaving a credit of several hundred dollars on my account I have 12 months to use. This credit is not visible online, and I have to call United back when I want to redeem it. I’d always prefer to see it in writing, so I’m going to say missed opportunity #3.
Fast forward a couple months and I want to redeem it for flights for Bryn and I to Mexico. So I call and explain what I want, and I’m told that because my original London ticket was non-transferable, I could only buy a ticket for me, but not for Bryn. Seriously. Missed opportunity #4.
I get transferred to a supervisor because I’m in disbelief. The United reservations supervisor explains to me about a ticketing loophole that will allow me to use my credit to buy Bryn’s ticket, BUT I’ll have to physically go to the airport to do it. Seriously. Missed opportunity #5.
The next day I go to the airport to buy the tickets. The United agent at the ticket counter doesn’t know what the International change fee is, and instead of typing in $0 (like I suggest), she literally calls the same 800-number I’ve been talking to and (after waiting on hold 5 minutes) finds out it’s $250. Apparently she had the freedom to charge me whatever she wanted and deliberately opted for the maximum sentence. Big missed opportunity #6!
Either way, I get the tickets and go on my way. Vamos a Mexico!
Why They Don’t Care
On the way home I was thinking about the kind of company that can be that unfriendly and inflexible to customers, and could really only come up with two: monopolies and sellers of commodities. Unfortunately for travelers, airplane tickets have become a commodity.
Airlines today basically sell only a service, a promise to get you safely to your destination. The level of comfort, service, and safety is nearly identical among all major carriers, so price becomes the only point of differentiation. When the perceived “product” is the same (the destination) why not buy from the “store” (airline) with the lowest price? As someone who makes their living from comparison shopping, I can tell you this is a very powerful philosophy.
What’s interesting is that United could use superior customer service as a competitive advantage (a la Zappos), but they’ve clearly decided it’s not worth it.
I’m a frequent flier, but not in the eyes of any one airline. I pick my flights based on flight times and price, and I believe the majority of fliers are just like me. In the past 12 months, I’ve flown Alaska, JetBlue, Delta, Continental, Southwest, American, Virgin, and Frontier. Go back a little farther and I can add in United, LAN, US Airways, AirTran, and Northwest.
At one point I had achieved Premier status with United (made good use of their Dulles hub when I was in VA), but I’ve since lost it, and I’m certainly no million-miler. And they know it. Why bend the rules to help me when I definitely don’t do the same in return?
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Virgin is a great airline. I’ve cancelled tickets twice with them for $75 and transferred the credit to my little brother and to my girlfriend. Cheaper tickets too.