Wish I was there . .
My passport is ready and I can be packed in minutes.

09 September 2006

The loss of customer service

I have just spent the last hour and a half trying to book an airline ticket for June by redeeming miles that I have allegedly earned on USAirways. I say allegedly because it seems that even though I have the miles, they can not be used out of any airport. Every time we have attempted to redeem our dividend miles, we go through this. If I had been limited to one airport and a set date, I might be more understanding, but I gave the seven different customer services people with which I spoke, seven different airports in Florida I was willing to fly out from and three different airports in Norway at which I was willing to arrive. I also gave them a week of dates to use. The excuses include:
  1. I can not find a Stavanger airport in GERMANY (might that be because it is in NORWAY!)
  2. There are no seats available on any domestic flight out of Florida for the entire month of June (after that statement, I just asked to speak with the next person)
  3. The Star Alliance of which USAirways is a member does not fly to Norway (Also part of the Star Alliance are Scandinavian Air and Lufthansa and in less than thirty seconds on their websites I could find flights to Stavanger, Bergen, and Haugsund)
  4. Scandinavian Air and Lufthansa have no seats available all of June (see two above)
  5. "We do not talk to our partners in the Star Alliance so I can not tell you if any seats were ever available to be redeemed."

After these conversations, I have to question my sanity in flying with this airline. If they do not have the ability to train their personnel, why should I believe that they have the ability to keep a plane upright. If only there was a really long bridge to Europe . . .

6 comments:

RennyBA said...

Sorry you have all this difficulties getting a ticket to Norway. As a local, if I can be of any help, I’ll gladly do! And when you are coming over, I’ll gladly guide you around. Please tell me when you have bridging the customer service gap:-) I can tell you, once you get yourself over to Europe and Norway, the service are excellent!

Unknown said...

lol - well.... that's when you refuse to hang up until you speak to the SENIOR manager.... Book online somehow or call and see if LU can make you an offer using your star alliance...

sorry to hear it's so difficult.

Sergeants of Squish said...

Very few things stress me out more than a snag in travel plans, because raging against that machine is an exercise in futility.
BTW, come back over and see what Heather and I have been cooking up to get skinny again, we want you in on it!!

Ms Mac said...

sigh...... if only!

EuroTrippen said...

Lufthansa drives me bonkers as 4 flights out of 6 they've managed to 'misplace' our luggage... but the customer service is always great!

Sunshine said...

Yoo hoo! Did you fall into a hole?? I'm getting worried!