Airline bumping addicts
On their return trip from a conference, Timothy Johnston, his wife and two students traveling with them tried to connect in St. Louis to their scheduled flight back to Paducah, Ky. They couldn’t. “We were told there was only one seat left on the 16-passenger plane,” the Murray State University professor recalled. It was the last flight of the day, and they were eager to get home. No problem, a gate agent said, and promptly issued each passenger $100 in cash compensation for the inconvenience. They ended up renting a car and driving home to Paducah. Later, Johnston’s carrier even refunded $418 for the unused portion of their tickets. Good customer service? Yes. Good business practice? Maybe.
Rewards denied on Amex
Q: When I was planning a recent trip to France, I went to the American Express Rewards Web site to look for a rental car. The site directed me to make a reservation with a special code, and then return to the membership rewards site to request the certification. That’s what I did.
Several weeks [...]
One helluva honeymoon
Q: My wife and I were married last month and were set to jet away to sunny Mexico for a 6-night, all-inclusive getaway to a very nice resort in Playa Del Carmen. It was a honeymoon we had planned and saved for. But it never happened.
We had booked our trip through a travel agent, [...]
Mobile office mistakes
I recently found myself in Europe without a working cell phone or laptop computer.
A nervous client back in the States needed information from me urgently. To make matters worse it was a Sunday, so there was little chance of finding a post office or a hotel with a business center. In other words, I was [...]
Overtaxed on US Airways
Q: I was traveling on US Airways from London to Philadelphia on a return journey which had originated in Munich. For both flights, I upgraded to Envoy class using my frequent flier miles. I reconfirmed the upgrade last year.
At check-in in London, I was told that each of us had to pay a tax [...]
New airline, new ideas
At a time when the airline industry still is struggling to pull out of a tailspin induced by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a soft economy and poor management, do we really need a new carrier? You could almost hear a collective groan from the airline industry’s talking heads when former travel executives Edward Beauvais and Travis Tanner last month unveiled Project Roam, a yet-unnamed discount airline based in Pittsburgh. This is hardly the time to start a new airline, some said.
Extreme reservations
A seat assignment in economy class is about as desirable as a protracted stopover in a smoke-filled airport terminal or consuming airline food that gives you heartburn, to hear travelers talk about it.
In fact, experienced fliers will go to great lengths to avoid the back of the plane. They plead for upgrades to business class [...]
Travelers give thanks
People who spend a lot of time on the road often spend a lot of time complaining about it.
They gripe about intrusive security screenings, hostile hotel employees and bad restaurants. Most of all, they criticize each other for everything from bad hygiene to bad cell-phone manners.
Complaining, as I observed in a previous column, is part [...]
Bad tickets on Amex
Q: I purchased a ticket for my son to fly home at Thanksgiving. I used American Express Travel Web site and had entered all of the correct information. After hitting the “purchase” icon, there was an error message regarding the inability of the transaction to be completed.
There was a “back” button in the screen [...]