Comments on: Airline freezes passenger’s mileage account after “disturbing” number of complaints

By: Have the airlines lost their focus on customer service? | USA Giveaways

Have the airlines lost their focus on customer service? | USA Giveaways — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:47:53 +0000

[...] If you were flying on United and had a problem on your flight you could send a letter, send an email or call the customer service desk. The customer service desk was part of the call center in India, and apparently they weren’t very good at solving customers problems. At least that is the story that United’s management wants you to believe. Or, it is possible that they were so ignorant that they just gave vouchers and mile credits for anything and everything that someone complained about, like “this guy. [...]

By: Have the airlines lost their focus on customer service? | Industry Blog

Have the airlines lost their focus on customer service? | Industry Blog — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:18:30 +0000

By: mike

mike — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:56:16 +0000

Come on Chris,
Seriously, I know you are a consumer advocate, and at least on TV portray all the airlines as evil do-ers, but sometimes the customers do wrong. Wake up! Let’s get on to some meaningful topics.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:00:33 +0000

How do I get all those free things from UA when they screw me around? Seems like I give up to fast.

By: Cathay Pacific apologises to a female traveller who threw a tantrum at Hong Kong airp - The Australian Frequent Flyer Online Community

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:33:40 +0000

[...] at Hong Kong Absolutely ridiculous. However dont go down the complaints pathway with United- elliott.org | Airline freezes passenger’s mileage account after “disturbing” numbe… "Since your Mileage Plus enrollment last year, you have engaged in a number of communications [...]

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:40:09 +0000

While it’s true United obviously needs a better system of checks to prevent the misuse of their compensation system, the main question remains:

Why would Mr. Yen give repeat business to an airline that he felt had given him so many problems as to necessitate 200 phone calls in such a short time frame if he wasn’t purposefully exploiting the loopholes he’d discovered with UA’s good faith attempts to retain him as a happy customer?

Also, does Mr. Yen dispute that many of his miles were accrued via duplicate compensation for issues UA had already resolved with him, as UA contends in their letter?

Ask yourself honestly people – if you had to complain 200 times in six months to any company, would you still choose do business with them? Short of Mr. Yen figuring out how to exploit the system for freebies, I can’t think of any other reason he would continue to do business with UA if he felt so strongly that they treated him so poorly as to require 200 complaints.

He played the system and he got caught. That’s his own fault.

By: CK

CK — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:40:56 +0000

I agree with most of the posters in that this guy was a scammer and giving legitimate complainers a bad name.
The confusion about what miles were frozen and why he didn’t have access to those unfrozen miles might be explained by the fact that he was trying to claim a larger mileage award. In other words, he had 24K + unfrozen miles plus the 68K frozen miles. If he only tried to awards that were more than 25K miles and was unable to do so, he would have the perception that he couldn’t use “any” of them.

By: Jaime

Jaime — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:12:59 +0000

Kudos to UA for cracking down on this kind of abuse. And Kudos to Elliot for exposing him. People like Yen make travel more expensive for the rest of us.

By: Jeff Carlin

Jeff Carlin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:56:07 +0000

Chris – is this a joke? I’ve been flying 200+ segments per year for a decade with AA and can count my complaints on one hand. This guy logged 200 complaints in 6 months! UA would do themselves a favor by putting this guy on the no fly list asap.

By: Scott Womack

Scott Womack — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:50:56 +0000

What is next, cancelling of all services and blacklisting for just 10 complaints? 5? 2? 1? Just wait…before you know it we will be in customer service concentration camps and our economic lives will be “voided” or “cancelled” blocked from being able to buy anything anywhere when all corporations start jointly sharing “complaint” databases on us, just like credit card companies engaged in “universal default”. You complained at the grocery store? Ope! That airline ticket will cost you $200 additional now…and SORRY, we just ran out of seats! Have a nice day…