I’m a VERY satisfied American Airlines customer, but it wasn’t always so. I arrived at American after being a high-mileage United flyer for many years. But United spent a year ‘convincing’ me that they didn’t want my business (by, amongst other things, discarding my long held business class seats to a family gathering at Xmas in Australia. Then after I reserved the only seats available, in the back, they abandoned the seta reservations and refused to do anything about it. My 14 hours in a middle seat was the final straw), I called American. They moved me over at the same status as I had with United (I just showed my mileage statement) and I have been there, happily, ever since.
I have many interests and friends in the aviation community, some of whom work for United, so I keep an eye on their progress. I was pleasantly surprised to get a letter from United telling me of a change to their miles expiration policy – I have a bunch of miles in a long unused account. Progress, I thought! And when I read it, I was even more impressed. Here is what you can do to keep your miles, the letter explained.
One of the options was to transfer miles to another member. Barb has continued to fly United (more because they fly nonstop to Europe than anything else) and has a mileage plus account. So I gave her the letter and said, ‘Do you want the miles in my account?’. Easy answer!
Easy Answer, hard to achieve! Turns out when she calls, that you can only transfer 15,000 miles – and there is a charge of $150 (plus $35 admin fee)!
So I need to plot another strategy – but what a way to treat your customer. Even Barb uttered the words ‘I can see why you say what you do about United’. What is my catch phrase for United? ‘How many ways can we find to say NO’.
Now Barb is flying to Rome on American, not on United.
{WOM, Bad Customer Service, Brand, Customer Service, Marketing}
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