Jun
12
Air travel has become a norm nowadays especially for those involved in business and international trading. The needs to meet people from other parts of the world makes air travel a must. For a frequent flyer, there is nothing more satisfactory than getting a cheap airline ticket for their entire journey.
Unfortunately for us, the rising trend of people travelling by air gives an opportunity for airline companies to mark up the airline ticket price since they know people will buy it anyway. Fortunately though, the competition between airline companies forces certain companies to give out discounts on airline ticket price every now and then as a marketing strategy to attract customers. Read more
Dec
5
SOS Line for Travelers
Filed Under Air Travel | Leave a Comment
If you plan to travel over the holidays, make sure you take note of 1(877)FLYERS6, a free hotline for flyers set up by the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights. From Consumerist.com:
They offer a variety of services, like emailing your family or business associates and let them know where you are, offering real-time weather and flight status information, and let you know about hotel or rental options, as well as help you deal with refund situations. If you’re stuck on the tarmac and not being let off the plane, they will pass the info on and try to get media out to the airport.
Seen via Consumerist
Oct
23
Tips for flying better
Filed Under Air Travel | Leave a Comment
Travelhacker has a list of 10 Useful Secrets the Airlines Don’t Want You to Know. From getting the best price when you book to knowing your rights during your flight, this list provides valuable tips and links to further resources.
Feb
17
My Personal List of Crappy Companies
Filed Under Air Travel, Banking, Customer Service | 2 Comments
Have you ever had an experience with a company that’s so horrible at what they do that you are frustrated beyond belief and just can’t believe that a company that operates like that can stay in business? Here’s my own top companies that are so bad I had to put them on my “never again” list. First, let’s get the caveats out of the way. This is my personal list based on my own experiences with these companies. What makes a crappy company for me? Generally, it’s either one that puts out an inferior product and doesn’t stand by it, or a company that has a horrible customer service operation.
In 2003, this company sold me a Mercedes certified lemon. The 1997 c230, which Mercedes proudly touted as having gone through its “blah blah blah” point inspection program, was a dud straight out of the gate. The “check engine light” came on the very night I took the car home. The transmission dropped a few days later. The car was in the shop more often that it was out in the beginning. I tried to get the dealership to swap the car out for a reliable one which they refused. When I called Mercedes’ customer complaint hotline they rarely answered and when they did, the person complained how many complaints they were getting. Ever since the marriage to Chrysler, this formerly esteemed company has gone downhill. I had always envisioned myself a lifelong Mercedes owner but this was my second and last Mercedes.
This no-service airline company has the lockdown on the cattle call of airlines. It’s the only airline that I’ve flown on that consistently overbooks their flights and refuses to give you a boarding pass until the absolute last moment before your flight takes off. It’s always great to be up in the air, not knowing if you’ll actually get to fly to your designation, while rude, frazzled gate agents try to squeeze 30 people also waiting into five available seats. Then the cherry on top, of course, is that they split you from your travel partner and place you both into middle seats, telling you, try and switch once you’re on board to sit together. Oh yeah, when was the last time you gave up your cramped aisle or window seat for the “I love having no personal space” middle seat? I definitely don’t recommend this airline for any tall people (umm… that would be defined as anyone over 4’6”) since you spend the flight with your knees crammed up against the back seat in front of you, praying that that person doesn’t lean their seat back.
For six years, I enjoyed reliable DSL from this company until I had the audacity to move. I called up EarthLink to transfer my DSL to the new house. After three weeks of waiting for the blinking yellow light on my DSL modem to turn to green, I called them up. “Oops! We don’t have a transfer order on file for you, it will be ANOTHER three weeks for your service to transfer.” When I tried to call their customer service, it was impossible to get through to a live person in under 30 minutes. When I did get through, my phone call was routed to India where I was put into the customer service circle of hell of being transferred to one clueless representative after the other. After two months of EarthLink hell, I finally cancelled the service and ordered DSL from AT&T which took three days to arrive.
I refuse to call this a newspaper. It’s a rag mostly made up of opinion pieces. I used to get both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and the quality of reporting and news journalism by the NY Times is far superior. All newspapers have a slant but the strong bias and subversive agendas in the reporting by the LA Times is horrific. You would think they would get a clue based on their rapidly falling subscriber base that people are turned off by reading opinion piece after opinion piece instead of actual news.
This is the King of Hidden Fees. Both my husband and I couldn’t tolerate staying with this bank anymore. Even if you read the guidelines, you still get nailed for some hidden fee. We even got nailed for an “excessive” deposit when we moved money over for our house renovation project. You’d think they would encourage high balances since banks make money off of your accounts.
Oct
23
Buy Stock in Ziplock
Filed Under Air Travel | Leave a Comment
Here’s a lesson I learned during my recent travels:
One 0.5oz bottle of $70 plus Estee Lauder eye cream alone in a plastic bin. Success of passing through security = 0%
One 0.5oz bottle of $70 plus Estee Lauder eye cream in zipped plastic baggie alone in a plastic bin, Success of passing through security = 100%
Thank you, kind soul, who provided said zipped plastic baggie.
Oct
23
United No More
Filed Under Air Travel | Leave a Comment
My recent flight this past weekend reminded me (once again) why I will never fly United Airlines again. Compared to other airlines that I fly reguarly, so many aspects of the flying experience with this airline are frustrating. Let’s start with the simple act of seat assignments. For some reason, the brilliant software programmers at United have yet to figure out the simple yet customer warm and fuzzy gesture of balancing the need to maximize the efficient seating of customers while keeping you with your actually travel partner. One the flight out, we each got a nifty piece of paper that entitles you to a fun filled visit to the boarding gate where you get to watch two frazzled employees try to figure out how to fit 30 irate passengers into 5 remaining seats. It’s always sooooo much fun not knowing until 5 minutes before your departure if you actually get to depart. On the way back, we again checked in - the machine teased us with the “select your seats” option which cluelessly didn’t actually render us seat assignments. It was until the fifth try that we noticed the teeny tiny little astrix and accompanying text “seats will be assigned at gates.” Arrg! Not again! At the seat, I was informed that if I wanted to sit with my actual travel partner I could pay $41 per person to purchase their “Economy Plus” seats. Yippeee! How did I get so lucky? $82 poorer, we boarded the flight.
I read an interesting article this past Sunday on the cleanliness of airlines. There was a table in the article that listed the cleanliness rating of airlines. Was I surprised to see United down the list toward the lowest rankings? Uhh…no. Was I surprised that my in-flight video didn’t have any sound at all. Uhh…no.