Passenger help

[Dark Cloud]

Could someone please help me out on a question about passenger booking? A neighbor just came to the house and was laughing about U''s booking system, and how we are loosing money. Here''s what happened friday afternoon in Phil. and maybe someone can explain why.
He was booked on a 3:30 flight from Phl to Bos. He arrived early at the airport and and asked if there were any seats that he could take on the 1:30 flight from Phl. The agent was very nice and said that there were plenty of seats open on the 1:30, but it would cost a extra $100. And he was told that the 3:30 was overbooked by about 40 people. There was 3 other men traveling with him so it would of been a extra $400. They all decided to wait till the 3:30 flight. At the 3:30 flight they were asking for volunteers. He was shocked that the airline was going to pay all these volunteers a extra ticket and whatever else when they could of just put him and his 3 co riders on the 1:30 and saved at least the volunteer payback. He was wondering why , if the airline knows the flight at 3:30 is way overbooked, why can''t the company have a system of paging 3:30 flight people that are at the airport, to see if they would like a earlier flight. You have to be at the airport early anyways. It just seems like a waste of money, the way we have that problem. Is there any logic I can tell this neighbor?

 

[KCFlyer]

[P]
[BLOCKQUOTE][BR]----------------[BR]On 10/12/2002 12:13:27 PM Dark Cloud wrote:
[P] It just seems like a waste of money, the way we have that problem. Is there any logic I can tell this neighbor? [/P]----------------[/BLOCKQUOTE]
[P]Yes, you can tell him that all they would have been given is a non transferable VOUCHER with a one year expiration date and which makes the user jump thru hoops to actually redeem the dang thing. [/P]

 

[trvlr64]

You've hit the nail on the head and the future of air travel in this country (if you fly the majors).

I'll never give up my seat now on an oversold flight to accomodate U's stupidity.

Hey Ben and Dave.........you reading your emails from us customers?? I know that the DM department has been responding to mine. Do they pass it along to you guys too?

 

[RealityCheck]

The customer is not blameless either. It is necessary to overbook due to NO SHOWS/MISCONNECTS or DUPE/SPECULATIVE BOOKINGS..or the airlines, ALL OF THEM, could make you pay within 24 hrs for every fare, business and leisure and not OB at all. Which would you prefer? I have read about/seen charts on US having some of the lowest rates on involuntary denied brdngs in the industry.
There are thousands of people traveling on vouchers and awards daily ,confirmed and standby, there is no same day standby rule or fee with these, and they are transferable ONE TIME by the person to whom they are issued, so implying they are worthless or not being able to use them for up to 2 years, that includes 1 yr travel from date of exchange and exchg must be within one year, is baloney.

 

[RealityCheck]

[blockquote]
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On 10/12/2002 12:13:27 PM Dark Cloud wrote:

Could someone please help me out on a question about passenger booking? A neighbor just came to the house and was laughing about U's booking system, and how we are loosing money. Here's what happened friday afternoon in Phil. and maybe someone can explain why.
He was booked on a 3:30 flight from Phl to Bos. He arrived early at the airport and and asked if there were any seats that he could take on the 1:30 flight from Phl. The agent was very nice and said that there were plenty of seats open on the 1:30, but it would cost a extra $100. And he was told that the 3:30 was overbooked by about 40 people. There was 3 other men traveling with him so it would of been a extra $400. They all decided to wait till the 3:30 flight. At the 3:30 flight they were asking for volunteers. He was shocked that the airline was going to pay all these volunteers a extra ticket and whatever else when they could of just put him and his 3 co riders on the 1:30 and saved at least the volunteer payback. He was wondering why , if the airline knows the flight at 3:30 is way overbooked, why can't the company have a system of paging 3:30 flight people that are at the airport, to see if they would like a earlier flight. You have to be at the airport early anyways. It just seems like a waste of money, the way we have that problem. Is there any logic I can tell this neighbor?
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[/blockquote]
With hourly service PHL to BOS it would not be difficult or out of the question to get any vol or invol denied pax onto the next flight or 2. Other than the free vchr there are no other out of pocket amenities, no meals, maybe a 5 dollar phone card at most. It is entirely possible at 1230 ,speculating on the 330 flt they were counting on no shows, I assume there were not truly 40 overbookings by the time 330 came along. From a business standpoint U can potentially make more money on change fee/ stdby fee on what I gathered was a non ref cheaper than business fare ticket in that market.The logic is 3 fold...1-there will be a few people who never use the bumped vchrs or they might be used on low-show offpk flights thus minmizing the dilution of the profit margin of those free flight by being on those planes later, or 2-that the flight will be able to accomodate almost if not everyone by 330.And 3-immediate cash revenue from fees coming into the picture, for the present, is never a downside.

 

[KCFlyer]

[P]Reality Check - I had a voucher on Delta. My wife is travelling - can she use the voucher? No. SHe has a stinking little $10 voucher on a fare decrease on another flight. Can she use this voucher? Only if she goes to the airport to make her reservation. The airports 50 miles one way, and a gas at $1.50 a gallon, it just isn't worth trying to use the valueable voucher. [/P]
[P]But you're missing the original point...One flight is about to pull away from the gate half empty. Passengers on a later flight ask if seats are available. Res should pretty much know that the flight they are on is overbooked, and you're going to put SOMEBODY on an even later flight out...why not put them on the earlier flight and save U the potential cost of issueing a voucher? No, gotta charge those lyin', cheatin', theivin' customers a hundred bucks for that. You guys are treating your customers as your enemy (the tone of a lot of your posts seems to confirm that). We're not...you need us worse than we need you (the airline), yet lately every airline appears to be going out of their way to penalize the customer. ...Bend over sir and enjoy our service.[/P]

 

[RealityCheck]

[blockquote]
----------------
On 10/12/2002 4:07:50 PM KCFlyer wrote:


Reality Check - I had a voucher on Delta. My wife is travelling - can she use the voucher? No. SHe has a stinking little $10 voucher on a fare decrease on another flight. Can she use this voucher? Only if she goes to the airport to make her reservation. The airports 50 miles one way, and a gas at $1.50 a gallon, it just isn't worth trying to use the valueable voucher. [/P]


But you're missing the original point...One flight is about to pull away from the gate half empty. Passengers on a later flight ask if seats are available. Res should pretty much know that the flight they are on is overbooked, and you're going to put SOMEBODY on an even later flight out...why not put them on the earlier flight and save U the potential cost of issueing a voucher? No, gotta charge those lyin', cheatin', theivin' customers a hundred bucks for that. You guys are treating your customers as your enemy (the tone of a lot of your posts seems to confirm that). We're not...you need us worse than we need you (the airline), yet lately every airline appears to be going out of their way to penalize the customer. ...Bend over sir and enjoy our service.[/P]
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[/blockquote]

In theory it might be better your way, but in practice and bottom line cost wise, there has to be ideally one consistent way of boarding passengers and allowing changes to tickets to keep from overburdening the gate.We live in a service charge oriented world, and airlines should not be exempt from imposing them, reasonably and equitably. Especially since due to competition and the ever so criticized deregulation of 25 years ago, discount fares are forced to be at levels my grandfather used to pay, even though salaries and costs in general have tripled or quadrupled since then. Accordingly it is only fair that service fees should not be at levels Grandpa would have paid. To allow this stdby, free change of flight practice on one set of flights and not another, or for some people and not others, for some fares and not others, and in summary, SOME CIRCUMSTANCES AND NOT OTHERS, is what causes all the trouble/aggravation and Cons Affairs letters in the first place with all the I GOT IT OK'd LAST TIME, or MY FRIEND GOT TO DO IT LAST WEEK. There is no auctioneering bidding desk or department that can monitor and negotiate this with a couple of thousand flights a day and 100k pax a day. And boarding standbys takes up valuable gate time when you are fined X DOLLARS for leaving the gate late not to mention annoying the actual fare paying pax for that specific flight anxious to leave and agts are busy fiddling with low revenue/non revenue standbys and risking delaying the departure on reduced manpower(the number of salaried agents is not growing on trees lately)..There has to be one policy that is firm and adhered to, regardless of how it doesn't appear to work well within certain situations, otherwise you have chaos. Adhering to the firmer rules on restricted tkts will help eliminate or reduce the chaos and the inequitable application and enforcement of the fare rules that has existed to date.This also applies to travel vchr txfrbility. It wouldnt be fair to allow a person living 50 miles away to transfer and someone 10 miles away not to. You have to draw the line somewhere. To just plain allow txfrbility at all would negate the revenue aspects discussed under the topic DRIVING AWAY CUSTOMERS by TB. Wouldn't be fair to allow spouse because then someone will demand for a sibling, and then another demand txfr to their child, and then life partner,and it would never stop. It has never stopped, in real life past situations just like this.Until it is firmly adhered to by all levels of the company.

Agencies that don't charge a fee for ticketing will accept these vchrs as well if airport is too far a drive.. Arranging the other persons travel plans in synch with a business trip you might have the next day would allow you to redeem the vchr in person on your wifes behalf for her future ticket.If you are a frequent traveler and you fly only once a week or maybe only 2 or 3 times a month(that scenario is on the low side of real freq flyers that appear to fly twice a week from what I read), this is not an unreasonable nor an unattainable task.And vouchers have one year to exchg and one year to travel from exchg. date for validity for a total of almost 2 years..

 

[RealityCheck]

Im sorry You sorta lost your case on the transfrblity issue. Why shd the company allow someone else 3 PLACES REMOVED to reap the benefits of your inconvenience?That is total lunacy. I guess I shd tell my cable company because they were out of commish for three days last week that I want my best friend Ethel on the other side of town to get the free month of cable they offered me instead of me using it..they'd never hear of it.And I don't blame them. After months of comparing Southwest practices to other airlines and vice versa,it is not feasible to expect every airline to adopt every other airlines policies. WHY? Because we simply don't have to. Neither does AA DL UA NW CO.
Your Grand Cayman example is unique and not representative of the general standby issue that was discussed above. I won't go into anymore detail or explanation other than what I did already.

THE SW transfblty of rapid rewards is no diff than US, Here is their policy..
Rapid Rewards Award Tickets are transferable; however, the Award Tickets have no cash value and are void if sold, purchased, brokered, or bartered. Any violation of Rapid Rewards rules and regulations, including those related to Award Ticket use, will result in cancellation of your account and awards..
You did not indicate whether you had issued the actual ticket in your name yet. I will assume NO. Therefore you are not breaking any rules passing the unnamed vchr onto someone else if you don't sell or barter it...and it pretty much follows the same logic as a U member designating their award for someone else one time before ticketing in that other persons name. Policy is quite similar, manner of redemption is quite different, and nowhere does it indicate you can change names 2 or 3 times down the road, thus you made it look unfairly negative against U.
In addition SW issues a paper voucher which I would assume has to be sent to the freq flyers address who then has to get it into the hands of the actual flyer(who might be 3000 miles away), who then has to make sure he/she doesnt lose it because it is not replaceable *EVER*. What happens in emergencies and you have enough miles but you don't happen to have a certificate readily available for SW? Do they do an automated mileage/certificate deduction by phone? I don't think so. Do they make exceptions for the voucher mailing address with or without emergencies?? I doubt it.US and I assume most of the majors do not have those paper issues problems, it's all electronic. For a fee, of course, for last minute exceptions under 14 days. For someone who publicly or privately despises the paper trail mix and prefers everything electronic, SW RR program certainly is not always the way to go, now is it?
In my opinion reading their website and rules, the SW RR program has other shortcomings as well. It ain't perfect so please stop pushing Southwest's claim to the British throne.. EXAMPLES>>>No credit after flight no matter what if you forgot to show the ID. U allows 6 months retro.
NO SW credit for miles until you receive your ID card. U starts immediately upon enrollment without ID card.
Credits expire on Sw after 12 months, they seem to have a use it or lose it with these things. U has no such policy except for the 3 yr mileage expiration policy which is hard to fall victim to as long as you have some acct. activity within 3 years.
SW doesnt allow circle trips or stopovers. U does with a few exceptions.

It would be appreciated for mature discussion purposes that you and the many others guilty of the same would stick to apples to apples logic in discussions,.. straying off topic into irrelevant territory or leaving out pertinent details is neither successful nor flattering.

 

[KCFlyer]

[P]And boarding standbys takes up valuable gate time when you are fined X DOLLARS for leaving the gate late not to mention annoying the actual fare paying pax for that specific flight anxious to leave and agts are busy fiddling with low revenue/non revenue standbys and risking delaying the departure[/P]
[P]Reality Check. There was only one time I was on a flight that was delayed because of unusual circumstances. It wasn't for fare paying standby passengers...it was for non revenue passengers. Unfortunatly, the flight was on U, originating in Grand Cayman. The flight was GCM-CLT-MCI...my flight home. Of course, we had to clear customs in CLT, and our delay in GCM left about 20 minutes until the scheduled departure time to MCI. I politely informed the FA that we were returning to that aircraft just as soon as we cleared customs, and I would really appreciate that if they could inconvenience the CLT-MCI passengers until I got thru customs, since I was kind enough to allow a lot of vacationing airline employees to delay my departure from GCM. Bottom line, it ain't always us revenue passengers who cause the problems[/P]
[P]It wouldnt be fair to allow a person living 50 miles away to transfer and someone 10 miles away not to. You have to draw the line somewhere. To just plain allow txfrbility at all would negate the revenue aspects discussed up above. Wouldnt be fair to allow spouse and then someopne will demand for a sibling, and than another demand txfr to their child, and then life partner,and it would never stop. It has never stopped, in real life past situations just like this.Until it is firmly adhered to by all levels of the company[/P]
[P]And what exactly is the problem here? I was inconvenienced, was I not? Shouln't I have the right to transfer a voucher to anyone I see fit? After all, it is compensation for my inconvenience caused because the airline overbooked a flight. Why should I be further inconvenienced by not being permitted to giving a voucher to someone who could use it? And who gives a rats patootie if I give a voucher to my wife, who gives it to her friend, who gives it to their hairdresser, who gives it to their dad? Bottom line, SOMEONE is getting some use out of something that was issued by the airline for a mistake the airline made. I fail to see the problems. I suppose it's because of the way Southwest does a few things. Case in point...I was thinking of going to the Southwest shareholders meeting, a friend who got a Rapid Rewards ticket sent it to me to use. As it turned out, I couldn't make the trip, so I gave it to someone else who was able to use it. It didn't seem to cause them (Southwest) any hardship to handle the transaction, and I see very little difference in a flight voucher and a Rapid Rewards ticket. [/P]

 

[KCFlyer]

[BR][BR]
[BLOCKQUOTE]
[P]You're right Reality check. I and most other customers are just out to screw your company. If we show up for a flight that your airline has overbooked and are told that the flight is oversold, the airline doesn't even give me the option of giving me my money back and buying a ticket on your competitor. They accomodate me on another flight, and to show their concern, they issue me a voucher, that is laden with restrictions. Mind you, it wasn't me who called reservations and had the agent tell me Sir, that flight is overbooked, only to have me tell him Go ahead and book me anyways and we'll hope somebody doesn't show up. They just book the flight. At that point, they have knowingly inconvenienced someone. If they are going to do that, they need to be a helluva lot more flexible in compensating passengers for their inconvenience. [/P]
[P]As far as FF awards - are you telling me that my brother can give me his miles (not have a ticket issued in my name, but GIVE me his miles) and I can give those miles to someone else? A RR ticket on SW is just like unredeemed miles on any other airline. And the RR ticket is fully transferable.[/P][/BLOCKQUOTE]

 

[RealityCheck]

After the last reply, I am relieved to announce my part of this discussion is now over, brick walls and/or dumb blonde joke analogies not withstanding.

 

[resconcerns]

RTFC- Round Trip Flight Credit's cost the company zero dollars...nothing...nada....
And we could have used the 400.00 for standby..
Unfortunately its the consumers choice. Pay up or stick with your ticket. The consumers, myself included have seen any freebies go by the wayside. Get use to it, its gonna get worse.

 

[1ab]

Actually there is a clause to the stand-by rule that states for operational purposes a passenger can stand by for an earlier flight.
Operational purpose is for example if the flight he is schedule on is overbooked.
Of course other reasons are if the flight the passenger is schedule on is late or cancelled of course for these reason the pasengers is usually confirmed on the flight.

 

[TomBascom]

[blockquote]
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On 10/12/2002 2:18:51 PM RealityCheck wrote:

The customer is not blameless either. It is necessary to overbook...
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[/blockquote]

RC -- where do you get these ideas? Is this something that management dishes out in an indoctrination video or something? It isn't necessary to overbook. Nor are those reasons the real ones for doing it. They are, at best, a minor contributor to the economics.

It's simply profitable. It's a basic capacity management strategy. You find things like this used everywhere. It allows you to fly planes with much higher load factors than you would otherwise achieve. But in order for it to work well the system needs to have some elasticity. Restricting stand-by works against that elasticity and is counter-productive in the long run.

 

[RealityCheck]

[blockquote]
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On 10/12/2002 7:58:04 PM resconcerns wrote:

Get use to it, its gonna get worse.
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[/blockquote]

Sounds better if you say IT'S NOT GONNA GET ANY BETTER!