Sunday, December 11 2005
And they’re going bankrupt?
Ah yes, Delta Airlines, they are having difficult times …
High oil prices? Well, let’s not rule out their lousy service driving customers elsewhere! Let’s say I accidently booked a ticket for the wrong day, like 12:40 AM Wednesday morning instead of the Thanksgiving morning, and while booking the shuttle van, discovered the mistake. So I know I screwed up, and know it’s probably the single busiest day of the year for the ticket counter, so I’m exceedingly patient trying to get my tickets changed. I was on the phone for 4+ hours trying to work this out!
They said the flight is completely booked, and spent much of the time trying to find alternatives. Eventually for a $200 fee they could book me for leaving a day later, Friday morning, and said I wouldn’t land in Malaysia until Sunday … well … you see … I’m not the only one who gets confused when getting to the airport the night before taking off and landing 36 hours later after a 16 hour time difference and 20 hour flight … it turns out I would land on Saturday, not Sunday. I asked if I came down there a couple hours before the plane was to take off, could they put me on standby or find me a seat, and it went from “maybe” to “extremely unlikely, don’t bother” Ok, well it’s not like I had anything better to do, so I showed up at the ticket counter Wednesday night. Flight is still full. Ok, so get me paper tickets for tomorrow at least. She picks up the phone and we’re put on hold. So I’m waiting, she’s waiting, 45 minutes go by. Let me tell you, that’s an incredibly long time to watch someone hold the phone to their ear.
Meanwhile, some pilot comes up to the counter next to me and asks if he could arrange for his friends to get their seat changed. See, it turns out the flight is so empty that his friends could get a whole row for them to stretch out and sleep on!
Now remember, I was exceedingly patient and understanding through this whole time … so all I could do is give my counter person the same look your dog gives you when you toss them out of the house in the dead of winter.
Finally she asks the person next to her how to put me on the flight and it was a dozen mouseclicks, a couple poor excuses, and charge my card $100. Wow! So I get on the airplane that night, which is really the next morning, and land Friday afternoon.
The problem was, Delta buys seats on China Airlines flights, and when those are filled up, that’s it. All it took was China Airlines to figure out how to put me on one of the 30 available seats! Yes, it really was that empty.
Plus, in all the confusion, it seems they cancelled my flight from Japan to Seattle, but I got that fixed fairly easy on the spot. So the full trip was: Leave Wednesday around midnight, 3 hours in Taiwan, arrive in Malaysia Friday around 2pm, 3 1/2 days in Malaysia, call in sick to work for Monday morning at 7pm Monday night, leave Malaysia 11pm Monday night, 7 hours in Narita, Japan, walk around, eat lunch, take pictures of temples, arrive to Seattle 7AM Tuesday morning, rent car, rush home, take shower, show up to work 8:30 AM.
So why did I bring this up today? Well I finally got my Skymiles card! I went online to make sure all my flights were entered, but I need a PIN first. By trying to create a PIN, it says, my Skymiles number doesn’t match my zip code, so I then clicked on the button that will mail me the PIN, but it says it’s an invalid Skymiles account. I call the number they give, and they tell me that I have to fax or mail them a request for the existing PIN number, which I wasn’t even allowed to create in the first place! No, a simple phone call won’t do it …
Filed under: They get paid for this?
