Useless Airlines

Hi,
todays' story has to do with the insulting stupidity of US Airlines, better known as "Useless Airlines" in our house. For this I have to back up a couple of months.

Back in September we booked a transatlantic cruise, from Puerto Rico to Malaga, Spain. Yipee! To get me home from Spain we used Marshall's multitude of air mile points to get me a ticket on US Air with connections from Malaga to Barcelona, then leaving the next day from Barcelona to Philadelphia. Unfortunately the airline, Spanair, which was the company flying me the first leg of the trip, went bankrupt and Marshall happened to notice the announcement three weeks ago in the news. We waited to hear from US Air about how they were going to handle this issue but I got antsy and insisted on calling them to see what other arrangements were being offered. Yesterday we got on the phone with US Air and after speaking to eight different people, yes "8" (Tom, T.J., Tina, Maria, Mary, Genene, Karen & Bill), we were no further ahead of the game with no new game plan either as to how I was to get home from Spain.

There didn't seem to be any way to get me out of Spain unless I wanted to make at least two separate stop-overs and incur 2 nights of addition hotel costs, at our expense of course. We even offered to meet US Air part way by getting me to Madrid (by train) then having them fly me home on on their direct flight from Madrid to Philly.... but to accept this compromise we wanted them to refund ½ the air mile points they charged us (which was 60,000 points since you can't book a one-way fair with points on US Air) or, I was willing to get bumped up to business class in exchange for spending the 60K in points. No dice. They wouldn't budge and I spoke to everyone in 'customer service' last night before I finally gave up in disgust.

Meanwhile, Marshall got on line and looked to see who else offered a flight from Madrid to Philly....BINGO, United Airlines could get me home... for only 30,000 points and for exactly half the cost in taxes and fees. Here's the kicker... the United flight is actually the same US Air Flight I was trying to get on to start with. Since they are all part of the Star Alliance Group, it's a wash who you book with to get on the flight.... Today I spent a half an hour booking myself onto the 'United' (US Air) flight and then another hour, and three more useless customer service people (Shawanda, Bobby & Diana) with US Air, canceling my original booking and getting the taxes, fees and air mile points refunded in full. All in all I spent 4 hours of my life and spoke to eleven different people at US (useless) Air before I finally got my trip straightened out.

My next move to to write Mr. Ken Fischer, the Director of Customer Relations at US (Useless) Airlines and let him know how badly his department is run. He should be ashamed of the crap I had to go through, only to end up with travel plans exactly the way I wanted, at half the original cost.... and I am now able to rag on about what a useless airline US Air is.

I hope my blog goes viral

xox
m